I'm impressed. It's not just a fluff piece about how amazing it is having dropouts save the world.<p>Devin keeps trying to figure out why omnipresent ego inflation is a good thing. He hits all the major points: it's about mindshare, addiction, and manipulating people to get a higher CPM.<p><pre><code> Is that all social media is doing? Playing psychological video games in ways
that form habits and drive revenue for Internet companies?
</code></pre>
He takes interviewee's quips (reduce friction! share yourself!), actually thinks (instead of sitting dumbfounded when someone young talks about technology and business), then figures out why the fads of today are shallow substitutes for sincere social interaction.
On page 3,<p><i>One of the founders of a YC company called 1000Memories.com (it's FB for dead people, only more interesting) says he heard FB can already tell when you're about to break up with someone: certain communication patterns emerge.</i><p>Yes, I know that the amount of data people share on Facebook is staggering, but, you've <i>got</i> to be kidding me!
I found his observations eloquent and for the most part very insightful. If nothing else, he does an excellent job of glamorizing why this market is so exciting:<p>"These people are optimistic not only because theirs is the last ascendant American industry but because implied in all those products is the idea that the human problem can be solved."
So, to sum up: To get into YC and be successful in Silicon Valley, I have to have gone to Stanford, worked at Google and be building a social app?<p>pg, say it ain't so! Are people like me who went to state school, never had a real job and are building tools for businesses doomed?
My favourite quote from the article: "a guy named Rahul, a slender 27-year-old Englishman of Indian extraction who's 50 percent hair and 50 percent brain." Which is a hilarious description of YC/HN's own <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rahulvohra" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rahulvohra</a>