In Silicon Valley, Gossip, Anger and Revenge

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Silicon Valley likes to keep the media on a tight leash. Tech executives expect obedience, if not reverence, from reporters. They dole out information as grudgingly as possible. Sometimes they simply buy a chunk of a publication, a time-honored method of influencing what is deemed fit to write about. Valleywag declined to play the game. It was a gossip sheet for the digital age: abrasive, knowing, cynical, self-promoting, sometimes unfair. It dispensed snark by the truckload, printing things that people knew or surmised but were off the table. “Silicon Valley is a closed world and has become more closed at the elite levels,” said Fred Turner, chairman of the department of communication at Stanford. “The gossip that circulates between people doesn’t always leap into the media the way it might in New York. So Americans know the Valley primarily through its advertising, its self-promotion and its products.” Valleywag challenged that, and the Valley pushed back.


In Silicon Valley, Gossip, Anger and Revenge