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...including this article, which pivots from Cernovich to Silicon Valley to politics and Trump. A far more interesting discussion would have been about the ram

...including this article, which pivots from Cernovich to Silicon Valley to politics and Trump. A far more interesting discussion would have been about the rampant neurosis of above-average (nationally speaking) educated young people in tech that rate themselves as being better than they actually are, leading to a deathly fear of failure and accountability (leading to "pivoting"), perhaps (IMO) coming from the psychological reluctance to take a good hard look in the mirror and admit that they are not as good/better than others as they think they are.

leroy_masochist 9y ago
Wish I could upvote this one twice. The weight of expectations on the shoulders of talented young people, ginned up by years of ersatz "success" in getting good grades and getting into college and getting more good grades and maybe even getting some seed funding -- this is the real "invisible hand" of SV. I feel like people in my parents' generation were acculturated to be happy with a house, a steady job, a car in the driveway, and beer in the fridge. Our generation by contrast seems as if it is populated by people who will consider themselves a massive disappointment if they don't turn out to be the next Zuck.
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  Or, as my dad has repeatedly said to me "why can't you make something like Facebook and be rich?"
  - thomasjudge 9y ago
    https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-...
    - mjevans 9y ago
      While I think the infographics of that article are pretty accurate, I believe that this article doesn't benefit from the recent focus on income inequality and the massive schism of the 1% of the 1% from the other 99.99% of the population. I agree that expectations are a little unrealistic, particularly with anyone born after the early 90s, but also for many born after the late 70s. However the quality of life, slack time, and slack resources for happiness that other generations did experience during periods of prosperity are measurably lacking today. It is not unrealistic to feel unhappy about this; but what continues to amaze me is how ignorantly and emotionally many vote. Blatantly ignoring candidates who's platforms are arguably better able to deliver successful change in favor of candidates who sell them an easy bubble of illusions.
      - PeachPlum 9y ago
        Platforms offering change are abundant. Platforms that delivered change not so. I'm curious as to how you are so sure you can distinguish illusion.
        _Tev 9y ago
        You can easily distinguish what is clearly an illusion or lie that is not going to work. But you're right that recognizing which platform will actually work is very hard.
        PeachPlum 9y ago
        When it comes to economics one can find a plausable theory from a Nobel Prize winner to fit numerous competing platforms. And social science isn't as solid as that. I would say there are more equivocal problems than unequivocal and society looks for a leader to make gut feeling decisions. The only discriminator is the success of previous gut feeling decisions or even "it went wrong but it sounded good".
    - CM30 9y ago
      Oh hey, it's that comic. Was wondering what it was. However, as accurate as it is for the overly ambitious (an old saying I had about the social media part was that 'millionaires are overrepresented on the internet'), I feel it (and a lot of people online in general) are a bit confused about how many young people/generation Y folks/millenials/whatever else are super ambitious. Because I don't think the large majority of young people are all as ambitious as the media likes to make out. I feel a large percentage of them are pretty content with a comfortable life in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a dog. They're either happy with their decently well yet convenient job or would be quite happy to get one so long as it pays for a beer or two at the weekend. What I do think is that the 'super ambitious' image is itself filtered by most writers working in a tech or media bubble. Of course they think younger generations are incredibly ambitious and not happy with anything less than being millionaires; they're working in industries where those who go into them have that mindset. Just keep in mind there still are a decent amount of people who just want to have an enjoyable life with a steady paycheck rather than to gamble everything on the hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.
  - briholt 9y ago
    I grew up trying to make something like Facebook and be rich while my dad (and everyone else) told me to graduate and get a 9-5 job. The times have certainly changed.
    - pipio21 9y ago
      I graduated and became entrepreneur and have meet so many incredible entrepreneurs, some of them in their 80s I do not believe times have changed. Being young and wanting to be on your own and make something special the world has never seen, even with high risks involved and your family wanting you not to suffer, getting a safe job is as old as the wheel. I had my family against me on my decision to create my companies because it was extremely painful at first. Then when things start running and you earn dozens of times what they do they change views. What happens is that every young person believes she is the master of the Universe and the world starts with her. In some ways is true, your world starts when you are born.
  - pipio21 9y ago
    The interesting thing is that most people can be rich, in the sense of being financial independent from anybody and do amazing living all her life, having way more than they need, traveling all around the world, have wonderful relationships... but being the next billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is completely unreasonable. You don't need creating a Facebook but something 3000 times smaller and probably will be way happier, first because it is on reach and second because you enjoy the ride every day, not living a miserable live until you are billionaire(it will never happen because miserable life will burn and destroy you over time).
    - monktastic1 9y ago
      Most people alive today can be financially independent, having way more than they need, and traveling all around the world? I'm genuinely curious about your reasons for thinking so.
  - morgtheborg 9y ago
    My entire family speaks of what they'll do with my money when the startup I work at "makes it big". I think they're 90% joking. But that's still 10%. I have literally gotten into fights with my Mom where she wants a GUARANTEE that if I make over x amount I will give her y amount. I just keep repeating, "This is all hypothetical, let's not discuss it" as she gets more and more upset about not locking me in. Extraordinary.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    It's hard to imagine dads didn't always say that to their sons. I wonder how many people spent the turn of the 20th century trying to become the next Andrew Carnegie.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Same here. Asked by my mother, "why wasn't it you who created YouTube?". This was pre Google acquisition. I remember just staring at her for a moment, as my mother is a very sensible woman, and then just shaking my head and saying, "Mum, you realise that YouTube bleeds money don't you? It's not a real business. You can't pay for free video streaming with banner ads, that doesn't work as a business model". There's definitely a lack of understanding in older generations of how wealth creation in tech works, and it's definitely due to the flood of irresponsible VC money sloshing around the Valley. Good luck trying to get investment to do a YouTube anywhere but California: even the most basic questions like "if nobody buys you, will you make money" would rule you out right away.
    - CM30 9y ago
      > Good luck trying to get investment to do a YouTube anywhere but California: even the most basic questions like "if nobody buys you, will you make money" would rule you out right away. Yep, I know this one all too well. When I tried to get a Silicon Valley esque startup funded in London, I found that a lot of accelerators and investors were simply more interested in B2B service businesses where they could be sure of immediate revenue. The only reason so many large platforms and businesses got started over in the valley is because the investors there are willing to take chances on a company or idea with no real proven business model on the assumption that it'll find one when it becomes popular enough. Investors in other places will be a hell of lot more skeptical.
- Swizec 9y ago
  We are a generation of people who reach 28/29 and chide themselves for still not being millionaire entrepreneurs all the while bragging on instagram about that bowl of pasta we cooked last night all by ourselves. Didn’t even buy premade sauce!
  - bbctol 9y ago
    If you know a lot of people like this, that says more about you than this "generation."
    - Swizec 9y ago
      It’s a simile, you can replace “proud of small trivial thing” with other small trivial things if you don’t like pasta. And you can replace “big huge goal” with any other goal if you don’t like millionaires. Everyone’s a critic, read between the lines man
      - bbctol 9y ago
        Right... I'm in my 20s and really don't know a lot of people like that.
  - morgtheborg 9y ago
    That is hilariously accurate.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  The worst thing about this mindset is that at the same time support systems like health care and pensions don't keep up so if you don't make it rich (which most of us won't) you will be much worse off than previous generations. They built systems for the average guy to have a decent life. Not so much anymore.
- tareqak 9y ago
  Isn't some of this responsibility upon the shoulders of parents too? It wasn't children who decided that "keeping up with the Joneses" was the way to live [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses I apologize if my line of questioning comes across as hostile, but I do take issue with the even the whiff of the concept that parents can do no wrong, both personally and conceptually. In contrast, I do think that children shouldn't be held responsible for the mistakes and misdeeds of their parents.
  - cicero 9y ago
    Even if the parents are the cause of the problem, it is still better for the children to recognize the problem and change their lives accordingly.
    - tareqak 9y ago
      I agree with what you are saying, but I think that incorrectly attributing the problem to one actor instead of another has chances of: 1) making it more difficult to identify the problem 2) affecting the path taken towards resolving the problem for the worse 3) making the person whose problem it now is to resolve the problem that they grew into less willing to do so. I think that everyone should honestly own their successes and failures because, quite frankly, there is enough blame to go around, and not enough people willing to take ownership of the failures that they were responsible for.
  - leroy_masochist 9y ago
    I think on the aggregate, parents bear a lot of responsibility for my generation being this way, but there are other factors at play as well, the following two being the most significant in my opinion: - People (somewhat accurately) seeing elite college as the most surefire way to ensure membership in the high end of the earnings spectrum, and therefore organizing their kids' preteen/teenage lives around getting into college, molding kids' psyches into a process-driven, check-the-box orientation (i.e., do the following list of things to a specified standard and you will get into a great school and then everything will be OK) - The role of social media / constantly sharing details of one's life with one's entire network, which, as the Wait but Why comic posted in this thread eloquently describes, is generally more unhealthy than healthy
- jazzyk 9y ago
  That's because these days it is very hard to get even a starter house (in a good neighborhood) even having a steady job. And I have not seen too many steady jobs in high-tech. The only option to get ahead is to either play the lottery or "do a startup" (pretty much like lottery)
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Because people in your parents' generation had it easy. The post-WWII boom allowed even those without college degrees to find well-paying jobs, keep and advance in those jobs for decades without having to job-hop every few years just for a meager raise, and retire with nice pensions. The situation is very different today.
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devmunchies 9y ago
> Which brings us to Donald Trump, a man who many commentators believe to be constitutionally incapable of pivoting of course... why shouldn't President Trump be brought up in every article? I also would have liked to see a more creative article.
nostrademons 9y ago
Neither of these are particularly useful worldviews. Just do things, observe how they turn out, and then try to do them better. The reason "pivot" has spread throughout the lexicon is because it better describes reality today. What does "failure" even mean, that you ceased to exist when things didn't work out? No, of course not - when things don't work out, you're still here, you go and do something else, hopefully with the benefit of experience. And similarly, what does it even mean to be "better than they actually are"? As if there's this national ranking scale of people from bad to good? The idea is nonsensical - people have different standards for what constitutes "good", and your only responsibility is to lead a life that you can feel good about by your standards.
- phoenixstrike 9y ago
  I'm sorry, but your response is a perfect example of exactly what I'm talking about, it almost seems scripted. "What does 'failure' even mean..." Really? Seriously? Failure means admitting and acknowledging that you were wrong, that you things didn't work out the way you expected them to, and taking responsibility for it, instead of treating it as just another tick in a line of never-ending experiences that you "learn" and "iterate" from. I'm not disparaging learning from mistakes, but a more subtle difference: that sometimes you just have to admit that you were totally off course and that the only thing you can learn the situation is that you should throw away everything you thought you knew and go back to square one. You say "pivot" better describes reality? That is the problem. In your worldview, it is acceptable to just change direction in the face of failure. No, sometimes you have to go backwards, and the inability of young people to admit this or understand this is the problem. I don't even know where to begin with your second point. Suffice it to say that the world is not some cuddly place where everyone is a winner and everyone gets an award for participation. To think otherwise is to live in fantasy -- indeed, a fantasy world where you can always feel good about your life according to your standards.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    "Failure" usually has a connotation of finality that's unnecessary today. You can admit that you were wrong and adjust course without being a failure. I recognize that you probably think I'm an idiot or terribly misguided or just denying of reality. In my mind, you just haven't gotten it yet - I didn't always think like this, but I came to accept it after much effort, both because it makes me happier and because it's actually led to more success, by your definition, than believing that some people are just smarter and more capable than others. But that's okay - either you will or you won't come to accept it, and either way it doesn't really affect me, and that's the other half of my point: we each set our personal standards and have our own lens through which we see the world, and that's fine.
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kamaal 9y ago
So your point is people are either genius or they must simply resign to fate, do nothing to improve their lives or chase a good career, and must simply give up and go flip burgers at McDonalds? Being persistent at something, and then course correcting on feedback is how any under dog ever does anything.

leroy_masochist 9y ago

Wish I could upvote this one twice. The weight of expectations on the shoulders of talented young people, ginned up by years of ersatz "success" in getting good grades and getting into college and getting more good grades and maybe even getting some seed funding -- this is the real "invisible hand" of SV. I feel like people in my parents' generation were acculturated to be happy with a house, a steady job, a car in the driveway, and beer in the fridge. Our generation by contrast seems as if it is populated by people who will consider themselves a massive disappointment if they don't turn out to be the next Zuck.

PeachPlum 9y ago
Or, as my dad has repeatedly said to me "why can't you make something like Facebook and be rich?"
- thomasjudge 9y ago
  https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-...
  - mjevans 9y ago
    While I think the infographics of that article are pretty accurate, I believe that this article doesn't benefit from the recent focus on income inequality and the massive schism of the 1% of the 1% from the other 99.99% of the population. I agree that expectations are a little unrealistic, particularly with anyone born after the early 90s, but also for many born after the late 70s. However the quality of life, slack time, and slack resources for happiness that other generations did experience during periods of prosperity are measurably lacking today. It is not unrealistic to feel unhappy about this; but what continues to amaze me is how ignorantly and emotionally many vote. Blatantly ignoring candidates who's platforms are arguably better able to deliver successful change in favor of candidates who sell them an easy bubble of illusions.
    - PeachPlum 9y ago
      Platforms offering change are abundant. Platforms that delivered change not so. I'm curious as to how you are so sure you can distinguish illusion.
      - _Tev 9y ago
        You can easily distinguish what is clearly an illusion or lie that is not going to work. But you're right that recognizing which platform will actually work is very hard.
        PeachPlum 9y ago
        When it comes to economics one can find a plausable theory from a Nobel Prize winner to fit numerous competing platforms. And social science isn't as solid as that. I would say there are more equivocal problems than unequivocal and society looks for a leader to make gut feeling decisions. The only discriminator is the success of previous gut feeling decisions or even "it went wrong but it sounded good".
  - CM30 9y ago
    Oh hey, it's that comic. Was wondering what it was. However, as accurate as it is for the overly ambitious (an old saying I had about the social media part was that 'millionaires are overrepresented on the internet'), I feel it (and a lot of people online in general) are a bit confused about how many young people/generation Y folks/millenials/whatever else are super ambitious. Because I don't think the large majority of young people are all as ambitious as the media likes to make out. I feel a large percentage of them are pretty content with a comfortable life in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a dog. They're either happy with their decently well yet convenient job or would be quite happy to get one so long as it pays for a beer or two at the weekend. What I do think is that the 'super ambitious' image is itself filtered by most writers working in a tech or media bubble. Of course they think younger generations are incredibly ambitious and not happy with anything less than being millionaires; they're working in industries where those who go into them have that mindset. Just keep in mind there still are a decent amount of people who just want to have an enjoyable life with a steady paycheck rather than to gamble everything on the hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.
- briholt 9y ago
  I grew up trying to make something like Facebook and be rich while my dad (and everyone else) told me to graduate and get a 9-5 job. The times have certainly changed.
  - pipio21 9y ago
    I graduated and became entrepreneur and have meet so many incredible entrepreneurs, some of them in their 80s I do not believe times have changed. Being young and wanting to be on your own and make something special the world has never seen, even with high risks involved and your family wanting you not to suffer, getting a safe job is as old as the wheel. I had my family against me on my decision to create my companies because it was extremely painful at first. Then when things start running and you earn dozens of times what they do they change views. What happens is that every young person believes she is the master of the Universe and the world starts with her. In some ways is true, your world starts when you are born.
- pipio21 9y ago
  The interesting thing is that most people can be rich, in the sense of being financial independent from anybody and do amazing living all her life, having way more than they need, traveling all around the world, have wonderful relationships... but being the next billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is completely unreasonable. You don't need creating a Facebook but something 3000 times smaller and probably will be way happier, first because it is on reach and second because you enjoy the ride every day, not living a miserable live until you are billionaire(it will never happen because miserable life will burn and destroy you over time).
  - monktastic1 9y ago
    Most people alive today can be financially independent, having way more than they need, and traveling all around the world? I'm genuinely curious about your reasons for thinking so.
- morgtheborg 9y ago
  My entire family speaks of what they'll do with my money when the startup I work at "makes it big". I think they're 90% joking. But that's still 10%. I have literally gotten into fights with my Mom where she wants a GUARANTEE that if I make over x amount I will give her y amount. I just keep repeating, "This is all hypothetical, let's not discuss it" as she gets more and more upset about not locking me in. Extraordinary.
- gozur88 9y ago
  It's hard to imagine dads didn't always say that to their sons. I wonder how many people spent the turn of the 20th century trying to become the next Andrew Carnegie.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Same here. Asked by my mother, "why wasn't it you who created YouTube?". This was pre Google acquisition. I remember just staring at her for a moment, as my mother is a very sensible woman, and then just shaking my head and saying, "Mum, you realise that YouTube bleeds money don't you? It's not a real business. You can't pay for free video streaming with banner ads, that doesn't work as a business model". There's definitely a lack of understanding in older generations of how wealth creation in tech works, and it's definitely due to the flood of irresponsible VC money sloshing around the Valley. Good luck trying to get investment to do a YouTube anywhere but California: even the most basic questions like "if nobody buys you, will you make money" would rule you out right away.
  - CM30 9y ago
    > Good luck trying to get investment to do a YouTube anywhere but California: even the most basic questions like "if nobody buys you, will you make money" would rule you out right away. Yep, I know this one all too well. When I tried to get a Silicon Valley esque startup funded in London, I found that a lot of accelerators and investors were simply more interested in B2B service businesses where they could be sure of immediate revenue. The only reason so many large platforms and businesses got started over in the valley is because the investors there are willing to take chances on a company or idea with no real proven business model on the assumption that it'll find one when it becomes popular enough. Investors in other places will be a hell of lot more skeptical.
Swizec 9y ago
We are a generation of people who reach 28/29 and chide themselves for still not being millionaire entrepreneurs all the while bragging on instagram about that bowl of pasta we cooked last night all by ourselves. Didn’t even buy premade sauce!
- bbctol 9y ago
  If you know a lot of people like this, that says more about you than this "generation."
  - Swizec 9y ago
    It’s a simile, you can replace “proud of small trivial thing” with other small trivial things if you don’t like pasta. And you can replace “big huge goal” with any other goal if you don’t like millionaires. Everyone’s a critic, read between the lines man
    - bbctol 9y ago
      Right... I'm in my 20s and really don't know a lot of people like that.
- morgtheborg 9y ago
  That is hilariously accurate.
maxxxxx 9y ago
The worst thing about this mindset is that at the same time support systems like health care and pensions don't keep up so if you don't make it rich (which most of us won't) you will be much worse off than previous generations. They built systems for the average guy to have a decent life. Not so much anymore.
tareqak 9y ago
Isn't some of this responsibility upon the shoulders of parents too? It wasn't children who decided that "keeping up with the Joneses" was the way to live [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses I apologize if my line of questioning comes across as hostile, but I do take issue with the even the whiff of the concept that parents can do no wrong, both personally and conceptually. In contrast, I do think that children shouldn't be held responsible for the mistakes and misdeeds of their parents.
- cicero 9y ago
  Even if the parents are the cause of the problem, it is still better for the children to recognize the problem and change their lives accordingly.
  - tareqak 9y ago
    I agree with what you are saying, but I think that incorrectly attributing the problem to one actor instead of another has chances of: 1) making it more difficult to identify the problem 2) affecting the path taken towards resolving the problem for the worse 3) making the person whose problem it now is to resolve the problem that they grew into less willing to do so. I think that everyone should honestly own their successes and failures because, quite frankly, there is enough blame to go around, and not enough people willing to take ownership of the failures that they were responsible for.
- leroy_masochist 9y ago
  I think on the aggregate, parents bear a lot of responsibility for my generation being this way, but there are other factors at play as well, the following two being the most significant in my opinion: - People (somewhat accurately) seeing elite college as the most surefire way to ensure membership in the high end of the earnings spectrum, and therefore organizing their kids' preteen/teenage lives around getting into college, molding kids' psyches into a process-driven, check-the-box orientation (i.e., do the following list of things to a specified standard and you will get into a great school and then everything will be OK) - The role of social media / constantly sharing details of one's life with one's entire network, which, as the Wait but Why comic posted in this thread eloquently describes, is generally more unhealthy than healthy
jazzyk 9y ago
That's because these days it is very hard to get even a starter house (in a good neighborhood) even having a steady job. And I have not seen too many steady jobs in high-tech. The only option to get ahead is to either play the lottery or "do a startup" (pretty much like lottery)
enraged_camel 9y ago
Because people in your parents' generation had it easy. The post-WWII boom allowed even those without college degrees to find well-paying jobs, keep and advance in those jobs for decades without having to job-hop every few years just for a meager raise, and retire with nice pensions. The situation is very different today.
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devmunchies 9y ago

> Which brings us to Donald Trump, a man who many commentators believe to be constitutionally incapable of pivoting of course... why shouldn't President Trump be brought up in every article? I also would have liked to see a more creative article.

nostrademons 9y ago

Neither of these are particularly useful worldviews. Just do things, observe how they turn out, and then try to do them better. The reason "pivot" has spread throughout the lexicon is because it better describes reality today. What does "failure" even mean, that you ceased to exist when things didn't work out? No, of course not - when things don't work out, you're still here, you go and do something else, hopefully with the benefit of experience. And similarly, what does it even mean to be "better than they actually are"? As if there's this national ranking scale of people from bad to good? The idea is nonsensical - people have different standards for what constitutes "good", and your only responsibility is to lead a life that you can feel good about by your standards.

phoenixstrike 9y ago
I'm sorry, but your response is a perfect example of exactly what I'm talking about, it almost seems scripted. "What does 'failure' even mean..." Really? Seriously? Failure means admitting and acknowledging that you were wrong, that you things didn't work out the way you expected them to, and taking responsibility for it, instead of treating it as just another tick in a line of never-ending experiences that you "learn" and "iterate" from. I'm not disparaging learning from mistakes, but a more subtle difference: that sometimes you just have to admit that you were totally off course and that the only thing you can learn the situation is that you should throw away everything you thought you knew and go back to square one. You say "pivot" better describes reality? That is the problem. In your worldview, it is acceptable to just change direction in the face of failure. No, sometimes you have to go backwards, and the inability of young people to admit this or understand this is the problem. I don't even know where to begin with your second point. Suffice it to say that the world is not some cuddly place where everyone is a winner and everyone gets an award for participation. To think otherwise is to live in fantasy -- indeed, a fantasy world where you can always feel good about your life according to your standards.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  "Failure" usually has a connotation of finality that's unnecessary today. You can admit that you were wrong and adjust course without being a failure. I recognize that you probably think I'm an idiot or terribly misguided or just denying of reality. In my mind, you just haven't gotten it yet - I didn't always think like this, but I came to accept it after much effort, both because it makes me happier and because it's actually led to more success, by your definition, than believing that some people are just smarter and more capable than others. But that's okay - either you will or you won't come to accept it, and either way it doesn't really affect me, and that's the other half of my point: we each set our personal standards and have our own lens through which we see the world, and that's fine.

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kamaal 9y ago

So your point is people are either genius or they must simply resign to fate, do nothing to improve their lives or chase a good career, and must simply give up and go flip burgers at McDonalds? Being persistent at something, and then course correcting on feedback is how any under dog ever does anything.