Dumb apps equal big bucks in Silicon Valley’s new math

Pammy won’t talk to me. After an epic tantrum because I’m too lazy to found my own messaging startup that the Zuck or maybe Nadella would have snapped up for a billion or so, she’s doubly pissed off because I foolishly joked about Yo at the dinner table.

Yo is an app that’s so stupid it makes a gray Rubik’s Cube look like a Hawking proof. Apparently, its only function is to send the word “yo” to other idiots with the same app installed. This thing has snagged more than $1 million in actual, no-I’m-not-kidding funding from a cadre of investors who are too ashamed to make their names a matter of public record.

[ What do you get when you cross vaporware and an empty suit? Hewlett-Packard’s ‘Machine.’ ]

I too was infected by this grand delusion, to the point where I was convinced I could make her laugh with one of the patently hilarious observations the lot of you seem to clamor for on a weekly basis. Instead, she became really quiet and the vein in the side of her neck started throbbing. Then she waited until I was heading for the kitchen, handicapped by dishes in my hands, before she whipped around like cobra on Ritalin and punched me in the hoobles. Now she won’t talk to me, and she made me sleep in the garage … in the car or, more precisely, the trunk.

To top it off, she woke me up in the morning by pulling a few donuts in the driveway.

Apps so stupid they might work

The message from my meaner half is clear: I need to found a stupid startup. Thing is, I can’t think of anything stupid enough. What’s dumber than Yo?

Washboard could be a contender. This is an app that’ll send you quarters on a subscription basis, so you can function in coin-op laundry. If you think I’m joking, get ready to cry. At least unlike Yo, Washboard will help a certain mollusk-minded segment of the population. In terms of sheer dopey uselessness, Yo has it beat hands down.

I could think of something smart … eventually. Maybe I’ll ask you readers to send ideas that I’ll then steal, even as I delete the email trail like the geniuses comprising IRS executive management. (“It’s absolutely brilliant, Dorfmann. They’ll never see through it! I’m promoting you to head congressional liaison.”) But smart isn’t in right now. Stupid seems all the rage these days.

The startup psychosis

There seems to be a mystique in Silicon Valley about ludicrous startups. The dumber the idea, the more VCs believe there has to be something amazing lurking in the mindless mist, like if Justin Bieber was really an opera singer with a four-octave range. The idea can’t possibly be that stupid — the founders are hiding their genius, so they can make more money off it later when they reveal the sheer, Zuck-crushing brilliance underlying their venture all along. If we invest now, we can cash in huge when Yo reveals it can also send the word “Hi” or “Duh” or “For god’s sake why?” We’ll be swimming in it!

You don’t even have to wait for Zuck, Larry, Sergey, Satya, Marissa, or even Ellison to make it rain. Sure, that crew is snapping up everything from macrobiotic sneakers to child-staffed salami factories, but now startups are on the takeover trail too. Check out the deal made by Dave Morin, who founded yet another messaging-app disaster, Path. He’s using the bucks he snagged from Aburizal Bakrie to buy another sinking messaging startup called TalkTo. Or maybe the money comes from the salaries of the 20 percent of recently fired staff, a sure indicator of the success and business savvy. Either way, the deal means it’s a bonanza out there for anyone with an ultra-inane idea and a clinically depressed Russian programmer chained in the basement.

Pammy wants in — or at least she wants me in so I can finally keep her in the style to which she’d like to grow accustomed. What’s it going to be? Glassbash, an app that scans for Google Glass-wearing fashion sociopaths, so you know whom to pants in a bar? Nah, it’s too complicated and serves a useful purpose. Maybe App, an app that installs an icon on your screen that’ll send its download link to a random someone from your contact list every time you click on it — nah, too intelligent.

I think I’ll stick with the aforementioned CringeChat. It’ll send my latest pithy quotes to anyone who’s installed the app and allow them to flame me in free text. The hidden genius will be that it scans for the words “pacifist,” “educated,” and “Bill of Rights,” so I know whose contact information to sell to the NSA. If Google doesn’t buy it to distract its commuting employees from the beagle heads being hurled at their private shuttles, then Travis Kalanik will because it’s exactly the nonsensical acquisition so popular right now. Besides, I’ve been so nice to him. He owes me.

I have to go now. I’m tired and it takes a while to make a bed from a spare tire. Anyone know a clinically depressed Russian?

This article, “Dumb apps equal big bucks in Silicon Valley’s new math,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com.