# Taste is Eating Silicon Valley.

Source: https://www.workingtheorys.com/p/taste-is-eating-silicon-valley
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Taste-is-Eating-Silicon-Valley?index=0x66ed2b0f5acbaf0927ae52a8c65c2f81d292dd781b2f1290579f584a651ec4593117b185
Submitted by naomiii.eth on 2024-09-20 UTC, 2 upvotes, 2 comments

## Summary

Taste now matters more than technical skill in Silicon Valley, according to the essay's central argument, because software has become commoditized and AI has accelerated that shift. The essay says the barriers to entry are low and competition is fierce, so products are increasingly differentiated by design, brand, user experience and storytelling. It cites Arc and Linear as examples of companies whose design and brand are core selling points alongside functionality. It also argues that AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are likely to converge on similar functionality, so they will compete on how they look and make users feel.

## Article

In 2011, Marc Andreessen famously declared that software was eating the world. For a time, that was the undeniable reality. Software was the engine of transformation, revolutionizing everything from tech to finance and retail to healthcare.

Back then, technical prowess meant market dominance. Y Combinator, the spiritual center of Silicon Valley,1 crowned technical founders as the chosen ones. Those who could manifest and master software were seen as gods. Venture capitalists funded those who could scale that code to massive heights. After all, software alone could transform giant legacy industries rapidly and efficiently.

It’s a different story today. Software has been commoditized — the result of technological advancement, decreasing cost and complexity, and democratization of coding as a skill. And AI’s push into the mainstream has supercharged this shift. The lines between technology and culture are blurring.

And so, it’s no longer enough to build great tech.

Everyone’s software is good enough. Software used to be the weapon, now it’s just a tool. The barriers to entry are low, competition is fierce, and so much of the focus has shifted — from tech to distribution, and now, to something else too: taste.2

Whether it’s expressed via product design, brand, or user experience, taste now defines how a product is perceived and felt as well as how it is adopted, i.e. distributed — and this is true whether it’s software or hardware or both.

Technology has become deeply intertwined with culture.3 People engage with technology as an integral part their lives, irrespective of location, career, or status.

In this new era, functional products are just supporting players in larger cultural movements. And so, in one way or another, founders are realizing they have to do more than code, more than be the most-impressive thing of the last era: technical. Don’t get me wrong: Utility is always critical, but founders also need to calibrate design, brand, experience, community, storytelling — and cultural relevance.

The biggest heroes of the industry, really of all industries, reflect this. The likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are admired not only for technical innovations but also for the way they turned their products and themselves into cultural icons.

The competition isn’t just within the tech world anymore either. Founders are now up against celebrities and influencers that have a massive edge in distribution, community, and cultural resonance, even if they’re not as readily tech-savvy.

You could look at companies like Apple and Tesla and AirBnb and say taste matters because they’re classically consumer-facing businesses. But that’s not the whole story — consumer-driven traits like taste have infiltrated every corner of the tech world. B2C sectors that once prioritized functionality and even B2B software now feel the pull of user experience, design, aesthetics, and storytelling.

A few insider examples: Arc is taking on legacy web browsers with design and brand as core selling points. Tools like Linear, a project management tool for software teams, are just as known for their principled approach to company building and their heavily-copied landing page design as they are known for their product’s functionality.4 Companies like Arc and Linear build an entire aesthetic ecosystem that expresses a set of values, invites users and advocates to be part of their world, and generates massive digital and literal word-of-mouth.5

In the general-purpose AI chatbot sector, OpenAI’s ChatGPT came out strong as the market leader. Since then, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, Meta’s Llama, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Poe, and others have joined the race from different angles. Yes, they’re competing on technical merits, but with how quickly AI is improving, it seems very likely that they’ll converge on similar functionality. And if one company pushes ahead, the others will catch up so fast it won’t matter.

So how do they compete? On how they look, feel, and how they make users feel.6 The subtleties of interaction (how intuitive, friendly, or seamless the interface feels) and the brand aesthetic (from playful websites to marketing messages) are now differentiators, where users favor tools aligned with their personal values. All of this should be intertwined in a product, and eventually companies will have to prioritize some use cases over others, but it’s still a noteworthy distinction.7

Investors can no longer just fund the best engineering teams and wait. Even if they don’t realize it or say it explicitly, investors now looking for teams that can capture cultural relevance and reflect the values, aesthetics, and tastes of their increasingly diverse markets. And how do investors position themselves in this new landscape? They bet on taste-driven founders who can capture the cultural zeitgeist. They build their own personal and firm brands too. They redesign their websites, write manifestos, launch podcasts, and join forces with cultural juggernauts. (And yes, people will still question whether VCs even “get” taste.)

But what exactly is taste? The dictionary says it’s the ability to discern what is of good quality or of a high aesthetic standard. Taste bridges personal choice (identity), societal standards (culture), and the pursuit of validation (attention). The way I’ve come to define it in as few words as possible: Taste is discernment expressed.

Taste manifests as a combination of history, design, user experience, and embedded values that creates emotional resonance. Taste connects with people as individuals and aligns with their identity. None of the tactical things alone are taste; they’re mere artifacts or effects of expressing one’s taste. (Note: taste if too often used interchangeably with “aesthetics” — the latter is more objective and trainable).

But who sets that standard? Taste is subjective at an individual level — everyone has their own personal interpretation of taste — but there’s a kind of generally-accepted notion of what is tasteful is within a given culture and community and point in time. There are self-anointed and industry-standard ‘tastemakers’ who are given the status of superior judgment, and some are undoubtedly influential.

At a minimum, taste isn’t bland — it’s opinionated. As Arnold Bennett famously said, ‘Good taste is better than bad taste, but bad taste is better than no taste.’8

Products are no longer just functional tools; they are emotional touchpoints. They are markers of identity, vehicles of self-expression, and social signal. Products with technology at their core are closer than ever to art. If true, this also means that other players become critical to the ecosystem: artists, designers, creators, creative directors, media companies. And more questions inevitably arise:

Who are the kingmakers and gatekeepers of taste? What culture war will the greater focus on taste ignite? Does the city or culture a company is created in matter a lot more?9 Nobody owns “taste,” but enough people will certainly try.10

My provocation: In this new era of Silicon Valley, taste matters more than technical.

The most compelling startups will be those that marry great tech with great taste. Even the pursuit of unlocking technological breakthroughs must be done with taste and cultural resonance in mind, not just for the sake of the technology itself.

As attention to taste infiltrates the ecosystem, the role of founders and VCs evolves too. Founders must master cultural resonance alongside technical innovation. Investors must bet on which founders can do this at scale. Some people won’t like this, some will rebel, some will try to wait it out — but it’s a sign of the times.11

The challenge: Utility still demands respect. Theory still needs execution. More people think they have great taste than is reality (how to develop it, hone it, channel it is a topic for another essay). And maybe taste recognizes taste, but can metrics recognize it too? It’s more of a science than just “vibes” — right?

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## Comments

**tim**: I disagree! Sure, taste and branding is important, but this article feels very much like the "new paradigm!!" phase in the Gartner hype cycle chart.

We were working in the trenches over the summer. There was very little activity and the crypto market was down bad. To a degree it still is.

Anyways, I then asked myself what is the fundamental value of some of the things we're doing. And it dawned on me that some value is more permanent and long-term that other.

Take for example Gitcoin, a company with great taste in ideas and excellent capacity to curate. In the "Taste is eating SV" model, where are they? The market has now clearly weighted them as a really bad investment. That is because they haven't managed to create fundamental business value. They're not returning the investment. But they are taste makers, that's for sure!

On the other hand, there are now crypto projects which make amazing returns but have created very little brand equity. 

Do you think it matters to investors how the website of Aave looks like? Or is it that they haven't been hacked for so many years? And that their functionality is pretty matching to user stories?

**naomiii.eth**: What bothers me more is that taste is also something that very much has been pushed by SV in a certain direction, and that doesn't really find any mention in that post either. 

I mean sure, having a nice looking brand is cool. But when it comes to building shit to last, I don't think that's all there is to it. It might help to get people interested, but at the end having returning users who come for the actual product and not the virtue-signalling is preferrable.