Ecstatic New one year! It’s been one other wild and wacky lumber of a yr in the tech world: breakthroughs and disgraces, triumphs and catastrophes, cryptocurrencies and starships, the continuing rise of utopian neat energy and dystopian cyberpunk societies and, most of all, the continuing weirding of your entire huge world.
In other words, it became as soon as one other excellent yr for The Jons, the annual award that celebrates doubtful tech-linked achievements, named, in an fright-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. We’ve got pretty a lineup for you this yr, of us. So let’s secure to it! With very shrimp further ado, I give you: the fifth annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Fulfillment!
(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016) (The Jons 2017) (The Jons 2018)
THE CATLIKE FINANCIAL REFLEXES AWARD FOR LANDING ON YOUR FEET AFTER UNMITIGATED DISASTER
To Adam Neumann, who presided over the spectacular rise and heaps more spectacular drop from grace of WeWork, which proudly launched its proposed IPO this yr and promptly saw most of its valuation (and its cash) crumple in a sea of eyebrow-elevating tales about delusional irresponsibility and the cruel realities of tangible industry. Alternatively, give Neumann credit score: tales might maybe presumably even maintain made him sound admire a pot-smoking surfer dude who lived in a hallucinatory fantasyland, however — no longer like his staff, whose wishes of IPO wealth had been with out note and fully shattered — he managed to slip faraway from the industry he drove nearly into the ground with a reported $1.7 billion windfall.
THE EVERYBODY’S BEST FRIEND AWARD FOR INSPIRING NOSEBLEED VALUATIONS AND ASPIRATIONAL POSTERS EVERYWHERE
To Masayoshi Son, whose widely offered wishes of a $108 billion Vision Fund II became the relative nightmare of one thing “far smaller” — however peaceable has his surreal, dreamlike skedaddle decks to drop abet on. In the end, “SoftBank works to comfort americans of their sorrow.”
THE WE MAY AS WELL JUST GIVE HIM A LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR ELON DOING HIS ELON THING
To — obviously — Elon Musk, who if truth be told had a truly staunch yr: Tesla stock got “so excessive” it brushed the price at which he previously offered he would relish it non-public (he didn’t); SpaceX launched Starlink, a “very mountainous deal“; and he became as soon as acquitted of defamation for calling a full stranger a pedophile on Twitter. OK, so he also offered Starship might maybe presumably also peaceable attain orbit by this coming March, and smashed the Cybertruck’s allegedly unbreakable dwelling windows onstage at its unveiling, however peaceable, a staunch yr! Gape you in 2020, Elon.
THE IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T CONVINCE, TELL AN EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS TALE AWARD FOR RISIBLE SATOSHI NAKAMOTO CLAIMS
To Craig Wright, who has long claimed in the face of mocking industrywide disbelief to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, and especially for his claims that, now work with me right here, the keys to 1 million of Satoshi’s bitcoin had been place in a “Tulip Belief” by a long-deceased collaborator and can peaceable be introduced to him by a “bonded courier” on January 1, 2020, i.e. a couple of days from now. The pick he told this to became as soon as, unsurprisingly, spectacularly unconvinced, pronouncing “Dr. Wright’s demeanor did no longer galvanize me as somebody who became as soon as telling the truth,” and also reproached him for his “willful and infamous faith pattern of obstructive habits.” You don’t bid.
THE DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, BUT ONLY IF THEY’RE ACTUALLY DEAD AWARD FOR LEAVING A TRAIL OF CRYPTOCURRENCY CHAOS IN ONE’S WAKE
To my fellow Canadian Gerald William Cotten, the founding father of QuadrigaCX, who curiously stole and/or lost if truth be told all of his clients’ money, spending much of it on “luxury items and accurate property,” sooner than his loss of life in Mumbai excellent yr. “But Jon,” you bid, “how does this quality for a 2019 Jon Award?” For the reason that many hundreds who lost money are now demanding an exhumation to resolve that the body in Cotten’s grave is, basically, Cotten. As for the surviving founder, he’s “a reported ex-con who served 18 months in a federal U.S. detention center for identity theft, bank fraud and bank card fraud.” Is that this the tip of this loopy narrative? …Successfully, presumably walk. But in the sphere of cryptocurrencies, which reliably affords us presumably the most jawdropping Jons, who can bid for sure?
THE I’VE SEEN THE FUTURE BABY AND IT’S PRETTY CRAZY AWARD FOR EPITOMIZING OUR CYBERPUNK PRESENT
To Lil Nas X, a previously unknown remarkable dark American teenager who made a nation-lure song with a beat he bought for $30 from a Dutch producer, which sampled an obscure Nine Plod Nails deep decrease; recorded it in much less than an hour for $20; crafted a hundred memes to publicize it on a new Chinese language-owned video-snippet social network unless it went viral courtesy of a Yeehaw Notify meme; then saw it hit first nation after which crossover success, and became the longest-reigning Billboard No. 1 single of all time. Does it even secure more postmodern cyberpunk than that? Lil Nas X, this is your world (correctly, and Billie Eilish’s) — we appropriate are living in it.
THE POWER TO DRIVE BABY BOOMERS COMPLETELY MAD AWARD FOR BEING SENSIBLY UPSET ABOUT THINGS
To Greta Thunberg, one other teenager, who’s an infected suggest of doing one thing about local weather exchange and for some reason over and over drives a full lot of curiously lucid americans, as well to the president of the United States, fully insane, prompting them to stage ludicrous and deeply unfamiliar attacks at a sixteen-yr-extinct autistic lady. It’s if truth be told mystifying, and yet revelatory. Perchance they’re appropriate upset that she’s so staunch at Twitter?
THE SOMEONE MUST BE TO BLAME, THIS IS SOMEONE, THEY MUST BE TO BLAME AWARD FOR LASHING OUT IN THE WRONG DIRECTIONS
To the mass media, for the techlash: the backlash in opposition to tech by which they blame the tech alternate no longer handiest for its accurate sins and concerns, which might maybe presumably be admittedly no longer demanding to fetch, however also for if truth be told all the pieces that’s defective with the sphere’s political and financial programs. Politics is by some means the fault of Fb, pretty than venal politicians and their potential to manipulate, er, the mass media admire a Stradivarius. Inequality is by some means the fault of the tech alternate, pretty than City / Wall Avenue parasitism, regulatory draw halt and, as soon as more, the politicians who if truth be told write the laws which enact inequality. As soon as more, the tech alternate has accurate concerns — however the indisputable truth that it has devoured the promoting and classifieds earnings that long propped up the media appears to maintain precipitated in another case sober and considerate journalists to instinctively knee-jerk blame it for each and each ailing, while letting their accurate architects off frivolously. Sadly I wretchedness this one goes to be a perennial.
THE WHO NEEDS HUMAN FACES OR WORDS AWARD FOR SIMULATING THE DEEP INSIGHTS OF INTERNET DISCOURSE
To StyleGAN 2 and GPT-2, neural networks from Nvidia and OpenAI respectively, which generate totally convincing counterfeit human faces, and halt-ample-for-the-web convincing counterfeit human comment sections, respectively. I maintain obvious that somewhere available in the market on the rep, bots with StyleGAN avatars and GPT-2-sourced texts are already waging war in opposition to one one other in befuddling comment sections: battles which manufacture no longer maintain any discontinuance, no level and no room for any accurate humanity. The more issues exchange, eh?
THE POP GOES THE IPO AWARD FOR MAKING LOCKUP PERIODS MEANINGFUL AGAIN
To Slack, Lyft and Uber, all of whom went public this yr and, no matter being extraordinarily excessive-profile tech corporations, promptly saw their stock costs crater and discontinue there, while their newest staff presumably saw their lockup interval scheme and lag while excellent resolutely underwater. All this while mountainous, boring tech corporations admire Google and Microsoft saw their stock climb to new highs nearly each and a week. Perchance becoming a member of a rocket ship isn’t continuously this sort of immense notion finally…
THE WHAT’S A FEW BILLION DOLLARS BETWEEN FRIENDS AWARD FOR JAM YESTERDAY, JAM TOMORROW BUT NEVER JAM TODAY
To Ron Abovitz of Magic Jump, whose abilities demos over the excellent decade had been, by all accounts, if truth be told breathtaking and mind-boggling, however whose accurate shipped abilities, no matter 10 years and nearly $3 billion in funding, has been, by all accounts, deeply disappointing. Now Magic Jump is hemorrhaging excessive-profile board contributors, signing over patents as collatoral to JP Morgan Run while desperately attempting to score funding and it next headset is reportedly peaceable years faraway from launch. But seek for, those demos had been amazing.
THE A SINGLE SACRIFICIAL LAMB FRANKLY ISN’T ENOUGH AWARD FOR A DEEP AND SYSTEMIC CATASTROPHE
To Boeing and its 737 MAX debacle, by which, among a colossal amount of alternative fine derelictions of elementary engineering responsibilities, essential security capabilities had been offered as winning non-mandatory extras — and yet it took no longer one however two crashes, killing a full bunch, for them to confess any concerns. Their CEO has resigned, however the company’s screw ups are clearly deep and systemic pretty than individual; their as soon as famously engineer-pushed corporate custom is clearly no more. Their example of the decline of American capitalism mainly is sort of pretty too on-the-nose, however then, that’s 2019 for you.
Congratulations, of a sort, to your entire winners of The Jons! All recipients shall gather a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this submit, which is ready to seemingly became coveted and more and more treasured collectibles. (And pointless to claim, in the future next yr they’re going to became redeemable for JonCoin.) And, obviously, all winners will most likely be remembered by posterity forevermore.
1Bobbleheads shall handiest be disbursed if and when on hand and convenient. The eventual existence of acknowledged bobbleheads is no longer guaranteed or indeed even in particular most likely. No longer legit on days named after Norse or Roman gods. All rights reserved, especially those rights about which we maintain reservations.
