# Dalton & Michael: The cult of conformity in Silicon Valley

**Author:** Dalton Caldwell, Michael Seibel
**Type:** Video
**URL:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/IY-dalton-michael-the-cult-of-conformity-in-silicon-valley
**YouTube ID:** ia7IKW0yuG0

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What happens when the unconventional becomes conventional? Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell discuss how the startup
world has changed from being dominated by outsiders and nonconformists to now attracting more mainstream conformists
looking for status and money. They share stories of what the tech scene was like when they were in school - and how
radically different it is today.

Dalton and Michael offer advice about navigating a world that doesn't always reward nonconformists embarking on risky
entrepreneurial journeys. Don't just think different, act different.

## Transcript

who would want to be an early employee at imeem and Justin TV non-conformists like they would never be you know a conformist would not be caught dead working at an early stage this is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell today we're talking about conformis versus non-conformists in the tech and startup world so Dalton set this topic up for us sure

thing so something I think about a lot is the history of Technology the history of Silicon Valley the history of startups it's just a topic that I've always thought was cool and something that I think a lot about um and my job at YC is the change between startups being something entirely done by non-conformists and the domain of non-conformists and to kind of becoming like a mainstream thing that I would consider conformist thinking is cool

like your parents thinking is cool your authority figures thinking it's cool the kind of people that would have gone into very um Blue Chip kind of jobs or entering Tech and startups that would not be caught dead during the past so anyway that's the setup is it's been weird to witness um what was previously a very weird place to go populated by weird people become almost the opposite of that so let's go back to the Dark Ages you and I went to school

in the early and mid 2000s and when we were in school what's so funny is that like it's probably hard for us to explain to a current college kid how uncool Tech was and then like think of however Uncle Tech was startups were 10x less cool than even that but but maybe the way that I would explain it with a number you know I was a Yale 05 graduate and in my graduating year Yale graduated 10 CS

majors in a class of 1200 kids so like just to give you some perspective at that time what was your experience like at Stanford during these times there were startups around but this was just after the.com boom had crashed this wasn't like an O2 and O3 and so you'd have to be a real idiot to intentionally get into the wreckage of the.com Crash like it was pretty much people that just liked computers would be my assessment

um had nothing to do with financial seeking Financial gains again if you do that you do management consulting and you do there's a bunch of other options and so it was kind of nerds is how I would describe it yeah yeah and you know at my school too I think there was a whole set of kids um and I think this makes sense who were like you know I'm gonna do really good in high school and get into a really good school okay I'm at that school what's the next status seeking thing that a gunner

should want to go after right and and to your point Finance Consulting law medicine those were the like easy ones and they had a lot of the characteristics of school like there was a clear application process there was a clear steps these steps were kind of imposed upon you like it was it was a very comforting structure yeah there was a lot of recruiters there were stuff on campus and also you could brag to people that you what offers you got right like a lot of these play you had

interviewed all the management consulting places and then talked to you'd brag to people about all the you know who you got offers from what your siding bonus was yeah what's funny is all this stuff's gonna sound very familiar to anyone who's been in college recently yeah it wasn't that way back then for Tech but what was also interesting is people who did get into startups because I might argue that back then just the people who were interested in Tech at all back then were much more likely to be non-conformists right you made the point we just went through the the the

bubble bursting and so it was interesting like I think a lot of our Frameworks for who would be interested in Tech just come from when we were in school right and it was it to your point it was like weird non-conforming nerds like um it was people who absolutely hated the idea of having a boss ever I think there was also a bit of like the folks in this world weren't lazy I actually think the other kind of aspect here that was interesting was that it was a lot of people who didn't want

to wait in line like they didn't want to be told like oh no no no like you still have 10 15 20 years to go to school or to work your way up through the system before you get to do stuff you know they were like I want to do stuff now and what was funny was that you know Tech was the place back then where you could do stuff now like there would be no waiting um and certainly Tech startups back then but now things have changed you know fast forward

um a little less than 20 years and Tech is now attracting conformists and I think that you know you and I have talked about this a lot but I think at first that was a confusing concept to us you know just just because of our different lived experience when we were in school also in hiring I mean we'll probably talk about this a minute but like the people who we were able to hire at our startups like who would want to be an early employee at I Meme and Justin TV

non-conformists not normal like they would never be you know a conformist would not be caught dead working at an early stage startup well you know and to to extend that point what was so cool about San Francisco was it was the first place I went that just felt like I could be in a room full of weirdos I could meet weirdos on the street like you know weirdos were all around you know it was the first place oh wow there are all these people who think they can make companies and they're just kind of all around doing it that's different like that's the

opposite of where I came from but you know today I might argue that big Tech has become put itself solidly in that list right it is amongst the finance and Consulting and legal and Medicine um you know college kids today obsess with getting jobs at Facebook and Google they study how they interview just as much as people study how to interview how to get into Goldman Sachs right yeah and they you know you brag everyone I got this off where I got this bonus I got this level like it's a whole like

I've seen some of these Reddit threads man this does wild and they want the structure they want the leveling they want the status they want the money they used to be associated with these Finance or professional jobs bam they're all now associated with big Tech and so what's interesting is that at first you see the explosion of Cs majors in school and I think you would think to yourself oh man that means that there are a lot more people who are interested in building but that's not actually the case like it's it's it's uh it's deceiving the

numbers are deceiving I remember going to a class and talking to a bunch of kids who are kind of interested in in Tech and startups and so forth and I remember saying to them hey like how many of y'all are studying Cs and and write code and 90 of the people raise their hands and then I remember asking oh that's amazing like what percentage of you would want to be writing code as part of your job in a startup or a company and like 90 of those hands went down

and and it was so clear that like that CS job was like a a label or a status thing to get the career they wanted it wasn't writing code wasn't something they enjoyed doing at all I remember going to the MIT career fair this is like years ago and most of the people that talked to me wanted to ask me how to get a job in vce and what tips I had then how to start a startup like that's what like guys actually again I I know it's well that's

why they were talking to me but it was just it was fascinating that they're like yeah yeah you know why commentary yeah cool whatever but like how do I become an investor and these were this was the MIT man well I think that you're setting up the next topic right which is that like these conformists are also now invading the startup world and I agree with you right the highest status job in the early stage Charter world is investor right it's the one everyone wants to meet everyone's talk to everyone seeks approval to and so for

sure it makes sense right that that you know the logic follows but we also see a lot of these folks who are conformists who want to do startups but they start almost it feels like their motivation or starting point it is very different than what we would expect you know one of the things that we say sometimes at YC is that don't make the investor your customer um but a lot of these conformists who are getting into startups that's what they do like they want an idea and investor is going to like they want to act the way an investor is going to like

they want to have their resume investors going to like and their questions are usually something along the lines of they want us to tell them the secret to get investors to like them like that's actually that's what they that's what they hope that we will tell them is the secret the secret words to whisper to an investor to get approval I think that the the challenge nowadays is where will non-conformists go to find their home you know it it used to be as easy as going to attack and and now

um it's not as easy to go to Tech and you know you brought this up when we were discussing this before but you know PG originally started YC to be a home for this type of people right to be a home for people who wanted to build who didn't want to wait in line who really didn't care about status in and of itself they just wanted to go out there and like challenge themselves and it's interesting because when we're talking to Founders now um core NYC there are all these things that we hear or conversations that we

have that do motivate us that do make us feel like oh my God like you you actually want to be a builder and I think it'd be helpful to kind of talk about some of those things because they might be different than people would think the first one that immediately comes to mind for me is you know now that YC gives five hundred thousand dollars I'll have conversations with Founders all the time where they come to me and they they're like quiet they think I'm gonna disapprove right they're like my colleague I know I'm not supposed to say this but I think 500 000 might be all the money we need to like

I don't know like hit 50k and mrr to like get profitable or like hit this Mega Milestone like is it okay if we don't raise a bunch of money you know I think the other hint and you brought this up you better describe in more detail is they have no idea who the like Tech Twitter celeb of the moment is or the tech Twitter debate of the moment is right like this is not they don't live in that world how have you seen that it's just a sign of what you're focused on and so when folks are really involved in the

scene in the drama in the characters um and are obsessed with the startup scene as opposed to their own thing and solving customer problems yeah that's usually a sign of like Conformity yeah the next one that I see that I love is um everyone has high expectations for what they're going to accomplish when they get into YC and then inevitably and initially they don't meet those expectations and it's so fun to work with the founders who are excited by that who are

like I'm excited that this is harder than I thought it would be like I knew it was going to be hard it's proving to be harder than I thought this is going to make me better bike this is forcing me to raise my bar I wanted to test how good I was yeah like this is bringing the best out of me and you're it's different because you don't get to level up and get a gold star and oh good job you're you're now founder we're up we're getting a promotion you are now number 13. you know congratulations

you know like when people are cool with it it's not that way because I think sometimes people really want it to be that way and they're really freaked out that it's not some people love it they're like yeah this is great like there's no structure like the only way that you can keep score is like revenue for my startup and if it gets big there's no other way to keep score than that some people love that and then you should set up this last one because I always love it this one like I think a a good way to say it is folks that have a very high opinion of themselves

And when they see peers they they're like yeah I'm like gonna try way harder and like be way smarter and learn way faster than them like basically the non-conformists are willing to kind of like they want to be above the peer group not in the peer group versus if you're a conformist you don't want to you kind of want to be in the pack with everybody a lot of the folks the really hardcore non-conformist I funded that have done great they're they'll be like yeah you know I don't get what all these other people

are doing but like this is what I'm doing and like it's going great you know what I say so it's like a combination of optimism and confidence yeah I the way that I like to say this is It's people who are excited to bet on themselves like they believe in their own growth curve like they believe they are on exponential curve and like they are all in on what they're going to be able to accomplish you know like what's funny is that like once again that's typically not based on the skill that they come in

with day one it's it's always based on their assumption that they can accomplish whatever needs to be accomplished or learn whatever needs to be learned or meet any challenge of the future you know and it's funny because like one of my co-founders Kyle vote like it's this in in Spades like there was never a technical challenge where Kyle's first thought was not well I'm sure I can figure this out like full stop like I'm sure you give Melissa and I remember when he told me that he was going to do

cruise and self-driving cars and my first thought was like you're crazy and then I just kept on thinking every time there was something super hard adjusting TV Kyle's first feeling all right yeah I got it no worries I got and we knew he had no experience he was like yeah I got it and like that and then I was converted immediately I was like you know subtraiving cars is gonna test you and like you respond to being tested like the bigger the test the bigger you

come through like that is a non-conformist like that is the person who like you know that's a person who can bend the world a little bit you know like um so what's the grand takeaway here Dalton I think the grand takeaway is the following which is just to remind people that it's okay slash good to be a non-conformist um if you're not currently a founder one tip is to join an early stage

startup instead of a big company because it's more likely you'll find like-minded people um you know being the first 10 employees somewhere is going to be weird and the people that tend to like working at the first 10 employees tend to be non-conformist right because there's no structure it's like chaos so that's like a really good move versus going into like the the big Tech treadmill and I think the other big takeaway is just to remind people like you know don't play status games foreign or or maybe you can but maybe some you

know do it inside of a big tech company instead of trying to play status games and startups yeah like my final thought is I come back to what I say to every founder when they come in which is you know congratulations ring NYC the average YC company dies like you you literally have accomplished in the scale of making any impact on the world getting into YC means you've accomplished nothing I think there's a lot of people who think that they're non-conformist but they are actually secretly following some thesis of tech

Twitter or yada yada you know and like they tell their sums they're not performance but they really are just trying to fit in with a pack and I would just say like for the real non-conformists out there just find your people like you're going to be so much happier when you're surrounding yourself with other people like you and you know we think YC can be a place like that but like even if you don't think I see a place like that you'll be more productive when you surround yourself with a group of people

like that and I can say personally going through YC that's why we got better was because we were surrounding ourselves with these non-performists who all thought that they were amazing and we all were like well I guess we gotta level up we think we're better than them so how do we what are we gonna do you know so for non-conformist good luck great talking to you Dalton sounds good talk to you later man bye

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