"Maybe Microsoft cares if you have a degree, but the startups don't, and the companies that care about preserving startup culture don't. It's a meritocracy out here. Especially if you drop out of a really good school with a good reputation out here, like CMU. [...]"
the irony of this statement is killing me
"Maybe Microsoft cares if you have a degree, but the startups don't, and the companies that care about preserving startup culture don't. It's a meritocracy out here. Especially if you drop out of a really good school with a good reputation out here, like CMU. [...]"
the irony of this statement is killing me
People from the East Coast arrived and thought, "This is a community where people's time is their own." They didn't think, "This is a community where you have to juggle five different things because only one of them is likely to work out."
People from the East Coast arrived and thought, "This is a community where people's time is their own." They didn't think, "This is a community where you have to juggle five different things because only one of them is likely to work out."
"After trying so hard for so long to get rich on paper," he said, "I'm going to dedicate myself to something way bigger than myself." After having felt lonely as an entrepreneur, he wanted to feel as though he was part of a movement "That's bitcoin," he said.
"After trying so hard for so long to get rich on paper," he said, "I'm going to dedicate myself to something way bigger than myself." After having felt lonely as an entrepreneur, he wanted to feel as though he was part of a movement "That's bitcoin," he said.
[...] Starting a company has become the way for ambitious young people to do something that seems simultaneously careerist and heroic.
[...] Starting a company has become the way for ambitious young people to do something that seems simultaneously careerist and heroic.
All these kids, who didn't yet know what it was like to have a company of their own, or wind down a company of their own, or work for a giant company and ride the bus, seemed certain of one thing: that the longing for total revolution that had for so long been the hallmark of youth was, at last, about to be fulfilled. The only thing they could count on was that they were going to be the generation that partook of the process by which all would be rendered irrevocably different. It didn't seem to matter what the difference was, or whom it helped or hurt. It just mattered that things in the future would be unlike anything we'd seen be. And that, in the process, they were sure, many of them would get very rich.
All these kids, who didn't yet know what it was like to have a company of their own, or wind down a company of their own, or work for a giant company and ride the bus, seemed certain of one thing: that the longing for total revolution that had for so long been the hallmark of youth was, at last, about to be fulfilled. The only thing they could count on was that they were going to be the generation that partook of the process by which all would be rendered irrevocably different. It didn't seem to matter what the difference was, or whom it helped or hurt. It just mattered that things in the future would be unlike anything we'd seen be. And that, in the process, they were sure, many of them would get very rich.
[...] San Francisco was full of people walking around with their pockets stuffed with 1.2 percent of nothing.
[...] San Francisco was full of people walking around with their pockets stuffed with 1.2 percent of nothing.
[...] He came out here to dig his trench in the industry. "Our generation doesn't have wars," he told me. "So they come here, and their battle experience is starting a company, trying to achieve scale, learning the hard way, bootstrapping."
and just like most soldiers in a war, you go to the frontlines totally clueless, with your motives unexamined
[...] He came out here to dig his trench in the industry. "Our generation doesn't have wars," he told me. "So they come here, and their battle experience is starting a company, trying to achieve scale, learning the hard way, bootstrapping."
and just like most soldiers in a war, you go to the frontlines totally clueless, with your motives unexamined
[...] One founder (his company was literally an app that optimized app stores for other apps), who'd ordered a water and had taken off neither his backpack nor his jacket, apologized on behalf of everybody for leaving so early.
"When you have an early-stage company," he said, "there's no time to hang out at a cool, trendy bar." He was 23. The bar might have been cool and trendy in Miami in 2004.
[...] One founder (his company was literally an app that optimized app stores for other apps), who'd ordered a water and had taken off neither his backpack nor his jacket, apologized on behalf of everybody for leaving so early.
"When you have an early-stage company," he said, "there's no time to hang out at a cool, trendy bar." He was 23. The bar might have been cool and trendy in Miami in 2004.
[...] My cousin was having the time of his life, but a lot of the startup guys—perhaps, in part, as a defense—saw riding the corporate bus as the most dismal of failures. Even Nick and Chris, who did not know contempt as a mode, were appalled at the thought. This was a somewhat self-delusional attitude, as their second-through sixth-best-case scenarios involved being acquired by one of the five giant, powerful, wealthy companies. Even if Nick and Chris survived another year, there was a good chance they'd just be surviving to put themselves in a position to get a nice signing bonus when they finally conceded to days framed by long bus commutes—just like the many other entrepreneurs who came to look at having a failed startup as an altemative to graduate school.
[...] My cousin was having the time of his life, but a lot of the startup guys—perhaps, in part, as a defense—saw riding the corporate bus as the most dismal of failures. Even Nick and Chris, who did not know contempt as a mode, were appalled at the thought. This was a somewhat self-delusional attitude, as their second-through sixth-best-case scenarios involved being acquired by one of the five giant, powerful, wealthy companies. Even if Nick and Chris survived another year, there was a good chance they'd just be surviving to put themselves in a position to get a nice signing bonus when they finally conceded to days framed by long bus commutes—just like the many other entrepreneurs who came to look at having a failed startup as an altemative to graduate school.
"Our many-billion-dollar business today," Chris said, unable to summon much enthusiasm, "is just a Trojan horse to many more billions of dollars." [...]
"Our many-billion-dollar business today," Chris said, unable to summon much enthusiasm, "is just a Trojan horse to many more billions of dollars." [...]