First of all, the VC-funded startup scene is not an antidote. I heard people, in 2008, expressing hope that the financial meltdown (at the time, it was not clea

First of all, the VC-funded startup scene is not an antidote. I heard people, in 2008, expressing hope that the financial meltdown (at the time, it was not clear that the financial industry wouldn't contract to 1/20 of its pre-2008 size) would push smart people into Silicon Valley. That wouldn't do much good. The VC-funded world has a corporate ladder that is even more dysfunctional, packing more downside and less upside. Second, this person ("Cole") is right to take the hedge fund job because it has a far higher chance of making him a founder or VC, in the future, than an engineer position at a startup ever will. When finance people (after a few years) enter the VC-funded tech world, they come in at the top. Seems like a good deal to me. Silicon Valley doesn't respect its own people. It doesn't respect the people making things. Because of that, it's dead as far as innovation goes, and the death of Silicon Valley has done a lot more damage to society than the mere existence of finance.