International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 61

International Journal on Criminology
3 - Pinocchio Syndrome: The (Possibly) Enchanted Universe of the Start-Up
Like so many other young cyber fans, Mathilde Ramadier found
herself attracted to the idea of the start-up. But do the fruits do
justice to the early promise? Hmm ...
[Extracts from Ramadier’s book Bienvenue dans le nouveau monde:
Comment j'ai survécu à la coolitude des start-ups (Ramadier, 2017)]
“... The truth is that start-ups arm themselves with a veritable NewSpeak designed
to disguise the law of the jungle in a cloud of cool. As with any language, it acts
not only as a mechanism of inclusion, a tool of communication, it also rolls out a
whole imagined universe around itself, creating new signifiers which help to construct
a common frame of reference [ ... ] but which can also make one believe in
things that do not exist. In fact, behind the utopia sold by the start-up set, with its
wealth of humanistic promises, hides an ultraliberalism that promotes ferocious
competition and the pulverization of anything that appears even remotely stable
[ ... ]”
“[The managers are] super-quick, flexible, inexhaustible, perfectionists; these new
buccaneers of the data age no longer serve either God or any Master; instead, they
have but one word on their lips: innovation. The mere existence, even at a symbolic
level, of their Mecca, Silicon Valley, acts as the mainstay of their sense of belonging
to a project, a project henceforth referred to as the “family” [ ... ] Set upon a fair
and far-off pinnacle, Silicon Valley is constantly cited as an example, like a divinity
that no one has ever seen. The dream it promises is, in fact, a nightmare [ ... ]”
“After all, it is very reassuring to think that a revolution is under way in our turbulent
times, and that kind and courageous young people are upending the established
order so as to save us from everything that is dysfunctional about our
society! Start-up NewSpeak ensures that the message spreads far and wide, enlisting
the complicity of other actors, such as the state and a wide cross-section of the
media [ ... ] The solutions promised by the start-up set—a solution to the crisis,
to unemployment, to boredom, to repetitiveness and obsolescence, to aging, to
ugliness, and so on, are also built on a delusion: one cannot claim to already be
living in the new world before it has actually been built. So, start-ups are “revolutionary”
companies financed by “business angels,” run by “rock stars,” and fueled
by “treasure hunters”? Hello!? Can we come back down to Earth for two minutes?
The landing will be painful, I know.”
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