> I feel like the opportunity to get into the "Next Google" is simply not available to people like me that came out of Houston from a random college, only spent

> I feel like the opportunity to get into the "Next Google" is simply not available to people like me that came out of Houston from a random college, only spent a couple years in the Bay Area, and now live somewhere else random (Taipei) I recall the Collisons talking about their hiring back when Stripe was in its infancy, and they said that due to not having much of a reputation, as they were a small startup, they had to hire "unprestigious" people - their first designer, if I recall correctly, was a high schooler from Sweden. As such I do think even if you come from Houston (I grew up there btw, hi-five), went to a random college, and now live in Tapei, you can get lucky and find "The Next Google". Paul Buchheit himself is from Webster, NY and went to Case Western, was only in SV a few years before getting hired at Google because he was into Linux. :)