Silicon Valley Has Hit Peak Lameness

Hey Bros of Virool,

I know you think it’s cool that your launch party is being written up in TechCrunch. But seriously, half-naked girls in silver mono-kinis dancing in front of floating arithmetic, fractions and percentage signs? Why would women want to work for this company?

When did Silicon Valley become so thin on actual technology that startups had to have “nerd” or “science”-themed parties to have cred?

You’re YC-backed for chissake. How much of your $6 million round went into hiring contortionists? What would Jessica Livingston think?

P.S. In case anyone thinks Jack McKenna doesn’t know how to party, Jack McKenna thought of this post while dancing in a “rave cave” at 11 a.m. on Sunday. Because Jack McKenna rolls all weekend long. Sans fake hand and tentacle fingers.

Update: Virool’s CEO Alexander Debelov responds in a comment below. He says that Virool didn’t spend any investor money on the party, is profitable and is on a multi-million dollar annualized runrate.

[Editor's note: In further discussions with Virool, the company asserted that 1) this was a theme party around a popular video it had helped make viral, 2) it is making more money in a day than what the party had cost, and 3) many of its investors had attended and were pleased with the company's progress so far. The party was also planned by a woman, and the company did not intend to demean women in any way.]

That’s great. But success shouldn’t mean throwing parties full of hired girls. Many tech companies like Facebook and Airbnb had, erm, questionable parties in their very early days, but they learned and they grew up. Virool should too.

Crunchbase

• VIROOL

Company: Virool

Website: virool.com

Launch Date: June 1, 2011

Funding: $6.62M

There are over 2 million videos being uploaded to the web every day and 95% of them get less than 1,000 views. No matter how funny, appealing or shocking video is, it’s not going to go viral unless enough people discover it and begin sharing it. That’s where Virool comes in. Virool helps anyone with a video to get noticed. Virool is a self-serve social video advertising platform that allows anyone with a video to reach their desired target audience on...

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