Googling his name, he seems to have always been an author, my interpretation is that his "half baked idea(s)" is just a fictional premise he's made up, so he can experience what it would be like to try to get into the tech scene. If he were writing about Hollywood he'd say he's trying to be an actor. And well duh it's a plug for his book, it's adapted from it.

But his criticism is valid, IMO. It's not like Silicon Valley is a concentration of brains trying to solve the world's problems, it's a concentration of brains doing silly shit, like the billionth app that will let you order pizza or some algorithm so your video stream loads faster, or as he quoted: "what is my mother no longer doing for me?". What's their (SVers') goal? Success, within monetary terms? If that's your religion, and you're in IT, of course SV is your mecca.

I wrote "solving the world's problems" above, I'm inspired by this TEDx criticizing the shallowness of TED Talks (video is embedded: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/30/we-nee...), why are we just making the next pizza delivery app instead of thinking how to fix problems like climate change or food shortage?