Theoretically, their ribs can withstand a degree or two of elbow pain. His sharp satire ended in 2019, when his HBO show “Silicon Valley” gleefully featured rich people in the industry. Now comes “The Disruptors,” a new independent film from writer-director Adam Frucci that takes a sharp critique of Silicon Valley's establishment. And the world they welcomed.
The film stars Will, a rideshare driver played by actor and comedian Grant O'Brien, and Glen, an agoraphobic trans hacker played by actor and comedian Ally Beardsley. The two best friends conspire to defraud Bruce Marcus, one of Silicon Valley's most famous venture capitalist billionaires, played by actor and comedian Marc Evan Jackson, out of millions of dollars.
They devised a plan to imitate revolutionary technology that allows humans to control devices around them, such as cell phones and televisions, using just their minds. (This isn't far off from the promise of Elon Musk's Neuralink technology, which Musk claims could one day allow users to control their phones with their thoughts.) ) Confusion ensues.
The film not only parodies the founder-worship culture that belittles Silicon Valley's tech entrepreneurs, but also criticizes the funding models that have supported the rise of technology. Jackson's character avoids due diligence on investments and relies on “warm introductions” from friends of friends when deciding who to donate money to next. In real life, such shortcuts have resulted in VCs pouring millions of dollars into failed startups like Theranos and WeWork.
The venture capital industry has played a huge role in Frucci's life. He started blogging about his technology on his Gawker tech site, Gizmodo, in 2006 and gained a front row seat to the Silicon Valley hype cycle. He witnessed the birth of social media, the gig economy, the iPhone, and more. But seeing what venture capitalists were doing to the media left him disillusioned with the promises of Big Tech, which inspired him to write The Disruptors in the early days of the pandemic.
“The Disruptors” is now available on video on demand. Frucci spoke to The Washington Post about making movies, the current state of Silicon Valley, and what the tech industry is doing to our lives.
How did this film come about and what gave you the idea?
I moved to LA seven years ago to take a job running development for CollegeHumor's streaming service, Dropout. I worked with Grant and Allie, the stars of the movie, on a show called “Total Forgiveness.” It was an unscripted reality show about the student debt crisis. We were working on the second season in January 2020, when CollegeHumor's parent company, IAC, laid off 95 percent of its staff, including us. And then you know what happened six weeks later. Writing the film was my pandemic project.
Every company I've worked for has been destroyed by tech capitalists and venture capitalists. I was at Gawker from 2006 to 2010 and he was the editor of Gizmodo, so his first company was literally killed by venture capitalists. [Frucci is referring to a lawsuit backed by investor Peter Thiel that ultimately bankrupted the site.] Then I started my own site called Splitsider under Awl and found out what it's like to try to run a functioning media business without spending hundreds of millions of VC dollars trying to scale it. It's done. That wasn't possible. I have had the experience of seeing traffic increase month on month, revenue decreasing, and incredible amounts of money being poured into it. [other] Website that no longer exists.
When I went to College Humor, we were dealing with the vagaries of YouTube and the vagaries of Facebook, and that general technological arrogance was something that I felt had been stewing for a long time. was.
What made you decide to pursue a career in venture capital?
Venture capitalists are some of the most influential people on the planet. Their choices, ideas, and investments have a greater impact on people's daily lives than any politician. They control our society and are reshaping it in their image.
I feel like it's just not being talked about. They're sensitive narcissists in Northern California, and they're like, “Not only do I not want to be criticized, but I also want to be praised for being a visionary and a genius.”
It's really frustrating. Actually looking at their track record, I don't consider them visionary. I see them as each other's followers and his one big circle within the WhatsApp group. I can see it happening. They all invested in blockchain technology, and the next year they all invested in the Metaverse. Everything will now be AI. If you are a visionary, why are you all doing the same thing at the same time, all the time?
Why did you decide to make this film a comedy?
The goal was to approach the subject in an interesting way without being pedantic or lecture-like. I don't want to be so condescending that these VCs try to show the impact of the world they've built on real people, people without power, and try to find humanity, joy, fun, and humanity. I hoped not. comedy in it.
Your film mentions Elon Musk, and Marc Evan Jackson's character is very similar to Musk. What was the inspiration for his character and how much did you draw from real Silicon Valley venture capitalists?
It was a combination of famous VC guys. People like Paul Graham, Marc Andreessen, Keith Lavoie. They do it in this bubble where they're surrounded by people who are very arrogant and are called geniuses. All of their replies on Twitter think they are the masters of the universe and deserve it. They seem to think that because they have money, it proves they are geniuses, special, and better than everyone else. I think those are character traits that are really ripe for a crusty villain. When writing the character of Mark, I drew inspiration from real men who rant on Twitter every day.I went to their feed Then I tried to dive a little deeper.
What was the process like making an independent film at a time when Hollywood has also been largely disrupted by Big Tech?
The timing was interesting. Things have changed quite a bit from when I first started writing and creating until now. This is not the best time to make independent films, especially those without big, well-known movie stars.
I love movies, and I know there are a lot of people who do the same. So I hope we can go back to some kind of happy medium where all the major streaming services are discontinued and independent movies, not just comic book movies or horror movies, have a little bit of money to find an audience. hoping.
[Hollywood] Now it's similar to the VC mentality of scale at all costs. If everything has to be the biggest thing, then it's not worth doing. Actually, I like small and medium-sized companies that are financially independent and don't try to go public. And I like small movies that are aimed at specific people rather than everyone on the planet. I hope the business model to support it comes back, but I don't know.
There is great concern among those in the entertainment industry about the rise of AI. As a filmmaker, how do you think about the challenges and opportunities these new technologies present?
I saw something really moving [Sora] Videos have come out, but I'm pretty skeptical of AI. The problem is that you can't tweak them. If you give a prompt, it just spits something out, not something a control-freak director can exactly execute his vision on. To have that control, you still need actors and sets, and you still have to film real people.
I can see how AI can be useful for things like special effects, but I can't imagine someone making a prompt-by-prompt movie with AI. People will try, but the end result will be a weird mess with no intention.
Imagine if Steven Spielberg put in “The guy who says, 'I'm a shark during the day, I'm being thrown in the mouth, I need a bigger boat.' Will it work? No, he's going to frame that shot exactly the way he wants it, he's going to direct that actor exactly the way he wants to direct it. He's going to get the special effects exactly the way he wants them. And I think most directors are the same way.
What is the takeaway you want people to take away from watching this film?
I hope this work will make you think about the powerless people, the ordinary, ordinary people who are at the mercy of the high-level decisions of people with billions of dollars. The people in Silicon Valley who run these companies and run the systems of the world. These people have a huge impact on people's daily lives, and I don't think that's given much consideration.
You can yell at your legislators, but they aren't actually doing anything.These guys [in Silicon Valley] It's affecting your life. These are people who are rich and hide behind their Twitter accounts and don't have to respond to anyone. And I think they should be scrutinized a little more.
