“When the institutions are optimized to fund the legible thing and the individuals are optimized to build the legible thing, the identity of the founder itself fades. Being a founder used to carry with it the implication that you had seen something others hadn’t, that you were willing to be wrong in public about an unlikely future you believed in, and take a risk of banging your head against a wall with high career risk for a long time.”
Definitely seeing this… however, I (hope) and believe there will be a big wave of mission-driven companies, even with millennial founders, as people realize now that the pendulum has swung how thoroughly exhausting it is to build something you don’t feel good about.
(New Essay) VC-Backed Startups are Low Status
The traditional VC-backed startup path is becoming low status in the same way investment banking did. An aesthetic collapse across institutions, ideas, and founders paired with the world's tiring of tech has recently accelerated this shift.
Some thoughts on the cascade, the generational divide, Anthropic vs. OpenAI, what comes next, and more.