Incubate This

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No startup began at a meetup.<br>You are not going to build the next unicorn with your new cofounder<br>Alex. The startup industry is multi-level marketing for tech bros. Sure,<br>give that incubator your money; I am sure they have finally figured out<br>the lean startup method.

I was recommended a list of videos explaining the lean startup<br>approach earlier this month. The videos are 8 years old. The idea is<br>simple, so simple that the person presenting now works at a bank. Since<br>before I made it to university, I was told that being an entrepreneur is<br>how you succeed at life. My university mandated that we take a course in<br>our final year on how to launch a startup. I studied mechatronics<br>engineering. Half the meetups in Berlin are about startups; cofounder<br>meetup here, pitch speed dating there.

You know where the real people building things are? Not at meetups.<br>They are holed up in their rooms, 10 energy drinks deep and haven’t seen<br>the sun in four weeks. They aren’t building it for generational wealth.<br>No, they are tired of JavaScript being slow, and have decided they are<br>going to do something about it, if it is the last thing they ever<br>do.

But Sylvan, surely this whole industry wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t<br>leading to some successful startups? Of course, it would, because they<br>are selling dreams, and the problem is that all Western governments are<br>funding it. Some guy built a browser 30 years ago, and now he gets to<br>dictate the direction of an industry larger than the whole Global South.<br>The Global South, by the way, is where Europeans go to sell their<br>entrepreneurial “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” dreams.

You want to see some innovation? Go to any township in South Africa.<br>There is more innovation going on in a square kilometre than in the<br>whole of Silicon Valley. Why? Because these people need to survive. “Oh,<br>but I am developing a new data pipeline so that we can train the next<br>frontier model 0.1% faster.” How about you go develop a pipeline for<br>some clean drinking water?

Innovation doesn’t happen in boardrooms or meetups or incubators; it<br>happens out there. I know you are not going to build the next startup,<br>because otherwise you wouldn’t be here.