The six things you can't say in Silicon Valley

NICK DOUGLAS — God, these people are uptight! The recent tiffs over some startupper dissing the women of Microsoft and another startupper's wandering wifi sniffer reminded me one of the reasons this culture bores me to tears: You can't say anything interesting without offending a crowd of prigs that make anyone of substance feel like Evita staring down the Argentinian aristocracy. Well, since I've nothing to lose, I'm going to say the six things you can't say at the parties, conferences and meetups of Silicon Valley.

1. Where are all the hot girls? California is teeming with beautiful women. For the most part, they're not in tech. Yes, cute Valley women exist, but they're constantly glommed on by desperate and ugly men. No wonder all the gorgeous women in the industry flee the party scene and find their own non-tech crowds. Of course, I'm framing it this way because I'm male, straight, and a dick. My fellow Valleywag writer Megan tells me that the boys of Silicon Valley are on the low end of the looks scale too. It's not the end of the world; it just means we can stop pretending that the tech world is a dating scene. You want that, go join a jogging club.

2. No, I don't want your card. I'm going to throw it out. If I'd wanted your card, I would have asked you; though I probably would have just asked for your e-mail, so I could ping you. Isn't that why we all carry these full-screen QWERTY brick-phones? By the way, why is your card glossy, colored and cleverly shaped? How, you moron, am I supposed to write on this?

3. You're boring. Dear person I'm stuck with at a party: Your most scintillating talk is about gadgets. You have an hour-long podcast. Your way of talking about national politics is offering arrogant political advice to presidential candidates. (Good thing you'll never meet them.) Or you're just well-meaning but dull as rocks. I know you think I care what you have to say. It's okay, I understand; I am witty and engaging, as you have noticed by reading my blog. I'm too kind to tell you that you're going to make me slump over from physical weariness, my cocktail staining your equally boring tie. No, I've been trained to slap an asinine grin on my face and waggle my eyebrows at your bad jokes, even if I'd rather join the bukkake cluster gathering around this party's one almost-hot girl.

4. And so is your business. You may be pretty cool, but shut up about your hard drive solution, or your newly released API, or your partnership with NotIfItWereTheLastFuckingSearchEngineOnEarth.com. Can we just chat about books or movies or your dog or the BART trains? Just anything that reminds me you have a life outside of this job I'd never want and don't envy, despite it earning you an obscene amount and paying your way to this conference?

5. Oh boy, a young person started a business. Who cares? It's impressive that Kris Tate started an international photo sharing site (Zooomr) when he was still breastfeeding. Less impressive is the host of kids with local hosting businesses, design firms (clients: five local pro bono pieces and a friend's blog), and "content sites" (read: web pages). It's cool and all that they started businesses, but they still have a 90% chance of failing just like everyone else. The real test is whether they already have an idea for business #2. For young entrepreneurs worth watching, try Jared Kim, who's building his second gaming-related company while on leave from college. I wouldn't be surprised to see the founders of Reddit, at least one of whom has already left Reddit's new parent company Conde Nast, start something else as well.

6. I'm jealous of your money. Oh, it happens to so many of us. Not just the journalists and bloggers scrabbling for $60k, but even the engineers with $125k paychecks will eventually find their friend's just made $3 mil off a sale of a startup they didn't even start. Of course, those millionaires will still be jealous of their colleagues who made it out with "fuck you" money (after all, retiring for life takes at least $9 million), who will in turn start hanging out with moguls whose fortunes dwarf their own. But yes, at the regular level, we all get jealous of someone else's cash. Just remember that the richest man in the world is a nerd who cried in front of the Supreme Court, and the company that made him rich can't put out a decent operating system even after five years of work.

Photo: Willo. Nick Douglas writes for Valleywag, Blogebrity, and Look Shiny. He didn't mean all those horrible things he said, baby.

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