I considered including something about that incident (for those of you coming in with less context, they're referring to [1] this) in this article, but I didn't for two reasons.
One, I sincerely do not think that was actually fatal (it was, at worst, a symptom of the same forces that forced a pivot). And two, the best thing I could say about it in terms of going forward is "no but seriously I'm not going to do that", which _I_ know is true but you obviously don't (and if you trust me when I say that, well, I don't think you're cynical enough). Every time I tried to write about it in the early draft versions of this post, I found myself coming back to saying both "you're not cynical enough and you shouldn't trust a damn thing I say if it doesn't cost me something" and "but look how I'm actually different". And that just seemed wrong to write.
It's hard to be an honest cynic in a world of distrust. Because I want you to trust me, because I think I am worthy of that trust, but I also think the average person is nowhere near cynical enough about how easy it is to fake sincerity and want to scream that fact from the rooftop.
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How could addressing that single incident help explain Triplebyte's failure to find product-market fit?
Privacy violations sure haven't stopped any other successful corporation I can think of from finding product-market fit.
If you’re looking for examples where privacy violations hurt a company’s chances for success, look at Instagram for Kids. It was cancelled largely because the kinds of parents who would even consider such an app don’t trust Meta.