[Earw0rm]

There's something in this.

Startup hackers in the 80s through to mid aughts were, on the one hand, playing _for real_, but on stakes that weren't absurdly high.

They were all-in, but while on the one hand they didn't have an enormous amount to lose, they weren't that screwed if they lost it.

What I'm seeing increasingly the last 15 years or so is hyper-privileged rich kids playing at start-ups, without the same total level of commitment - but then, I can hardly blame them, they've more to lose, and you're a lot more screwed if you lose it all in 2024. The sort of people that would have started companies 30 years ago either can't afford to take the risk at all, or stay at indie/hobby business level and make no attempt to scale.