Silicon Valley in the 2020s — Birth of Creative Leaders and the Art of the Startup

“Leadership is the highest art”

In the 1920s, Paris was the epicenter of the art. From all over the world, artists flocked to Paris to live in a garret and produce their masterpiece, their Les Demoiselles d’Avignon or Ulysses. Sounds strikingly familiar to Silicon Valley today. Maybe one day, people will talk about Silicon Valley like they do about Paris. Here are some parallels:

Creative Expression in 1920s and 2020s

In the 2010s, entrepreneurs from all over the world came to Silicon Valley to learn the Art of the Startup. This contributed to the boom of creative innovation in the 2020s — major industries like healthcare, transportation, and education where pushed forward by technology.

Artists sought training at institutions like Y-Combinator and Stanford, or apprenticeships at hyper-growth startups like Medium and One Medical Group. Some came here without a job or destination — they perch at cafes, watching for opportunities to slip into the inner circles of the valley.

Product Managers as Painters, Hyper-growth Startup as Royal Palace

Lucky for my colleagues and I, we are paid artists at the Royal Palace. I hold one of the most coveted jobs around the valley — I am a painter. Technology is my paintbrush, and the world is my canvas. These days at the palace, I specialize in painting portraits of the royal family.

I lead a small team of painters. I have big responsibilities — I am supposed to lead people to create masterpieces that inspire more creation. The trick with portrait painting is that you have to know your audience (your users) and you have to be good at setting the right level of direction for your team.

The Royal Palace is a coveted place to work, and there’re many reasons why. The couches are lavish, the pay is competitive, and you’re surrounded by talented artists from all around the world who came here to serve the Queen. The benefits ain’t bad either — we get a pass to a gymnasium, unlimited use of the horse chariot, organic food and snacks, and fancy beverages including Darjeeling teas all the way from India. But I have to serve myself coffee. My artist friends at a different palace have a barista serving coffee. I wouldn’t mind having a barista at my palace. But I digress. Ahem.

Exchange of ideas at Cafes

These days, I get LinkedIn emails from aspiring entrepreneurs who are looking for a growing startup to join. They all want two things, to learn a lot and to make an impact. Many of them are graduates from Indian Institute of Technology. I read their profile and recognize some semblance of a creative artist within. We decide to meet at a cafe. There, we perch over coffee and exchange ideas on how to improve our brush strokes. We debate methods on how talk to customers and how to grow teams. We dream about ways to use technology to move our world forward. Some of them tell me that they want to work as painters at the Royal Palace too. I tell them that if they want a job at the palace, they aught to get their foot in the door by applying as a kitchen staff. We depart and go on with our lives.

Maybe one day, we will all marvel at their work as they produce the next Les Demoiselles d’Avignon or Ulysses. And, maybe even one day, we won’t need to wait another 100 years before witnessing such an explosion of creative talent.