The Real Teens of Silicon Valley: Inside the almost-adult lives of the industry’s newest recruits
Source: California Sunday Magazine
... As the demand for tech labor grows, ambitious teenagers are flooding into San Francisco. There’s no official tally of the number of teens who work in tech, but Dave Fontenot, 22, estimates that there are as many as a hundred recent high school dropouts working on startups in the city. Some were too distracted by programming projects and weekend hackathons to go to class. Others couldn’t pay for college and questioned why they should go into debt when there is easy money to be made. Still others had already launched successful apps or businesses and didn’t see why they should wait at home for their lives to start.
... Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and radical libertarian, stoked San Francisco’s latest Peter Pan moment. In 2010, his foundation launched a fellowship that awards $100,000 each to 20 young people per year who skip or drop out of college. One of his slogans: “Some ideas can’t wait.” The fellowship attracted outsize attention, instantly becoming an elite brand around which other dropout teens began to rally. “The fellowship is a flag, like a beacon,” said Matin. “Even if you don’t do the fellowship, it legitimized our work.”
... But despite their success, young founders face challenges the fellowship officers might not have expected. ... “I recently had a whole meeting with one young man just for table manners,” Danielle Strachman, the Thiel Fellowship’s program director, told me. “We had a bowl of chips and salsa for the table, and he starts out by salting them so much — I mean, beyond anything normal.” She explained that it was polite to ask before salting communal chips. She has also talked to fellows about appropriate cologne use.
... Now, as the co-founder of Volley, a mobile-learning startup, Ryan Orbuch, 18, finds himself facing all sorts of responsibilities he hadn’t expected when he first moved here. “Did you know you needed insurance for your office? And health insurance? I’ve never been to the doctor without my parents before,” he said. “All these adult things are coming way too quickly.” But he’s figuring it out. “Zenefits is dope,” he added.
Read more: https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-06-07/real-teenagers-silicon-valley
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http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/08/04/attention-teen-dropouts-sf-is-lying/
Attention teen dropouts racing to SF: The tech bubble is lying to you
By Mark Morford
... I recently found myself entranced by Nellie Bowles’ terrific profile over in California Sunday magazine, a tale of the new hordes of “lost boys” of San Francisco, all these naïve, clean-cut, mostly white teenaged computer whizzes from affluent families who are dropping out of college (and, increasingly, high school) to move to San Francisco.
... This is the tech bubble’s newest, most sinister message: Who needs college, really? Who needs exposure to a broad range of ideas, cultures, religions, literature, ways of being in the world exactly at the time you’re most open and impressionable to discovering them? Come and burn away the most supple years of your life at a mediocre startup that will almost certainly fail! Bury your face in a screen and work like a slave on something to make capitalist drones like Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel even richer! Because tech!
Too harsh? Maybe. I’m sure it’s not that bad. I really do want to champion these boys, to think they’re here taking charge of their lives, creating cool stuff, taking risks, breaking free from the bonds of normal.
... Here’s what the “tech startup dream” doesn’t tell the average dropout coder: All that VC/buyout money – assuming you score it – doesn’t offset the fact you’re locked to a screen for 16 hours a day, damaging your body, widening zero horizons, exploring zero life alternatives, having awkward teen sex with no one, sapping your life force, curdling your soul.
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