The dichotomy between Moxie and Dustin's posts illustrates an interesting split in the 'hacker' world. Wheras Hacker and Startup seemed to represent the use of

The dichotomy between Moxie and Dustin's posts illustrates an interesting split in the 'hacker' world. Wheras Hacker and Startup seemed to represent the use of unconventional tools to achieve a unexpected results (often) in unpleasant or tedious circumstances, those connotations have become mixed with the sense glamor usually reserved for celebrities. Now, the ostensibly boring (or at least detail-ridden, interesting only to those directly involved) practice of starting a business has taken a sort of crazy sheen, with list stories [1] written by starry eyed marketers praising the romance of the fast paced, powerful, and interesting startup industry shaping the public's view. And Hackers, once conceptualized as loners fiddling with inscrutable technicalities, are now expected to attain material success and internet celebrity. After all, if you're a real hacker you should be pulling in at least $150k. (Though you'll have to spend some of that on a load balancer to handle your blog traffic.) Dustin and Moxie seem to represent the two sides of this spectrum. Dustin, maybe hot off the aquihire of a desirable web property, looking for how to best direct his affluence. Moxie, pondering the important parts of the system he operates in, chooses to forgo what he considers symbolic representations of success with undeserved merit. It's as easy to imagine the dreadlocked Marlinspike talking to stallman (who is eating from his foot) as it is to imagine Curtis speaking to a crowd of socialites in a bell-aire hotel lobby. At least for me. A weird example I ran across, it struck me for its resemblance to a Cosmo article. [1] http://tech.co/the-top-10-tech-cocktail-stories-of-the-week-6-2012-11 http://tech.co/the-top-10-tech-cocktail-stories-of-the-week-...