"in the US you have to talk a lot of bullshit. No matter what your company looks like, you have to talk as if it’s the next Facebook. You have to pretend you’re

"in the US you have to talk a lot of bullshit. No matter what your company looks like, you have to talk as if it’s the next Facebook. You have to pretend you’re a Unicorn even when you know you’re not. I never once met a founder that when asked, “how are things going?” could give me an honest answer. Everyone is killing it, smashing it and blowing shit up. You have to be moving fast and break things. It’s all a million miles an hour and to hell with the consequences. There’s no room for words like “considered”, “mindful” or “deliberation”. You move now, or GTFO. It’s as if everything and everyone is in a Hollywood production." For what it's worth, this is a "post-unicorn" phenomenon. San Francisco has been overrun with entitled assholes as it has become the trendy new place for get-rich-quick schemes. It wasn't that long ago that it was considered insane by investors to put a company here (for good reasons, actually: it is insane to have a company here. People now just arrogantly want to change the existing city to fit their greed, rather than go somewhere more practical.) A lot of the people who were doing startups before the Rise of the Unicorns -- many of whom are now famous and powerful people -- were, frankly, lunatics. I wouldn't say that they were modest, exactly, but they also weren't exclusively focused on money -- it wasn't clear that anyone was going to make any money! Maybe I'm being romantic, but it seems like there were more interesting people, doing interesting things, and hoping to have a good time along the way. There was more thought, because there was less money, and people had to be careful. Today, the interesting people are fewer and further between, and the question is less "how can I make something great?", and more "how can I get investment?" Nobody gives much of a shit about anyone else, because if there are any externalities, hey, that's just "disruption", bro. It's awful, and has probably destroyed the culture that produced those unicorns in the first place.