There's something about this post that really bothered me. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. Partly it's that he picks a very specific dinner expe

There's something about this post that really bothered me. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. Partly it's that he picks a very specific dinner experience in Paris and generalizes it to a French dinner. Idealizes it, even. And then on the Silicon Valley side, he describes a lifestyle. And then he compares the event in Paris to the lifestyle in San Francisco. Intimate hosted dinners for a small group of acquaintances happen all the time in Silicon Valley. Business meals happen all the time in Paris. That alone is more of a weak comparison or flawed cultural commentary, but then this comes out: > Why? Silicon Valley people get bored easily. > They look around and assess who actually came to the dinner. If they do not see enough friends or if they do not see enough people they can do business with they will leave fast. Dinner invites typically say “from 6pm to 9pm” and that means you can arrive anytime in that time frame and leave anytime no-one will be offended. You can stay for 10 minutes and no-one will pay attention. You can either show up at 08h50 and just say hi then leave at 9. Everyone knows the “rule” and no-one shows before 6 and rarely stays after 9. I get the impression from this description that the actual issue is that Parisians and San Franciscans use different language to set expectations, and that the author is actually describing a difference in how the two cultures express expectations around social gatherings. But that in no way implies that people in Silicon Valley get bored easily. It just means the two cultures communicate differently, which should surprise nobody in either location. Why try to make an ambiguous cultural generalization out of it that is neutral at best and insulting at worst? The whole thing feels lazily written and uncharitable to the colorful variety of both Parisian and Silicon Valley culture. It makes me specifically think less of the author's startup that is advertised at the bottom of the post.