Silicon Valley Gets High on Its Own Supply
Silicon Valley's tech culture has increasingly embraced psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin to boost creativity and productivity, mirroring past stimulant use while raising concerns about workplace ethics and safety.
Background
- This piece satirizes Silicon Valley's tendency to use its own products (productivity apps, AI tools, wellness tech) in counterproductive ways — "drinking its own Kool-Aid" literally.
- The title puns on "getting high on your own supply," a phrase from drug culture (notably *The Wire*) meaning a dealer starts using what they sell. Here it refers to tech workers becoming addicted to or deluded by the tools and ideologies they build.
- The essay comes from *Monkeynoodle*, a blog known for insider critiques of Bay Area tech culture, assuming familiarity with startup buzzwords, VC hype cycles, and the quasi-religious devotion to "optimization" and "disruption."
- Key targets: productivity theater (Notion dashboards that replace real work), the quantified-self movement (wearables, sleep trackers), and AI tools that create more busywork than they save.
- Broader context: a post-2023 backlash against "tech solutionism" — the belief every problem has a technological fix — as the industry faces layoffs, AI anxiety, and a credibility crisis.