The Real Dropouts of Silicon Valley
In early 2013, I dropped out of my computer science program and moved to San Francisco. I was frustrated with college and felt like I could learn more with my boots on the ground. Besides, I had an offer from a little startup called Medium, and I was pretty excited about it.
I was 19 years old. I had a lot of questions, but the most pressing one was this: “Is this really such a great idea, after all? How will my missing college credential affect me for the rest of my life? Will people take me seriously?”
One of my friends had left college after a year to join a prestigious Silicon Valley incubator. After his startup joined, he told me, one of the decision-makers at the incubator confided in him that his team had received funding in part because the two founders, standing together, were reminiscent of “young Bill Gates and young Steve Jobs.”
My friend seemed pleased, if not a little sheepish. But I was horrified. I will never remind anyone of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs!
Over the next year, I expressed concern to friends and mentors about my decision to drop out of school. “Don’t worry about it!” everyone said. “Silicon Valley loves dropouts! Just look at Mark Zuckerberg.”
So I did. And I saw a mold I will never fit.
Silicon Valley loves dropouts, but do they love dropouts who don’t look the part?
A few days ago, I read The Real Teens of Silicon Valley. It was well-written, engaging, and funny.
It described a group of young people who dropped out of college (or passed on it altogether). They don’t know how to dress themselves, or eat politely — a point well-illustrated by a horror story about table salt. They sleep on beanbags instead of beds. They are young, and geeky, and awkward. They’re overwhelmingly male and they’re mostly white. And certainly, they don’t know anything about girls. (This point, in particular, is reinforced a few times.)
But here’s the thing: I know these communities. After all, I’ve been living among them for the past two years. And what I’ve found is that dropouts are pretty normal people. They — we — are a lot like our peers who are still in college. We are boring, even.
I know that’s not a good story. So what happened with the California Sunday article?
“We were turned into cartoon characters,” one friend sighed.
“It was full of easy points to reinforce the dropout stereotype,” another lamented.
I reread the article several times. I kept seeing these little cookie-cutter Zuckerbergs dancing across my screen, labeled with the names of my friends. I watched the stereotype get hammered in once more, and I sighed.
I’m not worried about the young men who were the subjects of the article. They will move beyond and maybe even benefit from these caricatures.
No, I’m worried about the young women who, like me, don’t fit the mold. Silicon Valley might love dropouts, but it loves to pattern-match even more. I worry about what happens when we don’t match the pattern.
