Tech Messaging: Fluff, Guff & Same Old Word Soup

I analysed the website home page of 25 start-ups, 25 mid-sized tech firms, 25 enterprise software companies and 25 IT services firms to see how tech companies explain who they are, what they do and why they matter? What I found was that tech companies suffer from ‘sameness’. Is this a problem? And if so, should you do something about it in an era where AI slop is turning ‘sameness’ into commercial risk. I invite you to read my analysis and download the research report, access below.

^{CHITTER CHATTER}

Puppet Masters’ Soundbites Exposed

Are you paying close attention to the AI puppet masters pulling our strings? For quite some time the AI Lords, Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI) and Dario Amodei (CEO, Anthropic) and to some degree, Elon Musk, have been saying AI will unleash hell on earth, and “we’re all doomed” … the AI apocalypse is coming, and “AI is coming for your job”.

A bunch of tech companies then jumped on this bandwagon as the reason to retrench thousands of employees as AI hysteria hit fever pitch, Molotov cocktails were thrown, protests against data centres happened and AI tech bros got booed on stage giving speeches at universities.

Now that OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs are happening, suddenly these ‘canaries’ are singing a different tune, telling us maybe they got it wrong and in fact, come to think of it, AI won’t displace jobs and we’re all going to live happily ever after.

Too late, people aren’t puppets (you muppets) and we’re fed up with the nonsense hyperbole from AI ‘legends in their own mind’. To that end, this Business Insider article succinctly details the roller-coaster ride of the changing AI narrative and how it’s made the general public deeply distrustful of AI billionaires and their rhetoric.

Not Good News

Microsoft ‘Survey’ Gets a Dressing Down by Staff

I’ve got a lot of respect for Satya Nadella and his successful helm at Microsoft but this story irks me because it shows lack of courage, honesty and transparency from Microsoft’s leadership. That’s disappointing. Apparently, employees aren’t happy that a recent company survey omitted the question of “whether employees felt they were getting a ‘good deal at Microsoft’ (i.e. there is a reasonable balance between what I contribute to Microsoft and what I get in return).” I’m guessing this is because pay rises have been frozen since the whole AI race has revved up, and because Microsoft has cut, announced or targeted roughly 15,000+ roles since 2025, plus introduced a 2026 voluntary buyout program.

Of course some employees took to the company’s internal message board to talk about the omission of that ‘hot potato’ question with one asking, “Can you please provide clarity on whether or not the question has been removed and why?” Another employee chimed in with “I don’t think they value getting an answer to a question they already know the answer to,” and adding a meme of the famous line in the movie, A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!” Exactly!

Data Centre Opposition Continues Unabated

Communities in the US and closer to home, Australia, are not happy about data centres as tech CEOs breathlessly and enthusiastically talk them up, such as NextDC’s Chief Executive, Craig Scroggie, calling the speed and scale of its M3 (Melbourne data centre) expansion, “stunning” going on to say that “we’re building Australia’s largest hyperscale AI factory purpose-built for the new AI era of accelerated computing.” This was eight months ago but locals don’t agree with Scroggie’s sentiment, with The Guardian reporting that “those living closest to these massive new data halls feel that their neighbourhood peace is being sacrificed on the altar of progress.”

It seems to me that opposition to data centres in the USA is stronger with this heatmap showing that, “Americans now overwhelmingly oppose new data centers near them.” (US spelling). And close behind this story: Residents of Monterey Park, just east of Los Angeles, voted to ban data centres. Message to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos: Time to ramp up the rockets, colonise Mars or the moon so that we have a place for these monstrosities because I still want me some AI. Sigh, I know, hypocritical of me to say so.

^SUBTEXT

The Waffle: Digital infrastructure is economic infrastructure … AI factories are a new class of infrastructure, purpose-built for the industrial scale production of tokens” — NEXTDC CEO, Craig Scroggie

Translation:
We’ve used the word ‘infrastructure’ three times to impress you. You’re impressed right?
‘Purpose-built’: sounds more hifalutin than just saying, “we build data centres to crank out AI.”
A new class: We’re of the view that humans are the lesser class.
‘Industrial scale’: we’re using a factory term because we’re inspired by the Industrial Revolution where we flogged millions of workers 14 hours a day, building machinery for us.

A corporate condition in which executives develop a feverish obsession for rapidly building enormous server sheds and placing them everywhere humans gather, relax or attempt to enjoy sunlight. Symptoms: buzzword-laden press releases that say “delivering sustainable future-ready capacity at scale”. Side effects: shopping centres oozing green slime and parks transformed into swampland. Cure: One town hall and thousands of residents brandishing pitchforks as they march toward the shiny façade of their local data centre.

Engagement Theatre: It’s when you send out surveys to ‘genuinely’ gauge employee sentiment but quietly, under the cover of darkness, remove questions from said surveys that might make you look bad.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

Bio-hacking: Tech Bros Promote ‘Enhanced Games’

This story (more biotechnology) about the Enhanced Games where athletes competed across different events enabled by pharmaceuticals or special body suits, blew up recently with many people decrying the desecration of major events like the Olympics which is about humans competing naturally and where doping is routinely punished.

In any case, the event was a flop in that the doped-up sporting prowess didn’t break any ‘naturally’ achieved world records. Bryan Johnson, Bio-tech’s weirdo-in-residence was there, hiding under a special umbrella to protect his pale skin. Respectfully, Bryan (who is actually a nice fellow) looks like a vampire but apparently efforts like these are keeping him ageless.

Dear Dr Comms
I’m a middle manager in HR and employees are writing angry messages about our ‘doctored’ engagement survey results. Leadership says the results were simply “normalised for context”, but people are throwing accusations at me like “this is a cover-up” and “You’re participating in fraudulent results!” How do I respond without making things worse? Yours, Accidentally Holding the ‘Liar, Liar Pants-on-Fire Spreadsheet

Dear Pants on Fire
What a bunch of self-righteous so-and-so’s picking on you like that! Let’s see how the specialists can help:

🏛️ Council Member:
“Release a 48-page statement saying transparency remains your highest priority while answering absolutely nothing.”

👃 Deodorant Tester:
“First, stop calling it ‘a strong result’. People can smell that porky a mile away. Just open a window and admit something this side of Denmark is rotten. Maybe a dead rat stuck in a ceiling cavity?”

🚧 Roadside Worker:
“The idiocy telling people the pothole is actually a ‘surface-level engagement opportunity.’ Cover it up immediately while denying there ever was a hole in the first place, then bulldoze over any other complaints.”

Leadership Slogans

^{BIN THIS…}

A phrase mixed in a jargon lab by people who wanted to sound technical, strategic and clever at the same time.

‘AI-powered’ means something, somewhere or someone might be using a model

‘Platform’ means no one can actually explain the product

‘At scale’ means it allegedly works for more than 10 people

Together, they form the holy trinity of tech waffle:

❶ Impressive enough for a homepage
❷ Vague enough to add to the sales proposal
❸ Empty enough to mean absolutely anything

Copy and paste, I don’t mind, and neither will 100 tech companies also using the same phrase.

Tech Messaging: Fluff, Guff & Same Old Word Soup

I analysed the website home page of 25 start-ups, 25 mid-sized tech firms, 25 enterprise software companies and 25 IT services firms to see how tech companies explain who they are, what they do and why they matter? What I found was that tech companies suffer from ‘sameness’. Is this a problem? And if so, should you do something about it in an era where AI slop is turning ‘sameness’ into commercial risk. I invite you to read my analysis and download the research report, access below.

Know someone who lives for this kind of nonsense? Forward this email to them and help me spread the dysfunction.

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