You Can’t Make Friends With The Rockstars

Source: Where’s Your Ed At Date: 2024-10-14 URL: https://www.wheresyoured.at/rockstars/

Summary

Ed Zitron’s piece indicts tech journalism’s capture by access — arguing that Zuckerberg, Musk, and Altman receive hagiographic coverage because outlets prize proximity over scrutiny. Specific examples: Meta’s documented ad platform failures and algorithmic harms buried under profile pieces about Zuckerberg’s wardrobe; Tesla’s multi-year false promises on FSD treated as forward guidance rather than a track record of misrepresentation; OpenAI’s unsustainable unit economics under-examined. The Lester Bangs framing — “these people are not your friends” — is a call for journalists to apply the same adversarial skepticism they’d apply to a disgraced politician.

Implications

• Directly relevant to the signal quality thread: the ecosystem signals Ellis reads are produced by journalists and analysts operating in this captured environment. Corporate announcements, roadmap claims, and benchmark numbers require independent verification.
• OpenAI’s financial sustainability question is named explicitly; feeds the thread on foundation model vendor risk and concentration.
• The access-journalism critique applies to AI lab coverage specifically — capability claims, safety assurances, and timeline promises warrant the same scrutiny Zitron demands for Tesla FSD.