Can you explain the correlation between VC connections and assholery? The vast majority of founders who raise VC money are not born with VC connections. They earn VC connections and build social capital by (usually altrustically) helping other founders, creating a product that makes people's lives better, creating jobs and building a company with traction and growth, etc.
I can't help but think that some of your "VC-istan" narrative is based on a mythological caricature of the startup world rather than reality. "VC-istan" isn't a perfect meritocracy, but it's pretty close. If you have a business with traction, VC connections will come to you, asshole moral character or not.
The sort of people who tend to excel at raising money from VC's and gain media attention tend to be the more assholish sorts. I've seen this also.
Raising VC is a human process. You need to convince some high status individual(s) that your plan has more upside than risk. The most successful way to do that is to sell something. So the sorts of people that succeed tend to be more salesman, than engineer.
Now add in huge amounts of money, plus some ego and you have a recipe for drama and backstabbing.
Can you explain the correlation between VC connections and assholery?
Come to New York and hang around some of the true upper class. Not software engineers making $200k or Wall Street quants making $600k, but actual upper-uppers. Convince them that you're one of them (it can be done) and see what they're really like when not on camera. When you see the real quality of the people running society, you'll want to puke-- and possibly kill people.
They earn VC connections and build social capital by (usually altrustically) helping other founders, creating a product that makes people's lives better
Hahahaha. You actually claim to believe that people can "earn" (I love your use of this word; A+ stuff) VC connections through legitimate means. Well done. I fell for it. Here's a gold coin; can I cross the bridge now?
It seems that your reality is very different from the reality I, and most other entrepreneurs I know live in.
In my world, anyone who has a credible idea and meaningful traction can get a meeting with most VCs fairly easily. Are you suggesting that after such a meeting, an investor would refuse to fund someone with a good idea because they're not enough of an asshole or connected to the right people?
There's no need to be so dismissive so quickly. Our perspectives on the world are formed by reference experiences.
I've seen numerous entrepreneurs come to Silicon Valley with absolutely zero connections, work hard to build a real business that makes real money (I'm talking B2B/SaaS products, not trivial social media apps), and raise funding from top tier investors when they had enough traction.
Perhaps you haven't seen this phenomenon. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
This is most heavily rooted in Silicon Valley culture, but I'm sure even in New York and elsewhere, the fastest way to get ahead, build your network, get connected to the people who run the world, etc is to be as helpful as possible to as many people as possible and know that eventually the rewards will come back to you.
The above statement may seem to you full of naiveté and wide-eyed optimism, but that's the optimal strategy for success for even the most hardened cynic; look up some research on persuasion through reciprocity and liking.
Here's one of those places where we might disagree a bit.
For background, I am absolutely about as far as you can get from "upper crust, social elite" status by birth. I've detailed my background here before, and I don't want to go through it all again, but suffice it to say that I'm a lot closer to "white trash" than I am to "blue blood" by birth and upbringing.
But I have connections to VCs. I know a few on a first-name basis. I know a few I can get a meeting with basically anytime, if I have something ready to pitch. Can I guarantee that I'd get money? Absolutely not, but I feel pretty confident in saying that if we didn't get funded, it would not be about me not having been born into the "true upper class" or not being the right kind of asshole.
Are their snobby VCs out there, that won't talk to you unless you're part of the "old boy's club?" I'm sure there are. But there are also ones that aren't like that.
Now, all that might lead one to ask "How do you get VC connections if you don't have them, and aren't part of the 'upper class'?"
To which I say, it's like an article that ran here on HN a while back, titled "How to date a supermodel". The gist was something along the lines of "start by moving to where supermodels are and then hang out where the supermodels hang out". For me, that meant moving from a rural backwater county in NC, to the Research Triangle Park area, and starting to attend the kind of events that VCs attend, meeting them, making their acquaintance, talking to them, asking them for advice, having the occasional (non pitch) coffee meeting with them, etc.
Now it's been a slow process, I'll say that. And we are talking NC here, not Silicon Valley or New York. Maybe things are radically different there. But from where I'm sitting, it is absolutely possible to cultivate connections, even a degree of personal friendship, with VCs, without having any special pre-existing status and without being a huge asshole. (This is assuming you accept that I'm not a huge asshole. Maybe I am and just don't know it).
Very possibly so. I don't remember. I'm not advocating either approach, as it really depends on your goals. If you want to run a startup, do the VC funding thing, etc., there are definitely advantages to living where there are VCs. Raleigh/Durham is a lot better than rural southeastern NC in this regard, but nowhere near as good as Boston, NYC, or Silicon Valley. But for me, the compromise works. Any other individual might make different choices based on their priorities.
