Frankly I always felt like the "outrage mobs" were almost always consequences catching up to people who did bad things. In a few cases sure it wasn't, but in most cases it was just jerks upset they couldn't just use their power to get away with their behavior.
I remember some of the uproar from tech folks getting criticism in that era. They were mad at things like articles coming out about toxic workplace culture at startups, or reports on pseudo-fraudulent behavior at startups. Many of those people said stuff like "defend founders". Years later those same people who whined about consequences were some of the first to also buy into crypto scams and use their power to try to pressure people into hyping up and not criticizing crypto.
That behavior made me very cynical about a lot of the VC world and much of tech in general. In general I wish those people had more reputational damage for using their public presence to push tribalism in pursuit of power or scamming people of their money.
I remember some of the uproar from tech folks getting criticism in that era. They were mad at things like articles coming out about toxic workplace culture at startups, or reports on pseudo-fraudulent behavior at startups. Many of those people said stuff like "defend founders". Years later those same people who whined about consequences were some of the first to also buy into crypto scams and use their power to try to pressure people into hyping up and not criticizing crypto.
That behavior made me very cynical about a lot of the VC world and much of tech in general. In general I wish those people had more reputational damage for using their public presence to push tribalism in pursuit of power or scamming people of their money.