[germinator]

It's easy to lash out against the VC culture, but the problem is us. We're the ones who dream of building a billion-dollar unicorn in two years - and that means entirely unsustainable efforts to build products and grow by burning heaps of VC money while constantly pitching for more.

How many founders move to the Bay Area thinking "you know, what I really want to build is a small business?" And how many HN techies would enthusiastically join a project like that?

[cmrdporcupine]

I don't get it. My experience is that techies in the original sensor of the word have always enthusiastically joined companies where they thought the technology was profoundly cool. Business size or profits have little to do with it as it is how interesting or transformational the tech is. Most of us just want to get paid to do the thing we're passionate about, and have no particular interest in entering the world of personal yachts.

In fact the desire of people to "just work on really neat tech" and have some creative influence and work outside of a big boring company is exactly what has allowed many startups to underpay and play carrot-on-stick with stock options for years.

Almost nobody is getting rich inside these "tech" startups, the options agreements are written to prevent it. Maybe the founding engineers, but nobody after that.

I feel like what has happened is that the words "startup" and "tech" have been redefined by a small segment of the population who are interested in one particular thing being described here in this thread.

But I've been around long enough to remember when it meant "a group of people getting together to make some really neat tech."

Honestly the motivations of people who started a bunch of the foundational SV ecosystem were exactly that and not "let's be billionaires" That is very much a post-Y2k mentality.