I now always think “if not me, then you” for folks who get hired over me, or funded or chosen as their preferred funded etc. what if means is — if this isn’t me that gets picked, who better than my friend? Less about competition, and meaning spreading more of the love and everyone wins / succeeds and that “rejection/no/not right now/not you” can mean “something better, later, this is for your friend and you’re meant for something else,” when thinking about competition (flip it in its head). 

Senior SWE @ Stealth

Erin Pangilinan

**tl;dr 5 reasons related to identity and network effects and how they function**

Alex and Rahul's Identity

1. Founder identity

2. YC-Backed Identity - The fact that Taro is YC-backed

3. Startup and FAANGMULA Identity - Deep thought from startups to FAANGMULA

4. Network effect lessons

5. Silicon Valley culture identity

1) To me it's **founder identity** - like what's in their DNA that's important. Alex and I are from Fremont. Fremont has **hypercompetitive** people, we all compete over 1st place (for those academically inclined, not everyone is, **but most people in the Asian American community, particularly East Asian and South Asian Americans from this area/region of the Bay Area are** (especially those who went to MSJ - aka Misson San Jose High School-- Filipinx/Southeast Asian Americans it's a mixed bag) and people are transparent with their grades. And this is comparable with places like NY (Stuyvesant) and also SF (Lowell)--while some people might perpetuate that as model minority myth, I don't want folks to see it as those who are not able to be like that not get resources they need (coming from an underrepresented community), **but when you are surrounded with the best, you also naturally in your network and environment, also want to be the best. Everyone else makes each other better, usually when you're open** (and I will beg to differ on this when it comes to AI which is a whole other can of worms). I also went to UC Berkeley (UCLA often rivals us next to Stanford) and they're also a competitive place, everyone talks about their grades, their internships where they got placed, everyone competes with each other, and even if we don't get selected, **we help each other out.** This goes with the same Silicon Valley and YC culture. Also, Rahul went to Stanford, which is #1 when it comes to tech (even creaming Berkeley, my alma mater in many regards).

**2) YC is #1 in the world as an accelerator.** Yes, many people have gotten in more so over the years, and the caliber of the unicorn founders there they've backed along with their partners is no accident. Garry Tan (head of YC currently) who I also know, is also from Fremont btw. So who they're around is also competitive, and they all share within their network. **Outside of the YC network, I've never seen outside of YC's Startup School, a plethora of sharing open source information startups - the literally are with the right investors here that also breed a culture of sharing, transparency, and competitiveness that is also second to none.**

**3) Alex and Rahul are so deeply thoughtful about every aspect of their company, they have the history and battle scars to prove what they'v seen through at multiple startups and at Meta across multiple teams.** Meta as folks know has a hackathon culture, and what always impressed me (even before I was an Oculus Launchpad alumnus), was the **culture of open source and hackathon** culture that was so encouraged, I've met the creators of so many things over the years (GraphQL, FB Live, a lot of core contributors of the React team--and I'm privileged to know the folks leading ads, JDEIB years ago, all the way up to SVP and C-Suite level from during my previous career working for Congressman Ro Khanna and as an indie dev)--**it really doesn't matter who you are, Meta people (employees) and my friends have always hands down been the nicest people you will meet. They worked at Meta, which is known to tell people to go learn there as an engineer to 'learn proper engineering,' and considered also creme de la creme next to the rest of FAANGMULA companies and the OpenAI's / other adjacent startup companies of the world.** They are good at their jobs, and remember Facebook (the way it was named) if people remember in the 90s, Slambook, is all about friendship, everyone wants to be your friend. It wasn't about 'fake friends,' most folks I know personally who have worked for Facebook/Meta from its early days (first two years of existing as a company) up through now are genuine people. They have their own culture that is transparent, much to the dismay of what the public perception is in the media, internally my friends at Reality Labs and other teams actually say it is the most transparent place they have worked.

**I always instantly felt comfortable after meeting Ale and Rahul in-person, they're very accessible, super cordial, and professional. Hands-down very much the brand of a YC world class founder I would expect people are no where near them, they're second to none.** I rave about them, because even if I see a comment or two that may be off on Slack, right away most of the time, one of them, including Charlie, and even Alex's brother Jonathan, reply with rapid response -- the only folks I have seen maintain that kind of speed (move fast and break things), actually to me, was the Obama campaign when I worked there a million years ago where it runs like the military operation, very organized, efficient, and top of their game.

**Network effect:**

Also the best networks I've been apart of outside of Taro coming from UC Berkeley and Stanford in particularly, all share with each other informally (and formally) with students and alumni networks compensation, know-how to get promoted, know-how to create startup and fund companies etc. **I think what's nice with the culture of Taro in our forums and on our Slack channel is we share with our network transparently and this helps everyone improve and level up.**

Just my two cents, I think Rahul and Alex, and Charlie and Jonathan can speak for themselves, but that was my observation and understanding/perception.

**Silicon Valley Culture:**

And ya, other cultures that don't have that, that's like old school 1980s BS imho where there were 'dumb jocks' and 'nerds,' now it's not so -- but don't get me started on 'tech bros' and the type of bullying you see prevalent back then whatnot -- what it means is that the culture of helping each other is very different now in Silicon Valley, everyone always helps each other out as founders a general rule (unspoken founder culture which is founder first as it should be, prioritizing the innovators taking the biggest risks in Silicon Valley startups) and hence, much is transparent ot maek sure our region succeeds and is #1 the best in the world hands down. People have tried to replicate this over the years in other regions, but to me, no other area has ever been successful - everyone comes here to fundraise, everyone comes here to work, everyone comes here to level up - we share that openly here and it works, plain and simple. I have yet to see counters to that narrative that have lasted decades. **I think Rahul and Alex represent Silicon Valley also very well and they are just exemplifying the best parts of our culture here.**

**Hm ya they probably could use this as a testimonial, I probably should post it on LinkedIn and get me some more referral $. Love you guys. &lt;3**

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