[csallen]

People like to traffic in hyperbole, because nuance burns calories and doesn't attract as many eyeballs.

Some describe tech as a perfect meritocracy, which of course it is not. The overreaction to that is to claim startup success merely comes down to who you know. Of course that's not true either. As far as industries go -- especially industries capable of producing millionaires, billionaires, and world-changing phenomena -- tech is absurdly high on the meritocratic scale.

[Alex3917]

> tech is absurdly high on the meritocratic scale.

While I generally agree with this, I think the reason is that success is mainly determined by how much customers like something. It's certainly not due to a lack of folks waiting around to try to take advantage of founders at every conceivable opportunity.

And with respect to VC firms, most don't even list their email addresses on their websites, and of the ones who do a lot of them openly brag about deleting every single email that doesn't come with an introduction. Many won't even tell you what industries or stage they focus on.

If venture capitalists are tired of getting shit on in the media in a way that dentists or accountants or whatever aren't, then maybe they should exhibit the same baseline professionalism as is expected in every other industry.

[awongh]

> tech is absurdly high on the meritocratic scale.

Actually I would make the distinction that tech is ridiculously far ahead of most other industries- but still very low on the scale. (if by scale we mean zero to perfect meritocracy)

Networks matter a huge amount and are dominated by a certain class and racial demographic.

At least we've begun the conversation and I believe truly meritocratic success is very possible, but those on the inside are definitely more likely to be successful that those outside. (really specifically raising a certain kind of seed or early venture funding, where some normal business metrics may be missing- (investing in the founders) )