Does Silicon Valley have a sense of humor?

David Temkin was driving south from San Francisco, down Highway 101, as billboard after billboard pitched AI in variations of dense word salad. One ad marketed “automated testing compliance done without command shift.” Another promised “safer schools with instant visitors screening.” All of them marketed tech companies, but to whom and for what was obscure—even for tech insiders like Temkin.

“It is absolutely absurd,” Temkin tells Fast Company. “Some of these are absolutely impenetrable. Like, what are they even talking about? It makes me wonder what the intention is.”

The Silicon Valley veteran has lived through plenty of change, watching firsthand as the tech world evolved from a niche for nerds into a cultural force with global influence both online and offline. Since arriving in the