One of my best friends at university dropped out to work with these guys when they were still < 10 people. I was really perplexed since they were living and working in one of the founder's house, and had no product released, and seemed to be working on something vague and pie-in-the-sky involving gaming. It seemed like a self-indulgent vanity project. There aren't too many legit startups in London, so I didn't expect much and teased him mercilessly that he'd joined a cult.
A year or so later, they'd gotten actual offices and had become something of a phenomenon. People were quitting Google to join them. A pretty famous game developer (creator of Day-Z) was in their office working on his next game. It seemed they'd managed to reach their ambitious technical goals, which was really, really strange and unexpected, but it still didn't click with me that they were doing well, and they were among the most rapidly growing companies in London. I liked the people a lot however, and continued to hang around their offices on Friday just to chat, taking very little interest in their technology.
No point to this story, just that spotting a great company can be hard, even when it's right under your nose. Even more so when it doesn't fit your mental image of what a great company should look like (i.e. not in London, not making video games, etc.)
For your average, middle-class parents this isn't practical. They have jobs & school is pretty much free daycare they wouldn't want to give up.
There are so many advantages to entering college at 14. For a start, it looks great on your resume. Which means you have a whole host of cool work opportunities when you graduate, meaning you can start a fun and interesting career at 18- rather than slog on through the system, waiting to be recognised at 22-25. Source: know a lot of Thiel fellows.
It doesn't bother me when people think I'm wrong or disagree, but just because I use "VC-istan" doesn't mean my ideas are wrong.
VC-istan is the perfect descriptor for that ecosystem. "VC-funded world" is too many syllables, "VC-land" sounds like a theme park, and Silicon Valley is a geographical location more than an economic sector. Nothing works as well as "VC-istan".
No, this time he added in some vaguely homoerotic insinuations. His rant is evolving; maybe in another year or two it will reach full fledged conspiracy theory status.
It's clear you use the suffix '-stan' in a pejorative sense. As though simply adding a -stan is sufficient to describe the terrible, backward, self-serving state of things. It's not even comedic, as you clearly think this term is the right one. This has always bothered me as this approach is insulting given the many countries around the world who use the suffix [1]. They're conveniently far away from the US so I doubt you've ever considered this.
I'd ask you to stop using this phrase but it seems you're attached to it (for no good reason).
No, -istan is not always pejorative. See, Nassim Taleb's concept of Extremistan. I've used "Nerdistan" positively.
People find "VC-istan" pejorative because they're all aware of (as you put it well) "the terrible, backward, self-serving state of things."
I've heard people read into the term, as a comment on VC-istan as somewhat like a feudal, ex-Soviet state. That works, but it wasn't what I intended. I was just using "stan", originally, to describe something in few syllables.
A year or so later, they'd gotten actual offices and had become something of a phenomenon. People were quitting Google to join them. A pretty famous game developer (creator of Day-Z) was in their office working on his next game. It seemed they'd managed to reach their ambitious technical goals, which was really, really strange and unexpected, but it still didn't click with me that they were doing well, and they were among the most rapidly growing companies in London. I liked the people a lot however, and continued to hang around their offices on Friday just to chat, taking very little interest in their technology.
No point to this story, just that spotting a great company can be hard, even when it's right under your nose. Even more so when it doesn't fit your mental image of what a great company should look like (i.e. not in London, not making video games, etc.)