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Nitasha Tiku

04/07/14 01:00PM

Filed to: Venture Capital

Silicon Valley is just like the Ivy League, argues venture capitalist Rachel Chalmers. In both places, lucky is a dirty word: "The game is rigged. The pathology of Silicon Valley is that the winners have so much ego invested in pretending that it isn't."

speedpunk Nitasha Tiku 04/07/14 01:26PM

Okay I didn't make it through the entire thing yet but this part stuck me and is my takeaway so far (kinda a tangent but ya know how it is):

If you are thrifty and keep a tight grip on your expenses, you can continue to live within your means more or less indefinitely. Investors sometimes say mean things about these "lifestyle businesses" but you don't have to care what investors think.

I'm thrifty and an expenses master and seriously the one thing I want in life is two be able to ditch my 9-5 and myself (and maybe a buddy) run a sustainable business. I don't even want to be rich, I'm happy with my income level, I just want to ditch boredom and work hard on my dreams so so so so so so sooooooo badly.

Nitasha Tiku speedpunk 04/07/14 02:30PM

Lifestyle businesses are not in vogue, neither is monetizing too early. But if you don't take VC money, you just have to worry about whether you can pay friends and family back and create a sustainable company. Easy peasy.

Dr. Mario Nitasha Tiku 04/07/14 01:41PM

The author of that piece is mixing her critiques poorly. Silicon Valley is rigged because the successful are just connected, but they are also just lucky. It can't be both.

Nitasha Tiku Dr. Mario 04/07/14 02:29PM

Why can't it be both? Connected by virtue of birth or cohort.