Thread by @QuinnyPig

This is a *great* question that deserves its own thread.

The context is "I help companies polish reports like this to relevance before publication as an analyst gig; how is that not a shakedown / extortion racket?"

https://twitter.com/forrestbrazeal/status/1372367001465798656

To be clear: the analyst engagements for things like this are very much "I will basically mock the thing you're building, only early enough in the process that you can fix it before publication."

This has definite value to the company; it makes their thing resonate better.

"How is this not extortion?"

Because you're not looking deeply enough. Read the thread I just did. It called a bad report bad, and that's true--but it didn't disparage @acloudguru's actual company or value proposition one iota.

Absolutely no one sensible is going to read that thread and say "I will absolutely not give ACG my business."

But how many people will read about ACG for the first time and look into the company further?

What do you think the point of the report was in the first place?

Still think I'm being unfair? Try this one on for size:

These reports and keynotes I mock? I'm usually explicitly invited to do so by the company in question.

All three tier 1 cloud vendors have expressly invited me to their conferences to livetweet the keynotes.

Very often this *does* become an analyst engagement, because the questions that flow naturally are "you're right, there are some problems with the report. How do we do a better job with the next one?"

I have many thoughts on that.

If I thought for a second that @forrestbrazeal or the rest of the @acloudguru team was actually upset at my teardown I'd be apologizing profusely. You don't make people feel shitty, full stop.

There are levels to the humor, and I invariably hide insight inside of it, mostly because it amuses me.

It's very much *not* purely shitposting without a deeper perspective.

Because most people suck at doing it. Remember, the failure mode of "clever" is "asshole." It's being mean for the sake of being mean, without any redeeming value to it.

That's not cool at all.

https://twitter.com/IAmChetanAhuja/status/1372371895018942465

The one thing that's explicitly called out in every analyst engagement that I do is that my authenticity isn't for sale.

There are a lot of ways to fix "the thing you build is shitty." "Paying me money to say it's good" is not one of those ways.

"After we do an analyst project, can we host sponsored content on the @LastWeekinAWS blog?"

"Only if you want to utterly destroy the thing that makes me useful to you. So no, you may not."

If you've read this thread all the way through and find that the way we work here resonates, we're hiring for something a bit new / special.

apply.workable.com/duckbillgroup/…