The "change the world" rhetoric that most of these startups use is marketing copy to get naive engineers to work for them for half market salary. At most of the

The "change the world" rhetoric that most of these startups use is marketing copy to get naive engineers to work for them for half market salary. At most of the hot VC startups, the rank-and-file tend to believe in "the mission" but the higher-ups don't. It's like many religions. The peasants believe it and work dutifully, but the high priests know it's bullshit but keep it going because it works. For the record, I think the 2009-12 "social" startup boom is Over. The economic bubble might stick around for a couple years, but we're already at the point where VCs and management have laid down their terms and figured out where to draw the lines, and going into (or trying to start) one of these "hot" companies makes no sense. You're not really better off (from a career perspective) working at a hot VC-funded company than you are taking the stable, boring job at an insurance company in the suburbs. Not anymore. If you're not rich (and 99% who got involved in that racket aren't) you missed the opportunity. Time to let it go and move on. What I hope to see is more of a movement into Real Technology. That's where we should be doubling down. Things that might make you crack open that linear algebra or logic textbook. There are real problems worth solving, and creating the next build-to-flip IUsedThisToilet.com is not one of them.