Watch out for the founding story narrative here, even Zuckerberg himself would tell you, he didn't initially set out to build Facebook, the megacorp. He just p

Watch out for the founding story narrative here, even Zuckerberg himself would tell you, he didn't initially set out to build Facebook, the megacorp. He just put one foot in front of the other. The fact that he got serious traction and it led to ever greater potential is what inspired the grand vision. By the time Yahoo made their offer in 2008, Facebook was already the biggest social network that had ever existed with an incredible growth curve. At that point it's not just some naive pie-in-the-sky dream, it's a calculated risk. This is very different from the thousands of wannabes that paint this grand vision in order to attract naive young talent. That's what DHH & co bristle against—the mythology of SV perpetuated by VCs to get the best and brightest to work 16-hour days to increase their wealth for a risk-adjusted return way below what they could get at a normal job. Personally with a couple decades of experience under my belt it's hard not to be a little cynical about the whole dog and pony show. I got into this because I liked to build things on computers, not because of some founder's charisma or promises of riches.