The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder • Hacker News Board

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#41

Post by apsurd » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

schrodinger wrote: post #12

Carrok wrote: post #5

Bit of an aside but I found it somewhat amusing that one example the author uses of Jim’s financial recklessness was getting into home brewing. Home brewing is one of the cheaper hobbies available (though like all hobbies you can spend as much as you want). The only real requirements are a bucket and a pot.

How much more likely does becoming a home brewer make you to develop alcoholism, especially for someone who sounds a bit predisposed like Jim?

You must not drink or like beer. Brewing something until it ferments into alcohol is the most basic thing ever. There is the very simple problem of taste that is the issue.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#42

Post by tikhonj » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

> A few months post-acquisition, he got fired for an allegedly silly reason, but my intuition is that he was coasting hard and couldn’t focus at all because of home office and lifestyle creep.

This seems like a pretty dubious conclusion to make from the outside. There are a lot of reasons somebody would get fired after an acquisition. Hell, even if he was coasting, an acquisition followed by a rapid change in environment and culture can cause somebody to lose motivation for a wide range of reasons. Blaming this on "lifetstyle creep" is rather premature and, frankly, pretty judgemental or moralistic.

This is downstream of a pretty frustrating belief I've seen repeatedly in the tech industry: that whether a person is "motivated" or "hard working" is some kind of inherent quasi-moral characteristic of the person, rather than something substantially affected by environment. But hey, it's much easier to blame individuals and lean on the perf review process than it is to change organizational culture or leadership!

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#43

Post by polishdude20 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #39

It's really hard for me to understand that people who have the chance to achieve basic financial independence (say $1M net worth) don't take that chance and make sure to stay financially independent forever. If you do that, you're almost guaranteed to stay in the top 2% globally for the rest of your life. You've made it in life, at least financially. The approach of not taking advantage of the lucky and privileged si…

I don't think these people NW ever goes down to zero.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#44

Post by egonschiele » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

Real bummer of a story.

> He approached me because he was really into startups and wanted to become a tech entrepreneur, and make the big bucks

It's a shame that so much of tech culture has become about money. Money was always a part of it, but living in the Bay in 2010, there was more of a focus on building things. But once people started getting rich, especially off bitcoin, it brought in a whole host of people whose primary passion seemed to be money. We moved out in 2018. Still bums me out, SF was my favorite city, and I hoped to live there for a long time, but the values weren't my values anymore.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#45

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:45 PM UTC

FinnLobsien wrote: post #21

I think much of this comes down to wanting to be a type of person vs. wanting to do the actual thing. It’s easy to be consumed by “I’m the wealthy San Francisco founder guy” and doing everything that lifestyle requires, including things that may not be good for you.

That's a really good way of putting it.

I've been to some weird SF events where you immediately recognize that most people there are in their fake it till you make it stage. Then you realize that many of them aren't interested in the part where you have to do a lot of hard work, they just want to be impressive and charming to a broad network so they can insert themselves into the best opportunities that come up.

Every startup collects a couple of these hires during their growth phase. Some times it can be really hard to separate the charm, charisma, and credentials from ability to get things done. The smart founders will push these people back out, much like this Jim guy got fired from the startup he managed to get into at the right place at the right time. It doesn't happen immediately, though.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#46

Post by senorcrab » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:45 PM UTC

Ultimately this comes down VCs who fund people like this. Can we really believe the established funds look for "independent thinkers" anymore?

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#47

Post by sscaryterry » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

blobbers wrote: post #2

woah woah... a bartender becomes the head of engineering at a high flying start up? This isn't the .com. Did the bartender also go to MIT? Drug fueled founder parties? Orgies? I've clearly been doing silicon valley wrong. Or right, depending on your perspective... but not this? I've seen board game fueled parties where maybe one or two people do drugs, but it remains very nerdy? And no sex parties. Mostly sausage par…

What type of drugs? Asking for a friend.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#48

Post by camillomiller » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

Airbnb’s CEO, for example, is a Jim who got lucky

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#49

Post by camillomiller » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

egonschiele wrote: post #44

Real bummer of a story. > He approached me because he was really into startups and wanted to become a tech entrepreneur, and make the big bucks It's a shame that so much of tech culture has become about money. Money was always a part of it, but living in the Bay in 2010, there was more of a focus on building things. But once people started getting rich, especially off bitcoin, it brought in a whole host of people who…

It’s always been a travesty, it was just harder to see through it because back then morals hadn’t been completely dismantled by the last 15 years of whatever the US has become

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#50

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

egonschiele wrote: post #44

Real bummer of a story. > He approached me because he was really into startups and wanted to become a tech entrepreneur, and make the big bucks It's a shame that so much of tech culture has become about money. Money was always a part of it, but living in the Bay in 2010, there was more of a focus on building things. But once people started getting rich, especially off bitcoin, it brought in a whole host of people who…

> Money was always a part of it, but living in the Bay in 2010, there was more of a focus on building things. But once people started getting rich, especially off bitcoin, it brought in a whole host of people whose primary passion seemed to be money.

This is funny to read because I remember hearing someone complain about the exact same thing in the Bay Area, but their dates were shifted by about 10 years before yours.

I think it's kind of like Burning Man, where everyone's favorite experience was their early days when they were young. As you get older, you complain it's gone downhill and the new generation is going for all the wrong reasons.