Building vs. Banking
On my flight back from San Francisco, I overheard a group fresh from YC’s AI Startup School. I expected talk of new ideas, bold experiments, or the joy of creating something meaningful.
Instead, the conversation circled endlessly around valuations, exits, and how much money they could make. Not one word about building something that could bring joy. Not one mention of work that might matter to people. Just capital, clout, and the promise of wealth.
Money itself isn’t the villain. It’s useful, sometimes necessary. But when it becomes the only goal, it hollows out the work. It severs the thread of purpose. And when you finally get it, the payoff is rarely what you imagined. When you don’t, the failure cuts far deeper than it should.
There was a time when people built because they loved the process. Because the act of creating mattered to them. Because they believed someone else might love it too. That time feels far away now.
What we’re left with is a culture where building is reduced to banking. Where startups are optimized for capital accumulation instead of meaning. Where founders chase clout instead of craft.
The tragedy isn’t just that this approach leaves people unfulfilled, it’s that it erases the possibility of creating something genuinely worthwhile.
Joy in the work used to be a feature, not a bug. Maybe it still can be, if we choose to build differently.
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