It happens that a man is born into a foreign land.
It happens that although he has a father and a mother, brothers and sisters, a language and culture – he is actually from someplace else, and he doesn’t know that he is. He agonizes his whole life, until he realizes it, and starts his journey back to his homeland, one he never visited and no one can guarantee even exists.
This man is born into hell, and initially he doesn’t know that it is hell that he was born into.
He goes on to live his life, stumbling over and over, and only after a long while something happens: a moment of grace, when he gets to see – if only for a fleeting moment – his own place in the world. A torn postcard from his place, let’s say. Or someone who’s from there that passes by and smiles – a moment that changes his life, because he suddenly realizes that that place exists. That he isn’t dreaming. That there is a better life than the one he’s living now. And, of course, at the same moment he realizes that he’s living in hell.
(Uzi Weil, originally in Hebrew. The bad translation is mine.)
***
I was standing in the middle of the dance floor, suited up. The speakers were blaring pop music from the stage above the DJ, where one of the country’s most popular singers gave a full performance. I was surrounded by tall, beautiful, extremely trendy people drinking cocktails and yelling over the music, or taking a photo of the singer on their phones.
This launch of a new European investment fund was wrong on so many levels.
***
I fell in love with Silicon Valley on my first visit. It wasn’t nature or the weather. It was the people. So charmingly approachable, and enthusiastic, and authentically interested in technology. So awkward and obviously using well rehearsed communication protocols that they reverse engineered. It was geekdom. I was hooked.
It took me two and a half years to get my Green Card. When it was time to prove my vaccination history for the application process I just re-took all of them, because it was much shorter. My corporate-appointed immigration lawyer asked me to stop pushing her to handle the process faster. I was obsessed. I was going to be a part of the action. Silicon Valley was my place.
***
Every attempt I’ve seen to replicate the Valley misses by a long shot. It happens when you focus on appearance instead of essence, and forget history. It’s easy to focus on Elon Musk, the guy with the perfect hair who was dating that actress or singer. Who cares. Elon Musk who started PayPal was a geeky, balding guy who teamed up with a crazy hedge fund manager who wanted to overthrow the government with a new currency, and fought him tooth and nail until they both became rich. Microsoft is this software behemoth and Bill Gates is a billionaire but he’s also the world’s worst dad dancer who forgot to eat if he got into an argument, and destroyed his opponents without making eye contact.
Try to observe what makes this place tick. Listen. Don’t fixate on the end condition. Don’t fixate on the glamour and survivorship bias. Silicon Valley is what it is because geeks built it and geeks maintain it. That’s the one thing those other ecosystems get wrong. They have lunch meetings and take five-week vacations. They won’t help unless you give them equity. They promote within their well-defined cliques. They try to get a project funded with a part time CEO and a 20% “chairman of the board”. They invite models and pop stars to launch parties and think the deal flow will just reveal itself. That’s missing the point.
***
Popular culture looks at the Valley’s successes and misgivings and weaves a narrative. Sure, it’s over funded, and over hyped, and over the top in many ways. It has a ton of problems. It’s starting to crack under the hype and abusive behavior by people who don’t get it. Silicon Valley is counter culture, even if what it counters varies and changes. It always tries to oppose, and sometimes forgets to lead. It is also a source of aspiration and inspiration to everyone in tech. It sets a tone.