| My view of San Francisco culture as an outsider is actually quite negative now. For years I thought it was a culture very in line with my own, but after years of watching and interacting remotely with people from that scene my mind has changed. I now feel it's largely dominated by arrogance. Everyone wants to "change the world" but what they really want is fame and fortune. A San Francisco startup is hilariously not practical. The article cites working hard and living frugally, but startup culture is the opposite. It's ludicrous extremes like having pingpong tables and games and coffee baristas at work. This is not living "frugally." Worse though, is the idea that everyone is a temporarily embarrassed Steve Jobs who is good at everything, even the things they are completely ignorant of. The disdain for areas they have no expertise in is astonishing. Meanwhile, the engine fuelling all this, the VCs, have their own agenda, namely themselves. They feed the culture because it benefits them. Most will fail, most people are not Steve Jobs. But the VCs just need one or two successes to make it worth it. It's in their interest to have every possible upcoming company under their thumb. The VCs message is always clear: you won't make it without them. You won't make it without being in Silicon Valley. It's impossible. It's all very off putting and not at all like the glittering fake picture that the SV culture likes to paint. |
If a pingpong table and games are a major expense in your company, you're already dead. A barista is wasteful, unless he/she is serving coffee to hundreds of employees that would otherwise waste company time by leaving the office for a coffee break.
As an engineer, I avoid companies like the plague that refuse basic niceties in the name of saving money. It's a major indicator that it's going to be a miserable environment and you will have to fight tooth-and-nail for every piece of equipment and (even worse) raises/promotions.