I saw a fascinating tweet by BloomTech CEO Austen Allred the other day that stirred up a lot of thoughts here.

“Of the Silicon Valley founders I know who went on some of the psychedelic self-discovery trips, almost 100% quit their jobs as CEO within a year,” Allred said, adding, “Could be random anecdotes, but be careful with that stuff.”

Allred tweeted this in response to writer Ashlee Vance sharing that he’d been told by a venture capitalist, “We’ve lost several really good founders to ayahuasca. They came back and just didn’t care about much anymore.”

There’s some very useful information in those words. They reveal a lot about the insane mess our species finds itself in in today’s world, and provide insight into how we might find our way out.

  • degen
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    19 hours ago

    Sure it’s clickbait, but it’s not inherently wrong. Some mental illness, not all. At the very least we should consider such greed and ruthlessness as unwell. If anything it’s sympathetic and humanizing to a very unaccountable section of society.

    • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.org
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      18 hours ago

      Yes, sure, I can see that.

      Hmm, I’m not sure how a system founded on those things can accept those things as unwell.

      I do agree to some degree, just not sure how to make it be seen by others or by the system itself, it would require destroying it in one way or another and getting these people help which can be difficult to do whilst the system still exists because most of them won’t even ever admit it and nor will the system.

      • degen
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        17 hours ago

        It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation, I suppose, both encouraging and empowered by antisocial behavior. It’s hard enough to convince someone there’s a problem to begin with given the culture.

        I do wonder how any transition could be made under an inherently opposed system, but that’s also a key point of Marx with respect to revolution.