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The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

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Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#151

Post by lubujackson »

danans wrote: post #144
vrosas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF is such a weird vibe in general. I've watched a lot of founders/tech bros go to burning man for the first time, completely miss the point of it but adopt an air of superiority for attending. I watched a founder weave in his experience on peyote into a company all hands. They also, for reasons I simply cannot fathom, go out and buy a green Range Rover. And as someone who's been in the ENM space for a long time, SF…

> They also, for reasons I simply cannot fathom, go out and buy a green Range Rover. What part is unfathomable, the Range Rover part or the green part? I ask because Range Rovers are strongly associated being quite well-off everywhere, but maybe there's something with SF and the green paint choice.

I assume it is like the 70s wood-paneling - signifying some vague commercial sense of ruggedness and nature while completely missing the mark.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#152

Post by nihsett »

lmeyerov wrote: post #89

Fwiw, without naming names, I helped someone at a hackathon make their first app on something he was passionate about, later found out he had been recently homeless living on an abandoned boat, and now years later, afaict he turned that into a $10m/yr business with ~millions of users Persistence > Intelligence , and being able to code isn't some sort of superiority thing, it's just one skill of many Edit: being able…

Being homeless doesn't mean he's not intelligent though. He could have had some really bad luck or mental illness, while otherwise being analytically smart.

But I love the anecdote and agree with your point completely. Thanks for sharing.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#153

Post by grosswait »

ip26 wrote: post #115
sfRattan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless your needs are simple, you can relocate somewhere to live very cheaply, and you don't have any dependents. As a human, your needs are simple[1]. With a $1M net worth, you can relocate somewhere to live very cheaply. And your dependents can live in that same place, also cheaply. All you need to do is show the Joneses the door out of your mind and never let them back in, nor look toward their lives in envy. [1…

If you have dependents that are children, I feel there is a moral consideration. If you have earned $1M and then take the family to live who-knows-where slowly drawing on that $1M.. will your children be able to replicate your success? Will they be able to earn their own $1M? Or will leading this new life significantly impair their prospects? To me this is the most critical problem with the "move somewhere crazy chea…

I think there is room for arguing children raised in the high flying city have been robbed of something as well. Can’t have it all and one is not objectively better than the other if you look at the full picture.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#154

Post by ip26 »

grosswait wrote: post #153
ip26 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have dependents that are children, I feel there is a moral consideration. If you have earned $1M and then take the family to live who-knows-where slowly drawing on that $1M.. will your children be able to replicate your success? Will they be able to earn their own $1M? Or will leading this new life significantly impair their prospects? To me this is the most critical problem with the "move somewhere crazy chea…

I think there is room for arguing children raised in the high flying city have been robbed of something as well. Can’t have it all and one is not objectively better than the other if you look at the full picture.

Certainly room for such discussion. However if the parent waits to first save a large sum before moving there (instead of moving there straight out of high school), their revealed preferences suggest even they do not feel the tiny village is great for young people.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#155

Post by [deleted] »

daishi55 wrote: post #126
Johanx64 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t trust anyone who has the general, abstract goal of being a “founder”. The goal isn't abstract - read it as - goal of "not being a wage-slave" and have a shot at being more. It's an ambition type of thing.

To what end though? If you want financial freedom, and you’re smart, you’re likely to be much better off just working in big tech vs trying and almost certainly failing to successfully found a company. Of course some people win the lottery, but playing the lottery isn’t a sound strategy for a good life.

[deleted]

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#156

Post by lostlogin »

rustfreeforme wrote: post #94
mattbillenstein wrote: post #31

Founder culture definitely has fraternity vibes - people with no other discernable talent other than being above average looking and having connections with other similar people end up in positions they have no real idea how to do. In other words, there are a lot of people "playing startup" in the valley - some of the VC money flows too easily and there is always going to be an ecosystem of people to try to put it to…

[flagged]

In a gold rush, sell spades.

But how do you apply that to start up San Francisco.

Sell brewing consumables? Orgy stuff? Wood tables?

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#157

Post by lostlogin »

Aurornis wrote: post #68
smuhakg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source: https://futurism.com/researcher-openai-sex-drug-parties More prison gay than anything else. I'd go down on a man for a million dollar OpenAI offer even though I'm into women. I don't think commenters here realize how desperate people can become for money.

Weird article. The original Tweet is all about the "hacker house scene" and it refers to some people she met who went on to work for OpenAI. The journalist is trying hard to tie it all back to OpenAI, but the original Tweet only mentions OpenAI as an eventual destination for some of the people involved in what she witnessed. The shared "hacker house" scene in SF is really weird, though. Especially the more you get in…

> The shared "hacker house" scene in SF is really weird, though.

The startup incubator in Silicon Valley, the tv series, was good comedy.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#159

Post by lovich »

fragmede wrote: post #52
jitl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s infinitely easier to become an alcoholic by buying alcohol at a grocery store. brewing is pretty much the least direct most delayed gratification way to get drunk. i guess it can be pretty cheap if you optimize for that but it sounds like jim made enough money and high flying friends it’s unlikely to be major factor.

Though, after you've home brewed the beer, you've now got potentially gallons of beer in a giant pot that you have to bottle yourself. Or you could be lazy and just drink it yourself. True, you could just go down to the store and grab a 30-rack of mass produced beer if you wanted to be an alcoholic, but having a vat of beer in your kitchen that isn't going to drink itself and is gonna go bad if you don't, is a differ…

You can get handles of vodka for 11 dollars. You can buy listerine for even cheaper and drink that. People brewing their own beer may be alcoholics but they are doing it for the hobby or to customize the flavor. Real down in the throes of addiction alcoholics are not becoming chemists for their fix with how cheap the mass produced stuff is.

If you want to find people doing that you look for the illegal drugs that haven't had wide spread industries drive down the price, like meth.

Re: The Silicon Valley Founder Meat Grinder

#160

Post by varjag »

la64710 wrote: post #158

In the span of just a few years, he went from nobody to a tech founder - would this have been possible if Jim was not charismatic like the way the author described including being white, tall and being part of that fraternity.

Is he white? The author mentions "exotic-looking".
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