Startups typically have a lower age average. Younger people have a different drinking culture. Startups reflect that culture. When the founders themselves have

Startups typically have a lower age average. Younger people have a different drinking culture. Startups reflect that culture. When the founders themselves have just dropped out of college (or graduated from it) and most employees are of a similar age with a similar background, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone when those companies have a culture that strongly resembles that of college life. External funding magnifies this phenomenon (because if you don't have to sustain the company by being profitable you can get away with behaviour that would otherwise seriously impact your profitability). This is nothing new and it's not about drinking. Look at startups during the dot-com bubble: at Netscape some people actually lived in the office (at least during some critical periods of the company). Only a few years ago there was a large concern over "brogrammers" who introduced a sexualised, physical fitness oriented "bro" culture into programming communities (especially Ruby, because a lot of startups were heavily invested in Rails). I'm not saying this is good or bad. I'm not saying excessive drinking (or sexism) isn't a problem. I just don't think looking at it as an isolated startup problem only gives an incomplete perspective. And I'm saying that as someone from a country that considers America's frat and "spring break" tradition extremely weird (beer is 16+ in Germany and student loans don't exist to the same degree as in the US, so "spring break" usually just means working a lot).