They come to be a part of history, to build the technology that will reshape how people live 5 or 10 years from now. They come for the excitement, just to be a part of it. They come to make money, to score big. They come to make enough money so they will never have to think about money again. They come too because what they see ahead of them, if they stay behind instead, is a working life that seems fundamentally and unavoidably boring.
Nothing seems worse than the fate of boringness.
Every generation before this one has had to make a choice in life between pursuing a steady career and pursuing wild adventures. In Silicon Valley, that trade-off has been recircuited. Working has become nothing less than a sport. Here in superachieverland, people are motivated by the thrill of the competition and the danger of losing, and every year the rules evolve to make it all happen quicker, on higher margins, to reach more amazing sums. It is a mad, fertile time.