[omarkatzen]

People still generally want to help people succeed.

Doubt it. Rents and house prices are at a record high due to horrible NIMBY regulations and no one's doing a damn thing about it. Startup equity slices are tiny, and the old Silicon Valley guarantee (that working for a startup meant the founders would take a personal interest in setting you up to be a founder in your next gig) is long gone. VCs are funding lots of well-connected rich idiots, but if you don't come from the "right" social milieu, it's nearly impossible to get.

What used to be a quirky and different society is now a shitty knock-off of Manhattan that copies its worst parts but none of its good ones.

Few cold call anymore, but that's more because we've got better things than phones.

s/call/email/g. You know what I mean. Obviously calling someone you don't know is considered pretty rude these days.

[wpietri]

Evidence? I don't see any of that as worse than 15 years ago except the rents. And that I'd blame on demand spikes more than nimbyism.