I’ve labored in each Silicon Valley and Wall Road. I’ve been bitten by each the “construct cool shit” bug and the “earn more money” bug. I’ve worn a go well with & tie for my job in addition to a hoodie & shorts to my office.
It’s fascinating to discover these contrasting worlds and the totally different sides of our personalities by way of the lens of Valley and NYC.
So, how is the Silicon Valley mindset totally different from the New York mindset for creating companies, fixing issues, and promoting merchandise & companies?
Listed here are 3 ways how enterprise is finished in another way:
In Silicon Valley, founders typically provide you with new concepts from their day by day walks of life, develop a speculation, construct the product, and assume that clients can be interested in it like a magnet if it’s a cool product. They don’t search permission/approval and are solely restricted by their creativeness.
In New York, it’s extra frequent to gather all the necessities from a shopper upfront, map out their methods & constraints, put all the pieces on paper, and shut a sale. That is good as a result of they aren’t playing on an untested thought. However on the opposite excessive, it might additionally end in “vapor promoting”, by which services or products are promoted & bought earlier than they even exist.
The Silicon Valley mindset is commonly related to a tradition of experimentation, a willingness to take dangers, and embrace failure as a studying alternative. That is why the Silicon Valley mindset could also be extra conducive to pursuing moonshot initiatives which can be extremely formidable and dangerous.
In distinction, the New York mindset is commonly extra centered on minimizing threat & uncertainty and maximizing returns. That is why there’s a higher emphasis on belief and reliability. Consequently, the New York mindset could also be extra centered on roofshot initiatives which have extra predictable economics however decrease possibilities of outsized rewards.
The hustle mindset and tradition of working onerous on Wall Road are pushed by excessive stress and the expectation of lengthy hours. Those that are capable of put of their blood & sweat and say “sure” to new alternatives are sometimes those who thrive and have higher profession success. It’s superb to see a lot one can humanly accomplish by pushing their boundaries and dealing 16-hour days.
Silicon Valley’s hacker tradition prides itself in saying “no” to the grind. They imagine that decreasing stress & prioritizing total well-being is essential to inventive exploration. Techies pursue a meditative way of thinking to enhance focus, productiveness, and unconventional pondering. When you notice that having an uncluttered way of thinking creates the headspace to suppose outdoors the field. That may’t be executed once you’re continually burned out, leaping from one job to a different.
Is one mindset higher than the opposite? Most likely not. I’d suppose the reality lies someplace within the center.
