Forget the cool kids. Geeks are now shaping new products and services
Jul 16th 2016
FIVE years ago Zach Sims, a sprightly, striving 21-year-old, launched
Codeacademy, a startup, to offer online courses about how to write software. He
remembers pitching his idea to prospective investors only to hear a chorus of
no . At the time, the naysayers thought coding was a weird, fringe activity for
computer-science geeks. They were wrong. Since 2011, more than 25m people have
signed up for Codeacademy. Meanwhile, in-person crash courses that teach
computer programming, called coding boot-camps, have spread worldwide, as more
people aspire to tech jobs or running their own startup. This year tuition fees
at these boot-camps will reach around $200m in America alone.
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you may end up working for them, wrote Charles
Sykes, author of the book 50 Rules Kids Won t Learn in School , first
published in 2007. Today there are more reasons than ever to treat nerds with
respect: never mind the fact that every company is clamouring to hire them,
geeks are starting to shape markets for new products and services.
Stephen O Grady of RedMonk, a consultancy, calls developers the new kingmakers
: they are driving decisions about the technology that their companies use to
an extent that has never before been possible. From personal computers to
social-media companies like Twitter and Facebook, many gadgets and platforms
started out with curious tech enthusiasts experimenting in their garage or dorm
room, only to turn into mainstream hits. Slack, a two-year-old messaging firm
that aims to displace e-mail, started as a tool for software developers to
communicate with one another before it spread to other functions and companies.
But nerds influence now goes well beyond technology. They hold greater
cultural sway. Silicon Valley , a show on HBO which will soon start filming
its fourth season, presents the brogrammer startup culture in all its grit
and glory, and suggests that mass audiences are transfixed by what really
happens behind closed (garage) doors. Techies in San Francisco don not only
hoodies but also T-shirts with G∑∑K emblazoned on the front. Those too
risk-averse to become university dropouts like Microsoft s Bill Gates and Mark
Zuckerberg of Facebook rush in rising numbers to Silicon Valley as soon as they
graduate, forsaking careers on Wall Street to code their way into the 1%.
Nerds carry more clout in part because their ranks have swelled. IDC, a
research firm, estimates there are now around 20m professional and hobbyist
software developers worldwide; that is probably low. Geeky, addictive video
games are drawing more into the fold. Each month at least 70m people play
League of Legends , a complex multiplayer online game; that is more than play
baseball, softball or tennis worldwide.
As a result, companies had better pay attention to the rise of a nerd economy
that stretches well beyond their direct technology needs. Venture capitalists
were first to pick up on this. Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon
Valley venture-capital firm, says he is constantly watching what the smartest
people are doing on the weekends , because it hints at what the mainstream will
be up to in ten years time. With this rationale, Andreessen Horowitz has
invested in various gadgets and products that early adopters have embraced,
including a nutrient-rich drinkable meal for engineers too busy to take a break
from coding, called Soylent. Another investment is in a company called
Nootrobox, which makes chewable coffee for people too lazy or antisocial to
order a liquid shot from a barista. The mouth of the cultural river has
shifted from New York and Los Angeles to San Francisco, says Mr Dixon.
Not only nerd food has won venture capitalists attention, but also their
fashion choices. Warby Parker, a glasses firm, and Stance, a startup that makes
bright, geeky socks, have attracted $200m in venture capital. Both cater to
techies as well as the fashion-aware (the line between hipster and nerd can be
fuzzy). The sharing economy , exemplified by Lyft and Airbnb, also was
originally a nerd thing: they prefer renting to buying stuff.
Incumbent businesses, too, have started to take their cue from all this
nerdiness. Brands like Mountain Dew and Doritos have sponsored video-game
competitions and rodeos where competitors race drones around stadiums. By
intrepidly going where the nerds go, brands hope to get some credibility.
Hackathons , where companies invite prospective and current employees to stay
up all night, eat pizza and code, are de rigueur as a means to recruit
engineers. Even very traditional companies like MasterCard and Disney have
started to hold them.
Sometimes, however, it can all be a bit embarrassing. GE, an industrial giant,
has run a television ad campaign about how it hires software developers that
feels as awkward to watch as an engineer trying to do stand-up comedy for the
first time. Haagen-Dazs, an ice cream-maker, has put up billboards in San
Francisco that proudly declare We re a 56-year-old startup and present the
written recipe for vanilla ice cream as if it were code.
It s all geek to me
As the success of Pok mon Go, an augmented-reality game, shows (see article),
there can be big profits in the avant-garde areas where nerds like to
experiment. Unfortunately, trying to observe and appeal to nerds is not a
sure-fire strategy. Not every product or pastime embraced by software engineers
will become a hit. Brogrammers may embrace Soylent and Nootrobox. But your
correspondent, who has tried both to her stomach s displeasure, is sceptical on
whether they will ever be a match for solid food and hot coffee.
And if they try too hard to speak geek, large companies will come off as
inauthentic and alienating, exactly what they were trying not to be. Nerds may
be a powerful commercial force, but many of them harbour disdain for big brands
and overt marketing. Firms will have to try hard to send a cool, coded message.