Sourdough Start(ing) a Cascade
The article: https://www.eater.com/2018/11/19/18099127/bread-silicon-valley-sourdough-tech-bros-tartine-chad-robertson
This article delves into baking sourdough’s moment of popularity among “tech bros.” I was initially interested in this article because I love sourdough – it’s probably my favorite type of bread – but am intimidated by the prospect of baking bread despite being a competent baker in other areas. This isn’t really an article about the internet, which is why I was so excited that I was seeing a real-life example of network diffusion in an example divorced from social media. In 2010, James Beard award-winning bakery Tartine published a bread cookbook. The cookbook’s country loaf sourdough recipe was both extremely detailed (38 pages long!) and popular. Since then, bread baking, especially surrounding sourdough, has become a common pastime in the silicon valley community. Baking, outside of the commercial realm, has long been among the many feminine-coded and thus undervalued activities. So why is it so popular among “tech bros”?
Network effects can explain! First, it took root with early adopters. Notable examples include Bijan Sabet, who is a “venture capitalist who invested in Twitter and Tumblr,” he regularly tweets about bread. The Microsoft head of communications’ twitter profile includes “owner of a fine sourdough starter.” A former CTO of Microsoft has published the cookbook Modernist Bread (it’s 2,500 pages long!).
Then the q was lowered because the reward of adopting was raised. The reward was already high because bread-making fulfils a demand for a technical and demanding but offline activity among tech-folk. It’s hardly surprising that Silicon Valley workers need to destress. It’s important that bread-making has a smaller q because we can assume that the network of “tech bros” as a reasonably large density. The reward for adopting the hobby is also tied to gendered associations. Highly technical approaches by star-chefs like Chad Robertson (the writer of Tartine’s bread cookbook) help to masculinizing the perception of baking bread. This increases the reward (or decreases the “social punishment”) for adopting the behavior of baking. By changing the perception and rebranding the activity, one is able to lower the q so that it is more likely to spread.
Finally, there was a cascade within the sub-network of tech bros. There was increased reward by switching within the community: your co-workers were doing it, your boss was doing it, so why not you? You can join the community and utilize your shared hobby for networking.
It was super exciting realizing how I could apply diffusion and cascades to the adoption of a hobby rather than a program or industry standard.