[smaccona]

I do not live or work in SV, but it's kind of interesting to me that this comment has no responses. Is that because what the parent states as being true is not actually the case, or is there some other reason why there are no responses to this comment? From my own experience with startups many moons ago (albeit on the East Coast, first Philadelphia and then New York) the parent comment rings true: it was my experience that startups totally helped each other out with (as examples) required documentation (e.g. regulatory stuff that's base-level, non-negotiable for specific spaces), tech-type things (e.g. you will probably encounter this question/problem, here's how we handled it) and other stuff too. Granted, this was in situations where the "helper" was not a direct competitor to the "helpee", but often they were at least in the same general market, otherwise the help being offered wouldn't even apply.

Edit: clarification

[taylodl]

For starters, there's two SV's: the FAANG and "2nd tier FAANG" companies and the startups. Also, the ethos of SV has changed over the decades. What started off as "let's change the world" in the 60's and 70's has led to the "let's make lots of money" ethos we see today. Things may appear the same from the trenches but they've definitely changed at the top.