[rgbrgb]

I disagree with the premise that these apps exist to make a small group of people money...

1) Nobody's working on this kind of stuff just for the money, and if they are then they've lied to a lot of people and are fucking up. If you're a strong engineer with good quantitative skills, the expected value of working on wall street, working at googazonsoft, or even becoming a realtor in the bay (if you have the soft skills) is much higher than striking out on your own to create something new. A technical founder I met from one of these companies could have easily done one of these other things but felt really passionate about improving our relationship to food. I really doubt there's a money grubbing evil genius working on food sharing apps in order to amass great wealth and power.

2) You can't really manipulate society with $50M of facebook ads and no product (and I think that's more than any of these companies have raised). If you're making a consumer app and it's not something people want, there's no "marketing, combined with PR, government relations, and legal" that's going to get them to use it and "conform to the goals of the business".

IDK, maybe I'm just a dumb optimist but I'm excited about what the future holds for this stuff.

[ceejayoz]

> If you're a strong engineer with good quantitative skills, the expected value of working on wall street, working at googazonsoft, or even becoming a realtor in the bay (if you have the soft skills) is much higher than striking out on your own to create something new.

With an essentially zero chance of becoming a billionaire.

If you're driven by the desire to become a billionaire, startups it is.

[rgbrgb]

You have essentially zero chance either way, but I'd guess that more billionaires are finance guys like Warren Buffet, no?

[ceejayoz]

It took Buffet 28 years to go from millionaire to billionaire. I'm not sure that appeals to the folks who are in startups hoping to get rich fast.

[rm_-rf_slash]

He is also a US Senator's son and took advantage of his family's many connections to get his startup capital. He was also born at the right time to take advantage of postwar prosperity.

Without those advantages, it's almost laughable to replicate that career path