There Are No Creative Visionaries Left in Silicon Valley

There are no creative visionary technologists in modern Silicon Valley. Founders in today’s SF ecosystem are too obsessed on their social status and reputation to take real risks and be bold. Instead, they conform to a “socially-acceptable” behaviors, archetypes, eccentricities, identities, and risks. The biggest risk you can take in modern Silicon Valley is being your authentic self.

When Steve Jobs conceptualized the personal computer while on LSD, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

When Douglas Engelbart invented the computer mouse while on LSD, sparking the early computing evolution in SV, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

When Francis Crick conceptualized the double helix structure of DNA while on LSD, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

When biochemist Kary Mullis developed PCR while on LSD, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

When Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis while he was high as hell on cocaine, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

When Ralph Abraham used psychedelics to inspire his mathematical theories, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

When Richard Feynman used marijuana and ketamine to inspire his work in physics, did he give a fuck about his social reputation?

No. None of these brilliant, creative visionary scientists and technologists gave a single fuck about their reputation and social status. They cared about their work.

The image I included is a note from a friend in my high school senior yearbook. I didn’t give a fuck then and I don’t give a fuck now. I am free and in love with my freedom to explore and follow my wild visions and curiosities, uncensored by the concern for and the self-policing of societal pressures. Because I don’t give a fuck.

I stopped giving a fuck about status games, social climbing, social rivalry competition, gossip, and drama when I was 17 and in my junior year of high school. I stopped giving a fuck because I realized the illusion of social hierarchy only exists for those not at the top of it.

Being popular in high school or famous in San Francisco, in-group, or whatever social pool you’re in, it’s not the experience social strivers tend to expect it to be. Being at the top of a social hierarchy, social hierarchy doesn’t exist. You view everyone on the same level as you, no upwards nor downwards.

A lot of people don’t even realize they’re popular or famous because it feels like your social pool is approximately 25% true supportive friendliness, 25% shallow sycophantic or transactional relationships, 25% people trying to use you, and 25% jealous haters. I knew I was extremely well known in high school, but I was under the impression that most people in high school hated me because of how loud, persistent, and dramatic the haters were.

I didn’t realize everyone at my high school were actually 60% genuinely supportive friends and acquaintances, 25% shallow sycophants; 10% people trying to use you, and 5% haters. The moment that enlightened me with this epiphany that altered my perception of my relationship with my social ecosystem was when I was genuinely surprised to learn at my senior prom that my peers nominated me for Prom Queen. In that moment, I was so completely shocked that my only thought upon finding out was “what?”

To extrapolate what I learned in high school to the social hierarchy games of reputation, social climbing, and clout seeking in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, it’s this: stop giving a fuck and focus on what you’re passionate about and who you love. The rest comes naturally.

Stop giving a fuck about social games. Creative visionaries chase their visions, not social status within illusive social hierarchies.

Why don’t we see more creative visionary founders in modern San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley culture?

Individuality in SF has become rare. I believe this is likely exacerbated by the “woke” cultural moment of censorship, speech-policing, and cancel culture that brutally suppressed creativity and free expression during a time where the pandemic deprived many young founders of the social development that typically develops during their high school and college years as a result of social isolation from lockdowns.

Oh, social media as web forums? Definitely the major amplifiers of pressuring false self personas; vulnerable narcissism with insecurity and self-absorption; histrionic insecurity via attention seeking external validation; and, borderline unstable identity, self-esteem, and self-worth. Untreated Cluster B personality disorders can be contagious for people with poor boundaries because they’ll not recognize disordered behaviors and end up normalizing the.

These cultural dynamics are also likely responsible for why so many young (zoomer) founders are identifying as autistic when most of the time they’re simply socially developmentally-delayed, behave like they’re 16, and commonly exhibit social anxiety and the absence of healthy, authentic, stable, matured identity developed in their unique individuality, values, passions, and beliefs.

Instead, they developed ego-masks of fake personas that conform to the set of “socially acceptable” archetypes that have been defined by modern culture, ideological propaganda, and identity-politics.

I’ve met people who pretend to be autistic to fit in; people who pretend to be gay or are “twink-maxxing” to try to fit in with gay venture capitalists and CEOs; white women who mask as lesbians to fit in or bisexual to gain sexual attention; orwhite men who disguise themselves as MTF trans to avoid being identified as a white male due to the hatred that the far left directed at white men, under the delusional belief that “white men are at the top of the social hierarchy, so it’s ok to punch up” over the past decade; and, I’ve met so many people who identify as members of ideological sex cults and death cults in an attempt to find community, even when those communities coerce them to abandon everything they actually are.

These are not identities. These are divide-and-conquer politically-manufactured archetypes that are designed to pit people against each other via political rhetoric and propaganda based on sociodemographic variables (“boxes” so they can statistically model your social and political behavior and determine how and which sociodemographic categories to manipulate towards being politically aligned with each other and which to manipulate towards being politically enemies with each other.

Your true identity of who you are has nothing to do with your physical body. Your identity is NOT your defined by your gender/biological sex, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, disability, mental illness, economic class, your economic ideology, your political ideology, nor your political party. You are NOT your politics! The world does not get to put you in a box and tell you who you are, nor must you put yourself into a box.

Identity is entirely about who you are on the inside—your heart, your mind, your soul. My identity? When people ask me my pronouns, I tell them I’m Shyla. It would be self-disrespectful and self-degrading to attempt to take all of who I am and try to fit it into some tiny box so people can read and understand a fake and shallow ego mask of my true self, which is far too multi-dimensional for simpletons to comprehend.

Stop giving a fuck about your reputation. Stop giving a fuck about the demoralizing labels society has created to define your sociodemographic data. Stop giving a fuck about your reputation. Conformists are uncomfortable when someone’s authentic individuality is expressed with confidence, and they will judge you, defame you, gossip about you, and attack you because your very being is perceived as a threat by them and they’re trying to manipulate you back into conforming to their notions of what is “socially acceptable” and what stereotype is comprehensible enough for them to deduce (often incorrect) assumptions about you.

Stop giving a fuck, explore and rediscover the true individuality of who you authentically are, follow your curiosities and creative visions, do what you love, and create what you’re passionate about.

Happy Friday,
SMA 🏴‍☠️