the reason tech has been able to grow so quickly and create so much wealth is that it ritualized a set of norms around corporate governance that are very distinct from what the law actually requires. the second someone defects, the whole ship goes down.

these norms are weird: in no other industry even 1/10th the scale or the stakes of venture does money flow so freely without verification/only with social trust, nor the presumption of grift not exist— it’s behavior that’s foreign to even near peers but this is how tech worked

it was somewhat easy to see why: software markets seemed endless, the next hand always had higher stakes, and the number of players were quite small. if you screwed your reputation for short term gain, you were ultimately only choosing to deal yourself out before the pot got big

the issue is social rituals require communal enforcement. as venture got big quickly, and the number of scaled players from outside this core group increased, and the stakes to defecting got high. sure, maybe you wouldn’t defect for a few bucks… but for a billion? ten?