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On the Fetishism of Capital & Prestige - Sorry Humans

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It was 2010. I was 17 years old, a Freshman at UC Berkeley, and I had found the next Billion Dollar Idea. A fellow student and I had determined that the events and ticketing industry needed to be disrupted and we were the two who were going to make it happen. All we needed to do was craft a beautiful pitch deck, raise a million bucks or so, and we would be ready to set the world on fire.

It was 2011. I was 18 years old, a Sophomore at UC Berkeley, and I had found the next World Changing Idea. Crowd-sourcing was a hot space and I determined that it was possible to create a platform which would help business minded people crowd-source the technological components of their company in exchange for equity. All I needed to do was get into Y Combinator, get written up on Techcrunch, and I would be ready to set the world on fire.

Neither company went anywhere. 

You see, I fell into the trap of the Valley; my view of entrepreneurship was completely flawed. I knew from youth that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I can't pin-point the exact time in my life that I knew that this would be my destiny, but it certainly happened before I was a teenager. I knew nothing about technology entrepreneurship, but before graduating high school I had co-founded a spectacular failure of a software company, a decently successful clothing company, and a moderately successful night club. By the time I graduated I was pretty confident that I understood how entrepreneurship worked: you identified some group of people who wanted something but didn't have it, you scrounge together your savings, and you go out try to get people to hand you their money in exchange for that thing. It all seemed challenging but pretty straightforward.

But then I went to college.

Within months of arriving at UC Berkeley I began actively reading tech news - most notably Techcrunch - and attempted to figure out how the whole tech industry worked. My whole view of entrepreneurship changed; creating the Next Big Thing was not about getting customers to hand you their money, it was about getting investors to hand you their money. If you could do that, you could get your name smeared across tech headlines and from there it was just a waiting game before you got purchased for the big bucks.

Oh the folly of youth. No, scratch that. Oh the folly of he who does not understand the world around them.

Since arriving at UC Berkeley, I have unsuccessfully launched three companies and successfully helped build technology at Modify Watches. However, it is not my direct startup experience that I value most highly, it is my understanding of Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley is masqueraded as a beautiful, magical process in which 20-somethings change the world by devoting their life to the cause and, as a side-effect, become marvelously wealthy. They persuade venture capitalists, get thousands of users by making the front page of the tech news, and everything goes according the plan. In this whimsical world, these are the goals. This is the life that thousands of young men and women attempt to achieve every single year.

This world is a lie.

The world of Silicon Valley is really much darker than this. The entire narrative of our world is crafted in such a way to masquerade the ugly truth: The Valley is not a world run by 20-somethings bringing about the future, it is a world run by the same people who run the real world - the financiers. 

Silicon Valley has perfected Investor-driven Entrepreneurship and they have convinced hoards of able-minded individuals to buy into their cause. They have convinced them that successful entrepreneurship is predicated by giving up the majority of their companies and feeding the technology paparazzi. Most who play this game get eaten alive. 

Now, I must make it exceedingly clear that I neither believe that this structure has emerged through some conscious malintent nor that every investor and entrepreneur in the Valley is playing this same game. Large amounts of capital was at some point in recent history a necessity to get a company off the ground in the tech space and, with such, investors played a pivotal role. In recent times, the rise of incubators such as Y Combinator has reduced the fetishism of capital and attempted to groom young entrepreneurs for the real world. Though, these programs do nothing to curb the lust for ego-stroking in the Valley, but this is surely a more difficult problem to solve.

It is 2013. I am 20 years old, a Junior at UC Berkeley, and I have found the Right Thing for Me. I have identified a market inefficiency in the e-commerce space and I am determined to exploit the opportunity to build a large, sustainable business. All I need to do keep refining my software, recruit more stellar team members, and continue generating revenue by satisfying my customers. Perhaps my name will appear on the front page of Tech Crunch some day. It will not happen by my own active effort. Perhaps I will make the big bucks. My co-founder, my team members, and I will be the ones who get to enjoy these niceties.

If you are thinking about starting a company in the Valley, or anywhere in the world, remember that a startup is the search for a business model. Your success is dictated by your ability to get somebody to pull out their wallets and give you money - and that somebody is not an investor. If you need to raise capital, do so but do so because you need to, not because you think it is equivalent to success. 

Go out, set the world of fire, and be prepared for a very bumpy ride. You can change the world, but you will never do so by fetishizing capital and prestige. 


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