Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

The essay by PG actually meant that there are no poor founders at all. It would be interesting to have statistics on whether poor founders fail more, or don't even get a chance to try at all. I have reasons to believe that the rare poor person is more motivated and determined than the average groomed-to-be middle class entrepreneur, and there are plenty of cases of dirt-poor persons becoming millionaires.

This was kind of my experience. I went to university two states away from where I grew up, knowing a grand total of one person there. I had the academic end more or less handled, but my first semester at university was the loneliest I've ever been in my life. I made good grades, but otherwise I was miserable, depressed and lonely.

It's easy to meet people in high school. Most high schools are small compared to major universities, and you have classes with those in your grade. Many of them you've been around for years. But now you're thrown into a new setting, with thousands of people. It's hard to make that transition from high school friendships to college friendships.

I spent my freshman fall pretty much just going to class and straight back to my dorm. On the weekends I would go to the football game, but that was it. The rest of the time I watched TV or played on the Internet. It was probably the loneliest I've ever been in my life and, as Christmas came that year I was seriously questioning whether or not I wanted to continue at my university. I had moved two states and five hours away, just to sit around and be lonely.

I told myself going back from Christmas if Spring semester wasn't any better I was going to transfer back home. Well, spring rolls around and one of the guys I'd sat next to in the intro to engineering class invited me to rush his fraternity.

Whut? I had been pretty vehemently anti-Greek; I was a nerdy computer science guy who liked roleplaying games and science fiction movies - not really what I assumed "frat" material was. So my first inclination was to say no thank you.

But I then I stopped myself. "What's the worst that could happen?" I asked myself. "The worst that happens is I don't like it, and I've wasted a few hours. No matter what, it beats sitting in my dorm room, in the dark, mindlessly surfing the web."

So I did it. And it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.

I met so many amazing, awesome people it blew my mind. The guy that ended up being my big brother (for non-fraternity folks, think of a big brother as a mentor) could have been my twin separated at birth - we shared so many arcane interests (including roleplaying games and science fiction movies - we had a chapter D&D campaign running by the end of the semester).

I was eventually initiated, and throughout the remainder of college, the fraternity was a big part of my social life. It was instrumental in breaking me out of my shell and grounded me in the university community. I ended up graduating, having never again considered transferring. And I learned so many valuable social and leadership skills thanks to being involved in the fraternity.

Fast forward 15 years, and the people I met in the fraternity are still some of my best and closest friends. I still do a couple of concerts a year with group of brothers, and have ever since we were in college together. My big brother was the best man in my wedding a few years back and I was the best man in his wedding last year. Several other brothers were groomsmen as well. Several brothers drove up for my daughter's baptism a couple years, and we still go to gatherings once a year or so.

About eight years ago one of the brothers had his house burn down. We all pulled together and filled up a pickup truck worth of supplies to get them him and family through the tough time until insurance kicked in.

A group of four of us have a long running iMessage group that sees thousands of messages a year, especially involving our sports programs. When I'm watching football, I'm usually doing it with one window on the game and another on the chat window as we follow along. It's like being with your friends at the pub.

And it goes without saying that brothers end up getting jobs from other brothers. I think I know people in every conceivable industry at this point thanks to having met them at university.

Pretty much every major event of my life since I pledged, fraternity brothers have been a part of. All because I took a risk on something I thought I might not like but decided to try anyway. I'm glad I was wrong.

So yes, those raucous parties and silly rituals do serve a purpose. We're social creatures by nature and it's a way of building up your social life, and blowing off the stress of school. Universities are institutions of learning, yes, but we're not there just to learn 24/7, just like I'm not at my job now 24/7. These things are fun, and they build up your social network.

Excellent article by the writer. Apologies for the long post, however hope it is helpful for someone in similar situation. I can relate to many things that he has faced and feel incredibly lucky to not have faced some things that he had to.

I grew up in a small town in a poor family in India as eldest of four siblings. Our monthly budget was 20 dollars and things were really tight. However my dad worked really hard 16 hours every day and made sure that my studies do not get hindered. He told me every single day that with hard work I can achieve anything that I can dream of.

I got into IIT Bombay (one of the most prestigious colleges in India). However it was obvious to me, that I need to get a decent paying job right after school to support siblings and my dad who couldn't do 16 hours any more.

It took my the next 8 years working for others, to save enough to pay for the studies and marriage of me and my siblings and to help my dad retire.

During these 8 years, I built and ran the biggest social network to come of of India. Apart from this also built something which is now the Twilio of India. I was also the part of the team which built the current mobile offering at LinkedIn.

If I had financial stability, I would have started working on mine own ventures 3 years into my career. But it took 5 more years. As soon as I had financial stability, I quit LinkedIn (with 2.5 years of stock unvested) to start a company.

I started a company, where we had incredible opportunities. We built something like Slack for consumers around the same time as Slack. However, being on H1 visa, I was a minority stake holder in the company. And it is a bad situation to be in, if your traction is not already proven. It made sense to exit the company, so we sold it to Dropbox in an acqui-hire.

Dropbox treated me really well. I met some of the smartest people I have ever met over there and it can be a great place to work for many people. However, I soon realized that it wasn't a good fit for me. Such companies are very top driven, there is little creative freedom, and most of the work is cleaning up the tangled code developed over 7-8 years. So I quit Dropbox after an year.

Now I am in a job that gives me more creative freedom and I am pretty happy on that front. Meanwhile, I have been sole advisor for a few companies over the past 2-3 years and they are all profitable and didn't need to raise any money. The entrepreneur in me, keeps me raring to go and start another company. However, because I am on H1 visa, I do not want build another company with minority stake at formation (USCIS rules). To fix this, I would need to get a Green Card. However if you are from India, it will take you 8-10 years to get a Green Card in EB-2.

So the next steps are either move from US, or find a way to get a Green Card on EB-1. If anyone knows any good immigration lawyers, please help introduce.

However, related to the original post. In spite of motivation, talent and hard work; financial situation and immigration (in my case) play a big role in your entrepreneurship journey.