[Barrin92]

hacking culture was not just about the skills it takes to participate, it was also about values. One of them, openness and sharing information. open protocols over closed walls.

entrepreneurship today in particular in tech often tries to capitalise on the latter rather than the former, at least most of the time. Adopting the aesthetics of hacker culture to further institutions that could not be more damaging to an open ecosystem is already more common than actual 'hacking'.

[gitgud]

They seem to be antithetical ideas somehow.

Business inherently relies on secrecy (proprietary stuff). Hackers try to make secret things open.

[wwright]

What makes you think that business inherently relies on secrecy?

[gitgud]

All business is based on some kind of upper hand right? Secrecy is usually the root of that upper hand.

Sometimes you can reveal your "secret sauce" but patents/copyright/regulation will protect it from being stolen. So the "secret sauce" is still what separates you from the other businesses...

It makes sense in my head, but maybe I'm rambling... I'll try and write a blog post to explain my thoughts a bit better.

Can you think of a business that is entirely transparent?

[wwright]

I think the framing is kind of off.

Being a successful business doesn’t mean that you must be secretive about your business operations. I don’t think it requires an “upper hand” either. Those may be key to out-competing other businesses in some way, but that is different than being successful. (Capital culture makes us think of a “successful business” as one that makes insane amounts of money, rather than one that achieves a goal.)

Of course, all businesses realistically will have some secrets, but those may often be separate from the business operations. For example, it would probably be very difficult to be public about all of your HR details, or expose all of your internal phone numbers/emails/physical addresses (humans just like basic privacy).

But many local businesses can probably operate just fine without being very secretive. There was a place in my hometown I loved that served shakes, cheese sticks, and cheeseburgers. I don’t think he did anything special that needed to be kept secret. People just like a nice diner with a decent burger.