Former Facebook insider on why it felt like a religious cult

Despite the popular appearances, the tech industry isn’t as transparent, innovative or revolutionary as some might extol.

Rather, a more apt description would reference the money cowboys, opportunists and sociopaths that fill Silicon Valley, says Antonio García Martínez, author of “Chaos Monkeys”.

Martínez left his job at Goldman Sachs, modeling prices of credit derivatives, to pursue a startup, which later led to a job at Facebook (“My job was literally taking your data and turning it into money”).

The worlds of Wall Street and Silicon Valley aren’t so different, Martínez says in the video above. Back room dealings and back stabbings are common place in both cultures.

“There’s really as much greed and hustling and politics as you’d find in almost any industry. It’s no worse than any other industry,” he said. “But it’s certainly no better.”

He likens the major players on Wall Street and Silicon Valley to quasi-monopolists, noting, “they maintain a certain information asymmetry that they find very profitable. And so often, although Facebook paints itself as an innovation company, it often opts for non-innovation to preserve certain incumbency that it has in the market.”

Facebook has also built a culture that felt almost a religious cult at times, adds Martínez. “And I was as much sucked into it as everybody: A more open and connected world. Done is better than perfect. Get in over your head. Move fast and break things. These were the mantras that were constantly drilled into our heads,” he said.

However, he notes that Facebook’s culture has been very effective for producing results, with the stock up about four times since he left.

“But on the other hand, as a foot soldier inside, you can get burned by that culture, or you can see where that culture veers into hypocrisy, which I think as the company gets bigger, it tends to do.”