Networked flexible labor suppresses gossip because everyone dreams of founding a company

Evidence

Grant told me that it was difficult to get people to submit gossip to Valleywag because tech workers didn’t want to be disloyal. The Valley is so dependent on networking and flexible labor, and on building and maintaining the relationships that support these practices, that burning bridges is unthinkable. Grant said: “It’s harder to get that kind of … editorial assistance, sniping, backroom gossip that Gawker gets, because in the Valley, even the lowliest worker thinks that someday they might be a founder … But as much as we value outspokenness and transparency, there’s a lot more self-censorship and a lot more self-restraint going on here.” — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 364

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to social capital and reputation literature (Milgrom, Coleman): the startup dream functions as a forfeitable reputation bond that disciplines tech workers into self-censorship. — connects to: Flexible capital’s ephemerality atomizes workers and enables individualism — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1049; Gossip media transformed ordinary tech workers into public characters it could cover — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 366; Always-on work email isolates workers by removing fellow-worker support — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1882

Broader Connections

• Flexible capital’s ephemerality atomizes workers and enables individualism #corroborates (0.78) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1049