Ambitious teenagers are flooding into San Francisco
stories.californiasunday.com
stories.californiasunday.com
That's not a thing. Don't believe everything that random comedians make up.
Sure is! Lived there for a year and a half. First saw Rachel (of rachelbythebay.com) use it and was like "holy crap, that's a perfect description!"
I certainly did not deserve downvotes for speaking the truth. It's not a thing, it's not widely used, it's a recent one-off joke -- and if you want to make fun of silicon valley (which of course has many faults), "silly" is simply not what this place is like.
The fact you've become so offended at an online message board comment word joke supports the entire point of your environment being ridiculous, out of touch, and, dare we say, silly.
> "silly" is simply not what this place is like.
what.
> supports the entire point of your environment being ridiculous,
"Ridiculous" is in fact a much better word for it.
> > "silly" is simply not what this place is like.
> what.
Silly implies things like light-heartedness. Silicon Valley's faults are not light-hearted. At its worst it can feel like a dungeon, not something amusing.
;)
Which is why I called bullshit in the first place. Now take your ego elsewhere.
I'm honestly glad I got to go to college. Those were the best years of my life, and I can't imagine voluntarily missing out on them, not even for a six-figure sum. I'm also introverted enough that the idea of having eight roommates just horrifies me...
Fortunately, I didn't bother going. Had all the fun, none of the responsibilities, and my life has only gotten better in the decades since that time.
Perhaps this is partly from the excitement of being out on your own for the first time in life, so it's less about college than being "college aged." Then again, the real-life network effect of being surrounded by thousands of other exuberant young people can't be discredited entirely.
The big reason that I'm glad I went to college is because I went through so many changes as a person in terms of my goals and interests, and so many of those changes were informed by the people around me (including the woman who would later become my wife). If I hadn't gone to college (or even if I had just gone to a different college), then I'd be a very different person than I am today.
And obviously, that can't be generalized into anything meaningful; if I had gone to a different college, then I'd be a very different person but that different person might be perfectly happy doing whatever they do, possibly even happier than I am. But if I hadn't gone to college at all, I wouldn't have had that exposure to different people and I wouldn't have decided to explore a number of hobbies that ended up defining who I would become. I wasn't happy with I was out of high school, and the idea of never being shaken out of that is terrifying.
If you have a way to change up your environment and expose yourself to new things outside the structure of college, then I can easily believe you can get all the benefits that I got without the responsibilities or the cost. College just happens to provide an easy framework for that happen.
I agree that anybody who says "college was the best years of my life", similar to people who say "high school was the best years of my life" to be profoundly sad; I had a total blast in college and while there were some low points immediately after graduation, I'm very excited about where my life has gone and where I can see it going in the future.
Also, I had eight roommates one year in college (technically, seven roommates, plus one guy crashing on our couch), and it was truly horrifying.
I always thought the competition would be overwhelming, but if you know what's up, it is actually easier to find a job here since SF is drowning in this 'fresh talent' that is so dangerous to companies not looking for a quick buck, but rather to establish a viable business model.
What does that even mean? Watch them work? Watch their wacky bro antics after work? Watch them work while bro'ing down?
That said, I do wonder what the success rate of the youngster is. Would I let my son go to a hacker house (or whatever you want to call it) instead of college?
I wonder how many of them will still be working in tech at 35.
(My uncle was kinda like that... got into the industry at an early age, was a big name on the Internet in the early 90s -- he was even listed in some of those old "Internet directories" and owned [our last name].com for the rest of his life -- and then he burned out, quit the tech industry, and became a cab driver... he ultimately became an alcoholic and died in his fifties)
Some people have gotten incredibly wealthy following dropping out (Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Page [Phd dropout], Steve Jobs)--and I think there may some sort of category mistake in equating that smart + dropout = success. That said, each of these people were well educated to begin with. There is likely a fair bit of truth in that the education experience isn't for everyone, and I would support those individuals in doing their own things--though I would caution against short-circuiting a growth process.
I'm still a student finishing my B.Sc., so I'm not free of bias. It appears as though these guys are doing something right given their successes so far. I'd be curious to sit down and share a beer with a few of them to better understand what makes it all tick.
[0] https://stories.californiasunday.com/data/files/organization...
"Hey I wanna get a photo of you doing hacker shit! Open some terminals"
"oh shit, oh shit, uhh, I guess I can apt-get update, that will look cool."
edit: that might be pacman, not sure.
I did end up making the judgment that deeply studying CS in my 4 years at Berkeley would help me in the long run.
Only at a few points in history are there opportunities like this. Do it while you can. It may not come around again in a lifetime.
Sounds like the same reasons we send young people to fight in wars. No spouse or kids to care for, easy to get excited about "the adventure," and, as a result, easy to exploit.
<\cynic-hat>
Personally if I had it to do over I would take my chances at being exploited in SV over the career prospects of doing things by the book in middle America; and fwiw I'm saying this as a college-educated late-comer to Silicon Valley (8 years ago at 28).
It certainly reads that way, though the bands that played at Woodstock were already successful. The way I see it: more like youngsters rushing to Hollywood to get into films except this time with a bit of luck, talent and product have a better chance at making to the top.
A positive article.
Deepak Jeevan Kumar: "a principal at General Catalyst Partners, led sessions at Interact, encouraging attendees to work in unsexy enterprise industries like cloud computing, which he thinks need new ideas. “The way that I would sum it up is that the intellectual curiosity of humans goes down as we start aging,” he told me. “Intellectual curiosity is correlated with imagination and ability to take risk. So that, combined with the fact that experience is mattering less and less to be an entrepreneur”"
Shite VC's say.
A big plus is that even if they fail, many still have family support so they can just go back home and go to school a little later. Even if this is just another gold rush, this is a great opportunity for them with little to no downside risk.
Edit: about the Thiel money: it'd be nice to see a lot more people with the means doing this. 20 people isn't exactly scaling.
> “One thing I’m really bothered by is the insularity of tech — it’s narrowing,” he said. “It’s pretty much all white dudes. It’s a fake bubble with a bunch of money, and we just go with it.”
This just feels right.
Never forget: $5.7 billion dollars just burnt for fun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast.com
That might be the most cringey opening quote I've ever read for an article. Straight out of Silicon Valley (the show). The only explanation I can come up with is that the reporter knows nothing about tech and the kid was trolling her.
What's great is that the show doesn't need to make anything up. I'm not surprised if teens in the area speak like that.
Personally, I think this kind of transparency is necessary. We might live in a fairy tale, but there are truths to be found in the harsher realities.
Edit: better english
The reporter (Nellie Bowles) has been covering Silicon Valley for a number of years, most recently for Recode (she wrote a great series of articles about Zappos' attempt to revitalise Las Vegas). She knows whereof she speaks.
I wonder what he did with the other 23.5 hours that day...
Thank you so much.