In Silicon Valley, affiliation to established institutions - schools, conglomerates, social circles - correlates with access to early-stage capital much more strongly than it correlates with actual performance as an entrepreneur.
This is bad for two reasons:
1) Silicon Valley investors, as a group, are wasting capital by investing too much in low-performing insiders, and not enough in high-performing outsiders.
2) Silicon Valley entrepreneurship amplifies social inequalities instead of reducing them, because a disproportionate share of entrepreneurial opportunities are reserved for insiders.
In Silicon Valley, affiliation to established institutions - schools, conglomerates, social circles - correlates with access to early-stage capital much more strongly than it correlates with actual performance as an entrepreneur.
This is bad for two reasons:
1) Silicon Valley investors, as a group, are wasting capital by investing too much in low-performing insiders, and not enough in high-performing outsiders.
2) Silicon Valley entrepreneurship amplifies social inequalities instead of reducing them, because a disproportionate share of entrepreneurial opportunities are reserved for insiders.