March 8, 2019 (229 words)
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A brief tale illustrating the tragic consequences of misunderstanding who creates value in a society, told through a series of tweets.
Tags: startups, jason-calacanis
This post is day 67 of a personal challenge to write every day in 2019. See the other fragments, or sign up for my weekly newsletter.
For context: Jason Calacanis is an infamously prediction-heavy entrepreneur-turned-investor whose personal mediocrity makes him walking proof that Silicon Valley is not a meritocracy.
P.S. did you know that dropping out of Stanford at the age of 19, starting a vaporware company that attains a paper valuation of $9 billion because VCs can’t be fucked to do due diligence when there’s a famous war criminal on your board, and later being prosecuted by the SEC for fraud … still makes you entrepreneur material?
A reminder that failure doesn’t have the same consequences for everyone.
Just, you know, as the “chief science officer”, not CEO. This is according to billionaire investor Tim Draper, who was one of the first major investors in Theranos and who appears not to have learned his lesson to this day. Draper’s Wikipedia page states that he is “third in a familial line of venture capitalists” - I guess that’s what just happens when investing acumen is “inherited”.
Sorry for the lazy post today. Happy International Women’s Day, and remember that corporate feminism is not feminism.