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This post really shows how much luck/privilege it takes to have a chance at success. Stanford, intern at LinkedIn, being able to just "drop by" in Palo Alto. "S

This post really shows how much luck/privilege it takes to have a chance at success. Stanford, intern at LinkedIn, being able to just "drop by" in Palo Alto. "Silicon Valley is about People" and it takes a lot of money to get access to those people. The fall of Silicon Valley will be when anyone with the right idea and the ability to build it is able to get funding to actually build it.

moneywoes 4y ago
Yep great life lesson. Oh well I guess we need to make our own definition of success
overeater 4y ago
Sure your point is a good one in general, but you're combining multiple profiles to create this narrative. Dylan didn't go to Stanford, he went to Brown University. Being an intern, you usually don't have a car, and it's not as easy to get from Sunnyvale (LinkedIn headquarters) to Palo Alto as the story sounds, especially pre-UberX. So the "dropping in" is not like they were living in the same city.
- invalidname 4y ago
  For me it would have been a 15 hour flight ;-) I was pitching an Open Source developer tools startup around here at this time. VCs laughed in my face since there's no business model in OSS or in developer tools.
  - mannymanman 4y ago
    Looks like there's a bunch of OSS companies doing well now, with their business model being getting paid for a hosted version of their software. Posthog is a good example.
    - invalidname 4y ago
      This was around that time. That's my point. In the valley companies like ours got funding for OSS and developer tools at that time (Xamarin, Github, etc.). But in other places it took 5+ years for the dime to drop...
- gnicholas 4y ago
  LinkedIn HQ was in MV for quite a while, no? IIRC they were on land owned by Google. And getting between MV and PA has always been pretty easy via Caltrain, and the various corporate shuttles that connect it to destinations. The one bit that didn't resonate for me, as a local, was the reference to "City Center in Palo Alto". I've lived here for a long time and never heard a reference to "City Center". There's "downtown"/"University Ave.", "Cal Ave.", and "midtown" (though there's not much there). Has anyone else ever heard of "City Center"? Were they literally just walking around City Hall or something?
  - mertd 4y ago
    "Around University Avenue" is the only reasonable deduction. Calling the other ones center would be too weird, and yes, if you take a stroll there, you could overhear a lot of such types of conversations.
  - swlkr 4y ago
    I was thinking University Ave too. Agree though, there is no city center as far I can tell
    - Lammy 4y ago
      > there is no city center as far I can tell Relevant: "The Creation of University Park Which Later Became Palo Alto" https://ralstonworks.com/RE-history/UniversityPark-PaloAlto.html https://ralstonworks.com/RE-history/UniversityPark-PaloAlto.... "[In 1885] Leland Stanford and Jane Lathrop had in mind to establish a town across El Camino Real to support the needs of Stanford University, including student housing, shopping, and recreation, but no liquor. The Stanfords asked the leaders of Menlo Park and Mayfield to close their saloons, but were answered 'No.'" "With Stanford University's support, saloon days faded and Palo Alto grew to the size of Mayfield. On July 2, 1925, Palo Alto voters approved the annexation of Mayfield. The two communities were officially consolidated on July 6, 1925."
  - DisjointedHunt 4y ago
    Ah i remember basically living out of the Sheraton in downtown Palo Alto for the better part of a year thanks to not accepting a permanent move to the bay area. It all seemed so weird at the time. The sense i got of the place was one who's grandeur had passed. The furniture and the houses there seemed so dated, walking around the neighborhoods exposed all the cracked concrete on the sidewalks and the graffitis under the tunnel leading up University. Take a short walk and you're in the great lawn at Stanford, such a shame how a beautiful city like that is not treated as it should be. I had far better experiences of public infrastructure during trips to poorer countries. The airport felt ignored, the caltrains felt dated and inefficient on the inside, i don't know. . . it just felt like everyone was waiting for a nuke to level the place and rebuild better than making it better right now.
michaelwww 4y ago
I drove Uber in Menlo Park/Atherton/Palo Alto while I was undergoing some treatments at the VA in Palo Alto and it is indeed a rarified atmosphere. It's not all peaches and cream however. People talked to me about the teen suicides due to the immense pressure to achieve status and academically perform at the highest levels. The Silicon Valley Suicides: Why are so many kids with bright prospects killing themselves in Palo Alto? https://archive.ph/RNNE4 https://archive.ph/RNNE4
- thatfrenchguy 4y ago
  Suburban middle class parents, especially immigrants (and even more immigrants from Asia) tend to look on GreatSchools and pick Mission San José / Monta Vista / Gunn, and our crazy pressure on their kids. It means people from there tend to have quite high achieving in life, at a pretty high mental health cost that follows them for life. It’s an open secret if you ask folks who graduated from there. Of course, people with a bit more connections / more money just send their kids to private school instead.
  - bushbaba 4y ago
    The funny thing about many of those 'top schools'. You're actually worse off as top universities cap the number of students from a given high-school. Worse yet, most the kids are doing after school tutoring to boost their scores, making it an arm race. I'd argue that a well motivated student would do better by being in a slightly worse school
    - PradeetPatel 4y ago
      Grades are only but one aspect of going to a "top school", the networking associated with it cannot be underlooked. It is likely that the students will create connections with others that may benefit them in the future, the same could be said about the parents too.
      - gnicholas 4y ago
        OT, but I think you mean "underestimated" or "overlooked".
jimmaswell 4y ago
It's one anecdote. I could point to someone successful who started off with nothing like Rockefeller and say the opposite.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
  Rockefeller still had some privileges that allowed him to navigate the world easier while carrying his ambition with him—being male and Caucasian—and that’s not to speak of the people that he collaborated with along the way. I’m not interested in discussing race or gender politics here, but it’s worth pointing that out since your comment comes off as completely dismissive of systemic advantages, environmental factors, and personal networks that all contribute to success, as if to say that any personal success is the product of a single factor alone: grit.
  - mc32 4y ago
    Genghis Khan was pretty successful I'd say; and he came from humble means, as they say. But in modern times Masayoshi Son, Steve Jobs as well.
    - rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
      Did they do things alone? Where did their collaborators come from?
      - mc32 4y ago
        No, not alone, but no one but those guys would have done what they did. There were many other barefoot boys tending to horses but it was Genghis who got up there and took over half the world. It wasn't the other kids, it was him. And later on it wasn't his generals, but he who oversaw the conquests. They all could have raised armies instead, but, it was actually him with the vision and singular aim. Same with Jobs and Masayoshi, other people also knew the people they knew, but only they did do what they ended up doing.
        4y ago
fibonacc 4y ago
makes sense why overwhelming amount of founders are white, far less black founders
darawk 4y ago
How does it demonstrate that? Dylan had funding by the time this conversation occurred. He didn't need the authors money. The article doesn't describe how it is that Dylan acquired his initial funding. Also important to note that the author was nowhere near as high profile or rich when this occurred as he is today. This interaction happened when Wealthfront was just beginning.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  Sure, someone with an early idea (with seed fund, but that’s not the only funding round is it), is only chatting with a vc guy for just fun. Even continuing a premise, I would like to chat with some VCs for fun too, can I get an appointment? I promise im just as smart and insightful.
  - darawk 4y ago
    They worked together at LinkedIn previously, that's how he knew him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Nash_(executive)#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Nash_(executive)#Career He doesn't explicitly state this in the piece, but it was pretty easy to infer from the things he does say. He has the connection to Nash precisely because he impressed him when he was interning at LinkedIn, before Nash became a VC, and before he founded WealthFront. This is not a story of privileged connections in the slightest.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
> This post really shows how much luck/privilege it takes to have a chance at success. You're defining "success" as making billions of dollars, right? In any case, if that's someone's definition of success and they make it, wonderful. It's great for them that they had luck and privilege. The greatest thing anyone can do for children and even yourself is to maximize "privilege". I suggest you also talk to people with a more diverse outlook on life too though, I think it will be even more eye-opening. Take a random walk in a rural farming community, a small town, an average city or suburb, etc. You will find many people who have found success and happiness and are content because their idea of success is to raise and provide for a family, or own a home, or run their modest small business, or whatever.
ec109685 4y ago
I think this is a pretty cynical viewpoint. You are right, he had privileges, but millions of other kids have them as well. For instance, he worked hard to impress at LinkedIn to get that meeting. Please look at this pitch. It’s hard to come away unimpressed with what he and his founder were creating: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UUVdN3kdQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UUVdN3kdQ I love when someone extremely smart and dedicated succeeds. Much better than a VC thought leader that happened to luck into the right startup and is now dispensing money and advice with abandon. That is luck and privilege.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  I think you've misunderstood the point of the post you are replying to. Pointing out the rare advantages Dylan had in founding Figma doesn't take away any of his accomplishment. Privileged people accomplish things and overcome things and do good stuff. The point is to highlight that the privilege is load bearing - that a good idea and an amazing drive is not enough and that you often need to seem nice and likable to wealthy people in order to get that idea off the ground. It's not that Dylan should have had to work harder, but that millions of other driven people's ideas die for lack of exposure.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    "you often need to seem nice and likable to wealthy people" is a very important point. Part of it is ... sort of generically true in any chosen power structure in the world (easier for powerful people to do things for you if they like you, in theory). But because so much of this dealmaking and the like, and the completely capricious nature of VC funding in particular, means that if you're wanting to fundraise your job ends up being "be friends with the people with money". And because it's so informal and based on friendships, each generation of money is... well, it's replicating culture from the previous generation. At least in more formal power structures there are exams or something to stop it from _just_ being about hiring people you like talking to. The silver lining is I bet there's a huge untapped market in helping fund people in environments that don't require you to listen to a VC talk about how BTC is about taking power away from oppressive governments or whatever. I bet there are loads of people who are interested in funding, in seriousness, and not necessarily looking for more drinking partners.
joshhart 4y ago
I was an employee of LinkedIn at the time that Dylan was an intern. His talent and drive were really something special. He wasn’t content to just do the project he was given. He was making demos and presenting at company all hands. I remember him participating in a bunch of culture stuff. Yes, knowing the right people matters but Dylan put in the work that made them pay attention. I’ve never since seen an intern like him.
- LightG 4y ago
  I think the OP's has nothing to do with Dylan. Yes, he is incredibly impressive, but you're blinded by something if you think that ability and drive is unique.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    It’s pretty unique in bigger companies and SV. IMHO, those people tend to go to smaller companies where they can have an outsized impact, or start their own business. For them, money isn’t even on their radar.

moneywoes 4y ago

Yep great life lesson. Oh well I guess we need to make our own definition of success

overeater 4y ago

Sure your point is a good one in general, but you're combining multiple profiles to create this narrative. Dylan didn't go to Stanford, he went to Brown University. Being an intern, you usually don't have a car, and it's not as easy to get from Sunnyvale (LinkedIn headquarters) to Palo Alto as the story sounds, especially pre-UberX. So the "dropping in" is not like they were living in the same city.

invalidname 4y ago
For me it would have been a 15 hour flight ;-) I was pitching an Open Source developer tools startup around here at this time. VCs laughed in my face since there's no business model in OSS or in developer tools.
- mannymanman 4y ago
  Looks like there's a bunch of OSS companies doing well now, with their business model being getting paid for a hosted version of their software. Posthog is a good example.
  - invalidname 4y ago
    This was around that time. That's my point. In the valley companies like ours got funding for OSS and developer tools at that time (Xamarin, Github, etc.). But in other places it took 5+ years for the dime to drop...
gnicholas 4y ago
LinkedIn HQ was in MV for quite a while, no? IIRC they were on land owned by Google. And getting between MV and PA has always been pretty easy via Caltrain, and the various corporate shuttles that connect it to destinations. The one bit that didn't resonate for me, as a local, was the reference to "City Center in Palo Alto". I've lived here for a long time and never heard a reference to "City Center". There's "downtown"/"University Ave.", "Cal Ave.", and "midtown" (though there's not much there). Has anyone else ever heard of "City Center"? Were they literally just walking around City Hall or something?
- mertd 4y ago
  "Around University Avenue" is the only reasonable deduction. Calling the other ones center would be too weird, and yes, if you take a stroll there, you could overhear a lot of such types of conversations.
- swlkr 4y ago
  I was thinking University Ave too. Agree though, there is no city center as far I can tell
  - Lammy 4y ago
    > there is no city center as far I can tell Relevant: "The Creation of University Park Which Later Became Palo Alto" https://ralstonworks.com/RE-history/UniversityPark-PaloAlto.html https://ralstonworks.com/RE-history/UniversityPark-PaloAlto.... "[In 1885] Leland Stanford and Jane Lathrop had in mind to establish a town across El Camino Real to support the needs of Stanford University, including student housing, shopping, and recreation, but no liquor. The Stanfords asked the leaders of Menlo Park and Mayfield to close their saloons, but were answered 'No.'" "With Stanford University's support, saloon days faded and Palo Alto grew to the size of Mayfield. On July 2, 1925, Palo Alto voters approved the annexation of Mayfield. The two communities were officially consolidated on July 6, 1925."
- DisjointedHunt 4y ago
  Ah i remember basically living out of the Sheraton in downtown Palo Alto for the better part of a year thanks to not accepting a permanent move to the bay area. It all seemed so weird at the time. The sense i got of the place was one who's grandeur had passed. The furniture and the houses there seemed so dated, walking around the neighborhoods exposed all the cracked concrete on the sidewalks and the graffitis under the tunnel leading up University. Take a short walk and you're in the great lawn at Stanford, such a shame how a beautiful city like that is not treated as it should be. I had far better experiences of public infrastructure during trips to poorer countries. The airport felt ignored, the caltrains felt dated and inefficient on the inside, i don't know. . . it just felt like everyone was waiting for a nuke to level the place and rebuild better than making it better right now.

michaelwww 4y ago

I drove Uber in Menlo Park/Atherton/Palo Alto while I was undergoing some treatments at the VA in Palo Alto and it is indeed a rarified atmosphere. It's not all peaches and cream however. People talked to me about the teen suicides due to the immense pressure to achieve status and academically perform at the highest levels. The Silicon Valley Suicides: Why are so many kids with bright prospects killing themselves in Palo Alto? https://archive.ph/RNNE4 https://archive.ph/RNNE4

thatfrenchguy 4y ago
Suburban middle class parents, especially immigrants (and even more immigrants from Asia) tend to look on GreatSchools and pick Mission San José / Monta Vista / Gunn, and our crazy pressure on their kids. It means people from there tend to have quite high achieving in life, at a pretty high mental health cost that follows them for life. It’s an open secret if you ask folks who graduated from there. Of course, people with a bit more connections / more money just send their kids to private school instead.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  The funny thing about many of those 'top schools'. You're actually worse off as top universities cap the number of students from a given high-school. Worse yet, most the kids are doing after school tutoring to boost their scores, making it an arm race. I'd argue that a well motivated student would do better by being in a slightly worse school
  - PradeetPatel 4y ago
    Grades are only but one aspect of going to a "top school", the networking associated with it cannot be underlooked. It is likely that the students will create connections with others that may benefit them in the future, the same could be said about the parents too.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      OT, but I think you mean "underestimated" or "overlooked".

jimmaswell 4y ago

It's one anecdote. I could point to someone successful who started off with nothing like Rockefeller and say the opposite.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Rockefeller still had some privileges that allowed him to navigate the world easier while carrying his ambition with him—being male and Caucasian—and that’s not to speak of the people that he collaborated with along the way. I’m not interested in discussing race or gender politics here, but it’s worth pointing that out since your comment comes off as completely dismissive of systemic advantages, environmental factors, and personal networks that all contribute to success, as if to say that any personal success is the product of a single factor alone: grit.
- mc32 4y ago
  Genghis Khan was pretty successful I'd say; and he came from humble means, as they say. But in modern times Masayoshi Son, Steve Jobs as well.
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
    Did they do things alone? Where did their collaborators come from?
    - mc32 4y ago
      No, not alone, but no one but those guys would have done what they did. There were many other barefoot boys tending to horses but it was Genghis who got up there and took over half the world. It wasn't the other kids, it was him. And later on it wasn't his generals, but he who oversaw the conquests. They all could have raised armies instead, but, it was actually him with the vision and singular aim. Same with Jobs and Masayoshi, other people also knew the people they knew, but only they did do what they ended up doing.
      - 4y ago

fibonacc 4y ago

makes sense why overwhelming amount of founders are white, far less black founders

darawk 4y ago

How does it demonstrate that? Dylan had funding by the time this conversation occurred. He didn't need the authors money. The article doesn't describe how it is that Dylan acquired his initial funding. Also important to note that the author was nowhere near as high profile or rich when this occurred as he is today. This interaction happened when Wealthfront was just beginning.

ramraj07 4y ago
Sure, someone with an early idea (with seed fund, but that’s not the only funding round is it), is only chatting with a vc guy for just fun. Even continuing a premise, I would like to chat with some VCs for fun too, can I get an appointment? I promise im just as smart and insightful.
- darawk 4y ago
  They worked together at LinkedIn previously, that's how he knew him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Nash_(executive)#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Nash_(executive)#Career He doesn't explicitly state this in the piece, but it was pretty easy to infer from the things he does say. He has the connection to Nash precisely because he impressed him when he was interning at LinkedIn, before Nash became a VC, and before he founded WealthFront. This is not a story of privileged connections in the slightest.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

> This post really shows how much luck/privilege it takes to have a chance at success. You're defining "success" as making billions of dollars, right? In any case, if that's someone's definition of success and they make it, wonderful. It's great for them that they had luck and privilege. The greatest thing anyone can do for children and even yourself is to maximize "privilege". I suggest you also talk to people with a more diverse outlook on life too though, I think it will be even more eye-opening. Take a random walk in a rural farming community, a small town, an average city or suburb, etc. You will find many people who have found success and happiness and are content because their idea of success is to raise and provide for a family, or own a home, or run their modest small business, or whatever.

ec109685 4y ago

I think this is a pretty cynical viewpoint. You are right, he had privileges, but millions of other kids have them as well. For instance, he worked hard to impress at LinkedIn to get that meeting. Please look at this pitch. It’s hard to come away unimpressed with what he and his founder were creating: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UUVdN3kdQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UUVdN3kdQ I love when someone extremely smart and dedicated succeeds. Much better than a VC thought leader that happened to luck into the right startup and is now dispensing money and advice with abandon. That is luck and privilege.

aeturnum 4y ago
I think you've misunderstood the point of the post you are replying to. Pointing out the rare advantages Dylan had in founding Figma doesn't take away any of his accomplishment. Privileged people accomplish things and overcome things and do good stuff. The point is to highlight that the privilege is load bearing - that a good idea and an amazing drive is not enough and that you often need to seem nice and likable to wealthy people in order to get that idea off the ground. It's not that Dylan should have had to work harder, but that millions of other driven people's ideas die for lack of exposure.
- rtpg 4y ago
  "you often need to seem nice and likable to wealthy people" is a very important point. Part of it is ... sort of generically true in any chosen power structure in the world (easier for powerful people to do things for you if they like you, in theory). But because so much of this dealmaking and the like, and the completely capricious nature of VC funding in particular, means that if you're wanting to fundraise your job ends up being "be friends with the people with money". And because it's so informal and based on friendships, each generation of money is... well, it's replicating culture from the previous generation. At least in more formal power structures there are exams or something to stop it from _just_ being about hiring people you like talking to. The silver lining is I bet there's a huge untapped market in helping fund people in environments that don't require you to listen to a VC talk about how BTC is about taking power away from oppressive governments or whatever. I bet there are loads of people who are interested in funding, in seriousness, and not necessarily looking for more drinking partners.

joshhart 4y ago

I was an employee of LinkedIn at the time that Dylan was an intern. His talent and drive were really something special. He wasn’t content to just do the project he was given. He was making demos and presenting at company all hands. I remember him participating in a bunch of culture stuff. Yes, knowing the right people matters but Dylan put in the work that made them pay attention. I’ve never since seen an intern like him.

LightG 4y ago
I think the OP's has nothing to do with Dylan. Yes, he is incredibly impressive, but you're blinded by something if you think that ability and drive is unique.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  It’s pretty unique in bigger companies and SV. IMHO, those people tend to go to smaller companies where they can have an outsized impact, or start their own business. For them, money isn’t even on their radar.