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Ok but lets be real. We encourage men to move fast and break things. We tell them if you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission. Then we tell wome

Ok but lets be real. We encourage men to move fast and break things. We tell them if you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission. Then we tell women to lean in. Um I will pass on that last one.

calibraxis 13y ago
Whatever works for you is great. But it brings to mind Kate Losse's words, on who's supposed to "break things" in our society: "What Stanford does not teach young white men like Midas, in the course of teaching them about startups, is that everything they are being taught—about breaking rules, taking risks, and not asking for permission—works especially well for them, and often only for them, because of who they are, what they look like, and all the associations their appearance does and does not carry. On University Avenue, white men who break things look, in Midas’ words, “cute”, not delinquent or scary, and this is why privileged young men are brought to Palo Alto in droves to learn and practice the business of what Facebook calls “breaking things”. At every turn this breaking of things is celebrated and encouraged. If you’re not breaking things in Palo Alto, you’re not doing your job. "…unless you’re not a young white man. "If you happen to live two more miles down University Avenue from where Midas trespassed camp boundaries, you are living in East Palo Alto, which is the economic and racial counterpoint to blond-boy-celebrating, millionaire-laden Palo Alto. And if you live in East Palo Alto and you decided to walk across the 101 freeway to University Avenue, to the same cafe that Midas walked to from the other side, you’d be taking a risk, but not one likely to be rewarded." (https://medium.com/on-startups/521cb394fda2 https://medium.com/on-startups/521cb394fda2)
- calibraxis 13y ago
  BTW, to be clear, your article made me look closer at this sort of rhetoric ("lean in" and "break things") which I failed to learn about before, because I gloss over it like meaningless startup names. Thanks.

calibraxis 13y ago

Whatever works for you is great. But it brings to mind Kate Losse's words, on who's supposed to "break things" in our society: "What Stanford does not teach young white men like Midas, in the course of teaching them about startups, is that everything they are being taught—about breaking rules, taking risks, and not asking for permission—works especially well for them, and often only for them, because of who they are, what they look like, and all the associations their appearance does and does not carry. On University Avenue, white men who break things look, in Midas’ words, “cute”, not delinquent or scary, and this is why privileged young men are brought to Palo Alto in droves to learn and practice the business of what Facebook calls “breaking things”. At every turn this breaking of things is celebrated and encouraged. If you’re not breaking things in Palo Alto, you’re not doing your job. "…unless you’re not a young white man. "If you happen to live two more miles down University Avenue from where Midas trespassed camp boundaries, you are living in East Palo Alto, which is the economic and racial counterpoint to blond-boy-celebrating, millionaire-laden Palo Alto. And if you live in East Palo Alto and you decided to walk across the 101 freeway to University Avenue, to the same cafe that Midas walked to from the other side, you’d be taking a risk, but not one likely to be rewarded." (https://medium.com/on-startups/521cb394fda2 https://medium.com/on-startups/521cb394fda2)

calibraxis 13y ago
BTW, to be clear, your article made me look closer at this sort of rhetoric ("lean in" and "break things") which I failed to learn about before, because I gloss over it like meaningless startup names. Thanks.