Silicon Valley's Ideas Mocked Over Penchant for Favoring Young Entrepreneurs with 'Agency' (harpers.org)
(Sunday March 01, 2026 @03:34AM (EditorDavid)
from the investing-in-the-futurists dept.)
- Reference: 0180875706
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/03/01/011246/silicon-valleys-ideas-mocked-over-penchant-for-favoring-young-entrepreneurs-with-agency
- Source link: https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee/
In a 9,000-word expose, a writer for Harper's visited San Francisco's young entrepreneurs in September to [1]mockingly profile "tech's new generation and the end of thinking ."
There's [2]Cluely founder Roy Lee . ("His grand contribution to the world was a piece of software that told people what to do.") And the Rationalist movement's Scott Alexander, who "would probably have a very easy time starting a suicide cult..."
> Alexander's relationship with the AI industry is a strange one. "In theory, we think they're potentially destroying the world and are evil and we hate them," he told me. In practice, though, the entire industry is essentially an outgrowth of his blog's comment section... "Many of them were specifically thinking, I don't trust anybody else with superintelligence, so I'm going to create it and do it well." Somehow, a movement that believes AI is incredibly dangerous and needs to be pursued carefully ended up generating a breakneck artificial arms race.
There's a fascinating story about teenaged founder Eric Zhu (who only recently turned 18):
> Clients wanted to take calls during work hours, so he would speak to them from his school bathroom. "I convinced my counselor that I had prostate issues... I would buy hall passes from drug dealers to get out of class, to have business meetings." Soon he was taking Zoom calls with a U.S. senator to discuss tech regulation... Next, he built his own venture-capital fund, managing $20 million. At one point cops raided the bathroom looking for drug dealers while Eric was busy talking with an investor. Eventually, the school got sick of Eric's misuse of the facilities and kicked him out. He moved to San Francisco.
>
> Eric made all of this sound incredibly easy. You hang out in some Discord servers, make a few connections with the right people; next thing you know, you're a millionaire... Eric didn't think there was anything particularly special about himself. Why did he, unlike any of his classmates, start a $20 million VC fund? "I think I was just bored. Honestly, I was really bored." Did he think anyone could do what he did? "Yeah, I think anyone genuinely can."
The article concludes Silicon Valley's investors are rewarding young people with "agency". Although "As far as I could tell, being a highly agentic individual had less to do with actually doing things and more to do with constantly chasing attention online." Like X.com user Donald Boat, who [3]successfully [4]baited Sam Altman into buying him a gaming PC in "a brutally simplified miniature of the entire VC economy." (After which "People were giving him stuff for no reason except that Altman had already done it, and they didn't want to be left out of the trend.")
> Shortly before I arrived at the Cheesecake Factory, [Donald Boat] texted to let me know that he'd been drinking all day, so when I met him I thought he was irretrievably wasted. In fact, it turned out, he was just like that all the time... He seemed to have a constant roster of projects on the go. He'd sent me occasional photos of his exploits. He went down to L.A. to see Oasis and ended up in a poker game with a group of weapons manufacturers. "I made a bunch of jokes about sending all their poker money to China," he said, "and they were not pleased...."
>
> "I don't use that computer and I think video games are a waste of time. I spent all the money I made from going viral on Oasis tickets." As far as he was concerned, the fact that tech people were tripping over themselves to take part in his stunt just confirmed his generally low impression of them. "They have too much money and nothing going on..." Ever since his big viral moment, he'd been suddenly inundated with messages from startup drones who'd decided that his clout might be useful to them. One had offered to fly him out to the French Riviera.
The author's conclusion? "It did not seem like a good idea to me that some of the richest people in the world were no longer rewarding people for having any particular skills, but simply for having agency."
[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee/
[2] https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/30/1942215/ai-cheating-app-founder-says-engineers-cant-make-good-viral-content-and-thats-why-their-startups-flop
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1mjeqa8/you_can_just_ask_for_things/
[4] https://x.com/laserboat999/status/1953179942344388815
There's [2]Cluely founder Roy Lee . ("His grand contribution to the world was a piece of software that told people what to do.") And the Rationalist movement's Scott Alexander, who "would probably have a very easy time starting a suicide cult..."
> Alexander's relationship with the AI industry is a strange one. "In theory, we think they're potentially destroying the world and are evil and we hate them," he told me. In practice, though, the entire industry is essentially an outgrowth of his blog's comment section... "Many of them were specifically thinking, I don't trust anybody else with superintelligence, so I'm going to create it and do it well." Somehow, a movement that believes AI is incredibly dangerous and needs to be pursued carefully ended up generating a breakneck artificial arms race.
There's a fascinating story about teenaged founder Eric Zhu (who only recently turned 18):
> Clients wanted to take calls during work hours, so he would speak to them from his school bathroom. "I convinced my counselor that I had prostate issues... I would buy hall passes from drug dealers to get out of class, to have business meetings." Soon he was taking Zoom calls with a U.S. senator to discuss tech regulation... Next, he built his own venture-capital fund, managing $20 million. At one point cops raided the bathroom looking for drug dealers while Eric was busy talking with an investor. Eventually, the school got sick of Eric's misuse of the facilities and kicked him out. He moved to San Francisco.
>
> Eric made all of this sound incredibly easy. You hang out in some Discord servers, make a few connections with the right people; next thing you know, you're a millionaire... Eric didn't think there was anything particularly special about himself. Why did he, unlike any of his classmates, start a $20 million VC fund? "I think I was just bored. Honestly, I was really bored." Did he think anyone could do what he did? "Yeah, I think anyone genuinely can."
The article concludes Silicon Valley's investors are rewarding young people with "agency". Although "As far as I could tell, being a highly agentic individual had less to do with actually doing things and more to do with constantly chasing attention online." Like X.com user Donald Boat, who [3]successfully [4]baited Sam Altman into buying him a gaming PC in "a brutally simplified miniature of the entire VC economy." (After which "People were giving him stuff for no reason except that Altman had already done it, and they didn't want to be left out of the trend.")
> Shortly before I arrived at the Cheesecake Factory, [Donald Boat] texted to let me know that he'd been drinking all day, so when I met him I thought he was irretrievably wasted. In fact, it turned out, he was just like that all the time... He seemed to have a constant roster of projects on the go. He'd sent me occasional photos of his exploits. He went down to L.A. to see Oasis and ended up in a poker game with a group of weapons manufacturers. "I made a bunch of jokes about sending all their poker money to China," he said, "and they were not pleased...."
>
> "I don't use that computer and I think video games are a waste of time. I spent all the money I made from going viral on Oasis tickets." As far as he was concerned, the fact that tech people were tripping over themselves to take part in his stunt just confirmed his generally low impression of them. "They have too much money and nothing going on..." Ever since his big viral moment, he'd been suddenly inundated with messages from startup drones who'd decided that his clout might be useful to them. One had offered to fly him out to the French Riviera.
The author's conclusion? "It did not seem like a good idea to me that some of the richest people in the world were no longer rewarding people for having any particular skills, but simply for having agency."
[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee/
[2] https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/30/1942215/ai-cheating-app-founder-says-engineers-cant-make-good-viral-content-and-thats-why-their-startups-flop
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1mjeqa8/you_can_just_ask_for_things/
[4] https://x.com/laserboat999/status/1953179942344388815
Re: (Score:3)
by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 )
It's also frozen water.
Huh? (Score:1)
by backslashdot ( 95548 )
Some Harper's weekly writer who never ran a lemonade stand, let alone founded a company trying to say people with a successful track record have no idea what they're doing?
Re: (Score:2)
by Kokuyo ( 549451 )
Yes and he is absolutely correct on the matter.
We're now at the token high school dropout phase (Score:2)
by ebunga ( 95613 )
That's the final step before the bubble pops, just like in the dotcom era.
Re: (Score:2)
by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 )
I was working in the post-dotcom era. Companies had to show a better business plan than selling bags of dog food at a loss. It didn't affect me or anyone I knew working in that space. If that's somehow your apocolyptical vision of the future, it seems quite mild.
Re: (Score:2)
by dunkelfalke ( 91624 )
Just because you and some of your acquaintances were lucky doesn't mean everyone was.
Re: (Score:2)
by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 )
Let's hear your story guy, were you let go from a bloated dot-com where you were the only one contributing to keeping the company above water?
I would love to shed a tear over you story, you fucking sad sack. But you're making it hard by making it sound imaginary.
Introducing SPACEDEFENSEAICOIN (Score:2)
by locater16 ( 2326718 )
Now where's my $20 million dollars in venture capital? BTW I'm 3 and my co-founder hasn't been conceived yet.
Reinforcement (Score:2)
Psychopaths training psychopaths. Grift is the growth industry of the 21st century.