Silicon Valley's Cargo Culting Problem

Seibel defines cargo culting as copying something without understanding why it works. He uses the story of people building a fake landing strip in hopes that planes would return, while missing the larger reasons the planes had come.

Seibel describes founders copying Google’s open offices, flat structure, hiring practices, and even cute names and logo styles. Facebook’s growth tactics, free access, and advertising model also became templates, while Uber was associated with spending heavily and expanding quickly. Those lessons often got reduced to surface behaviors detached from each company’s specific circumstances.

Google hired many strong engineers because it was tackling a difficult search problem, and skilled talent was available after the dot-com crash. Facebook could avoid charging users because its scale supported a powerful advertising business, while viral growth depended on people using the product frequently. Uber’s expansion was grounded in strong performance in some markets, not simply burning money in places where the service was failing.

Seibel says founders increasingly copy startups based on valuations, fundraising announcements, podcast interviews, or GitHub stars without knowing their revenue or whether their business works. He cites WeWork-inspired ventures and robotic pizza companies as examples of founders modeling their plans on heavily funded businesses that later struggled. He also describes a startup facade built around fundraising, advisors, patents, pitch decks, conferences, and press, with too little attention to users.

Seibel recommends starting with what users want and examining the companies they pay for the service, then identifying which parts of successful offerings matter to them. He compares thoughtful learning to reading and synthesizing sources for an original paper, or drawing influence from music, rather than copying and pasting. Founders can borrow useful ideas, but need to understand and adapt them to their own product.