Top 5 (or 6) reasons PR doesn't work. if you're a geek.
DISCLAIMER 1: some of my best friends work in PR. really. me too. — DISCLAIMER 2: i started out as an engineer, then an entrepreneur, then an internet marketer. i probably still suck at all of them, but since 2001 i've done …
Context & Ripple Effects
The critique of tech-industry PR was already well-worn by mid-2007: Doc Searls had argued back in October 2005 that PR folks get at least as much flack as they give, framing the tension between flacks and the journalists they pitch. Dave McClure's post sharpens that critique for a specific audience — engineers and startup founders — arguing from his own path through engineering, entrepreneurship, and internet marketing since 2001 that conventional PR underperforms precisely for technical builders.
What gives the argument reach beyond one blogger's venting is the same-day pickup on Guy Kawasaki's How to Change the World, which repackaged it as "The Top Ten Reasons Why PR Doesn't Work" — putting the case directly in front of the entrepreneur readership most likely to act on it.
First-order effects
- Geek founders reading the post via Kawasaki's wider distribution get explicit license to route around PR firms and market their own products, treating agency spend as a poor fit for technical audiences.
Second-order effects
- Startup-focused PR shops face pressure to justify retainers against founders who blog, demo, and seed communities directly — the same DIY-marketing ethos McClure would later push at startups and VCs in his own writing.
Third-order effects
- If founder-led publishing keeps displacing pitched coverage, the industry drifts toward a structure where attention is earned through direct channels and PR survives mainly for large companies with no credible founder voice.
The trend: Tech marketing is shifting from agency-mediated press relations toward founders communicating directly with technical audiences, with bloggers like McClure and Kawasaki acting as the distribution layer.