F**k you Silicon Valley: Developer rants about the madness of today's global startup culture

A mobile developer has written a scathing rant on Medium about all the annoying and pretentious attitudes he has experienced in the global IT industry, the media and on the internet – many of which you've probably seen on the HBO TV series Silicon Valley.

In a piece entitled "F**k You Startup World", photo gallery app My Roll's lead Android developer Shem Magnezi tears down all the aspects of Silicon Valley corporate company culture that he can't stand, from the hipsters straight out of university who call themselves "entrepreneurs" to the crazy work hours, abstract job interview questions, new-fangled ergonomic working arrangements and quirky company benefits that no one really needs.

"F**k your open space floor plans- You really think Zucks builds Facebook's 2017 roadmap while a nerf war is raging outside? F**k your standing desk, exercise ball desk, laying desk, and treadmill desk. It ain't gonna mitigate all those fucking Doritos you just munched on, so just shut the fuck up and sit in a normal chair like normal people," Magnezi writes.

"F**k you startups with your extravagant parties and crazy off-site events that cost way too much money, you're supposed to buy some f**king servers instead! F**k spending money on ping pong tables that no one ever uses, f**king music rooms, nap rooms, meditation rooms, stress-free rooms, and pilates rooms. F**k the ridiculous incentives that you give, too. F**k your unlimited vacation policy, it's f**king bullshit. We all know that your employees will take less time off."

Shining a mirror on how ridiculous tech startups have become

While it sounds like Magnezi is just having the mother of all bad days, or perhaps he got fired from one of these tech startups, he says that it is more that he wants to shine a mirror to show the tech industry how ridiculous it looks like from the outside.

"I'm not angry at all, I actually found my post kinda funny. I saw many comments suggesting I wrote it because I got fired or failed some job interview but no, it's not the case at all. I wrote it because I keep seeing things that bother me, whether it is in the media, blog posts, or things that I see or hear from friends," he told IBTimes UK.

"It's just that I've been in this startup world for a while, and at its core it's great, it's really great, but there are some things that just, I don't know, seem strange to me, and I'm like, am I the only one that sees it? Is it just me? It's just things that piled up over time – I kept adding stuff every time I saw something new."

Magnezi, based in Israel, has been part of My Roll since it started, and he has witnessed its development from a startup to being acquired by AVG Technologies in November 2015.

Ot's not that he's ungrateful for the strange and often wonderful incentives that many tech firms offer in order to stay competitive with the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple, he just thinks it's a bit excessive, and probably not necessary in the long run – when the bottom line is really what counts in the tech industry, just as it does anywhere else.

Stop wasting money and trying to disrupt established ways of working

"I just say: to employers and employees, these kind of things are usually not worth as much as you think. We have in our office: a pool table, a music room, a PlayStation and an Xbox. The number of times I used them can be counted on one hand," he explained.

"I think, and hope, that good people don't buy this anymore. I want to see more HR people understand that people care more about work-life balance than about how big the happy hours are."

Magnezi also wants to see startups stop using modern theories like the Design Sprint to rush through the development of products within weeks instead of months, which he says are hyped up and can't replace the months of careful testing and production to get the job done properly.

"Many people think that this kind of system will bring about a better product or a better architecture, that it will magically fix all their problems, but it doesn't work like that," he stressed.

"Using no staging environments, building a micro services architecture, agile teams etc, you should think out about them, understand them, consider if this is the right thing for your company and apply them smartly. Don't copy the Spotify team's model just because you read how awesome it is and you'll able to write about it on your company blog."