Dreams of Stability
Tech’s New Corporate & the status in safety nets.
Everyone says they hate the question: What do you do? It’s cliché and reductive. But nobody stops asking, and nobody stops answering. Because the answer is never just about what you do. It’s about what people think you’re worth, and what you want people to think you’re worth.
What do you do? A few years ago, as far as the tech world is concerned, the cool answer sounded like ‘I’m starting something new’ or ‘We just closed a $1M seed round’ or ‘I’m all in on crypto.’ The unifying brag: I take risks. I don’t need a safety net. Now the cool answer sounds a lot more like ‘I’m at OpenAI’ or ‘I’m building something new at Stripe’ or ‘We just raised a $20M seed round.’
Prestige used to be ‘I might win big,’ because risk itself was glamorous. Now prestige is ‘I can’t lose, and I still might win big.’ If the brag used to be the bet, now it’s about having the best safety net you can get. Stability is the new status.
