1/ Silicon Valley has changed a lot over the past 13 years since I started my first company (an AJAX calendar called Kiko that was funded in the first batch of YC).
2/ Tech has gone from an industry no one cared about, to every random person I knew in college rushing to be part of it, to the evil industry destroying the fabric of society
3/ Starting a startup is easier than ever. Lots of resources: YC, more financing at the seed stage, much more information online. Starting a company is no longer a risky path.
4/ New businesses in every industry are now being built with methodologies that used to be just for tech startups (fast iteration, access to venture capital). Applies to D2C companies like Allbirds, full stack companies like Atrium, etc.
5/ Personally, I’ve felt recently that the overall risk appetite of the people working in tech has changed. People used to want to join frontier companies building something fun / cool; now everyone seems to be optimizing for salary / career stability.
6/ Even though startups in are in the zeitgeist more than ever, recruiting is actually harder. The headcount gains have mostly gone to the tech giants (FB, Amazon, Google)
7/ The SF Bay Area has not scaled well itself, in housing, transportation, regulation (see recent scooter wars). Like Facebook, the SFBA is itself a proof to the power of network effects: everyone wants to leave but it is very hard to do so.
8/ Atrium blog talked to Chaos Monkey’s author @antoniogm about what else has changed in 2018 for startups, tech, and in building personal brand: atrium.co/blog/antonio-g…
