This was a great a comment. I normally rail against Wall Street precisely because I've been around some of the people who go into the business and seen some shitty attitudes about life
1. Quants and financial IT: decent, geeky, respectable people (for the most part; some exceptions exist.)
2. Startup engineers: decent, geeky, respectable people. More optimistic and less socially skilled than (1). Not a worse or better crowd, just different.
3. Soft-side bankers: a few decent ones, many giant douches, some outright slimeballs.
4. Soft-side VC-istanners (executives, founders): from my experience, most are horrid human beings attempting to exploit the idealism of (2). Most are far worse than (3). There's a small sample size here, but enough to notice a "type".
Founders and executives. My sample size is small, but a lot of the ones I've met are pretty rotten people. There are a lot of good people who want to become founders, and there seem to be some decent people in VC, so I'm not sure where the mismatch occurs. I think it's an artifact of the fact that it takes a certain kind of ego to tell a stranger to give you millions of dollars.
Those "horrid human beings" who start and fund companies are adding value to the real economy-- creating new technology, finding cures for diseases, etc. Can you say the same for those "decent, geeky, respectable people" who work in finance?
To me the contrast between silicon valley and NYC illustrates why modern finance is so useless. VCs know that they can't determine whether a company is worth funding without visiting it in person, getting to know the founders, figuring out what's going on in the industry.
In contrast, finance has become a black hole of computers trading with other computers, completely ignorant of what the companies behind the ticker symbols even do. If you tried to explain to a quant why he should fund one company or the other because of the fundamentals, he would probably just tell you that it's irrelevant. It's about the mathematical models, gaming the system, and staying "just windward of the law."
There is a lot of BS to go around in every industry. But when your industry produces something of value people tend to give you a break. My tax dollars are still paying for the mistake of the finance industry, from which I got no upside, so you'll forgive me if I don't give you a break.
Don't get me wrong. I like what entrepreneurs can do-- to use your words, "adding value to the real economy-- creating new technology, finding cures for diseases, etc." Two things, though.
1. I don't think a new social media platform deserves in the same category as cancer research. When I talk about VC-istan, I'm talking about the former category. I know absolutely nothing about biotech.
2. There's no question that what entrepreneurs are doing has the potential to make the world substantially better. I'm only saying that among the people I've seen get picked to be founders, I've seen few good ones and mostly bad.
I don't have a "[my] industry". I've worked in finance, and in startups, and I generally work whereever I think it will benefit my career. I don't think it's wise to rule anything out.
Anyway, certainly I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. VC-istan could be really great, but it needs a total reboot and that involves most of the current crop of "cool kids" being out on the curb.
1. Quants and financial IT: decent, geeky, respectable people (for the most part; some exceptions exist.)
2. Startup engineers: decent, geeky, respectable people. More optimistic and less socially skilled than (1). Not a worse or better crowd, just different.
3. Soft-side bankers: a few decent ones, many giant douches, some outright slimeballs.
4. Soft-side VC-istanners (executives, founders): from my experience, most are horrid human beings attempting to exploit the idealism of (2). Most are far worse than (3). There's a small sample size here, but enough to notice a "type".