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I went to school out East and work out west, and consumer tech is way more of a NYC thing than a Bay Area thing because the personas and professional networks are out there. West Coast is also enterprise or business tech driven, but those founders aren't as media friendly or sexy despite being the majority (hence the Musks and increasingly Altmans hogging the limelight). Boston has potential, but it honestly isn't leveraging it. The elitism is rife to a level unlike in California. A NU, BU, or UMass Amherst founder isn't going to be in the same circles as the Harvard and MIT founders who can leverage the I-Lab or Engine and HBS+Sloan resources, but in the Bay Area, a UCB, UCSC, SJSU, and Stanford kid will all be in the same professional circles. CIC tried, but they are trash. At one point, most startups in Greater Boston were basically Israeli companies using it as a US HQ because of the El Al direct and the large Israeli diaspora (throw a rock and you'll hit a Cafe Landwer). Everything is tied up to elitism and old structure institutions out East (where did you study) while out West it's much more output driven (where do you work). Works well for it's biotech innovation space though, which Boston is known for. (ironically, I liked DC except the humidity - way less stick up their butt, but they also have a bohemian streak) |
Awhile ago, to students at MIT, I mentioned suspiciously "MIT shop" companies, and said that, if you don't think there's people at Northeastern who could hold their own, then recalibrate worldview.
There's absolutely a lot of elitism around certain NE schools known around the world, agreed. Those schools actively promote it, and it's evident in some post-graduation things, including companies.
But I also see variations on that elitism around Stanford, Google, and some other Bay Area icons.
One difference between the elitism I notice most commonly around MIT, and around Bay Area, is that MIT's version is often about having survived a trial by fire, and being uniquely stronger due to that (not that I fully agree). Bay Area versions more often come across as less-secure reaching for and clinging to symbols of status, and nurturing artificial frat-like exclusivity. (Clinging to Leetcode hazing rituals is just one example.)
Of course, on an individual person level, you'll find a lot of smart and thoughtful people who don't subscribe to the elitism -- maybe the majority of people who could claim the same exclusive club as the elitists. And some of the smartest people are the most humble in thought and manner. But elitism does seep into a lot of things.
I suppose that club elitism might also be involved in some of the more arrogant actions you see affecting large swaths of society, separate from money/power motivations. The Bay Area sure does have a lot of that arrogance, sometimes labeling it "disrupt". (But maybe most often "disrupt" is more about grabbing money/power, than a genuine but arrogant belief that one can and should make decisions for society. Maybe all that matters to some is that they can, and anything else, like "changing the world [for better/worse, who cares]" is rationalization that's been blessed as virtuous.)