I'd like to really thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully comment on a kind of pissy remark I made. Just about everything you said ties out with my own intuition and experience.

For context, I spent ~10 years in SV, then another ~3 in NYC (but for an SV company most of it), and now I'm back in San Diego where I'm from. I think you're right on the money that I'm a more than a little over-rotated on the SV worldview. I'm generally a bit more balanced and...diplomatic about it, but when a rough week brings out some weapons-grade snarkiness? I'm clearly at least somewhat wrapped around the axle about it.

It's not so much that other people worked less hard for way more money that grinds my gears: I've lived comfortably on each of 3-ish orders of magnitude in terms of income, net worth, etc, and if I pulled out all the stops I could probably grind a bunch more cash out of my career than the perfectly reasonable amount that obtains. I work way less hard for way more money than a lot of folks around the world and feel a bit guilty about it in fact. Maybe humbled is a better word than guilty.

I think that I spent way too much time around people who attributed success to intelligence, insight and hard work, when it was actually due to intelligence, insight, hard work, and a lot of luck. I know some absurdly rich people who acknowledge that there were at least a few dice rolls along the way, and those folks don't get under my skin. Coincidentally or not, those folks seem to not have a bunch of opinions about how other people should live and work and a megaphone.

Andreessen is not far off with the "software eating the world" stuff, in some sense caring about the culture of the tech scene is a bigger and bigger part of caring about society in general every year. And I think that ultimately what bums me out is that YC/HN was one of my key/formative inspirations when I was getting serious about math and technology. Things like the T-shirt that says "I made something people want" that you got by selling a startup to people who enjoyed the experience really spoke to me.

For all I know sama and seibel are really smart, really solid people, and I regret calling them out on hearsay. I know at least one person who I trust and respect who knows sama personally and thinks the world of him.

But optics matter, and I'm probably not the only person who stopped believing in Santa Clause right around the time that pg handed the reins to the guy who needed a bailout on Loopt, and got kinda morose around the time that the Loopt-bailout guy handed the reins to the Socialcam-bailout guy.

I think ultimately I'm obviously very touchy/sensitive/negative on the topic because YC/HN was a childhood hero that ended up being the same damned nepotism that it was supposed to replace. At least MIT is available to anyone with a YouTube account and some time. YC is the new MIT and much, much more exclusive on the basis of who you know.

That's enough of the pissy part: I've got it insanely good for a guy whose grandparents worked in coal mines and gratitude around that is probably the right thing to focus on. It was a rough week.

Thank you again for such a compassionate and thoughtful reply, you've given me plenty to think about. Cheers.