"Yes, occasionally 19 year olds say and do some silly things. That's kind of what being young and having your first taste of adulthood is supposed to be about."
My god. I really wish more people would point this out. The hysteria about University politics is such a bore now.
How old was he when he said that? 18? I look back on some of the stuff I said when I was 18 and it was a lot worse than this, and I think I'm a pretty decent guy overall. Big difference between a kid right out of high school and a 30-year old.
He didn't say he was immature, but that the response is. Big difference there. One's a judgement of a person, the other of an action that person took and likely regrets by now. Saying so would show maturity.
Surely you've said or done things in your adult life that were sort of juvenile. You've surely regretted some of them afterwards.
I know I'd have chose to not use your products if you'd told someone to go away when I was making a platform decision to use them or not. (Your writings positively influenced buying decisions for city desk, when it was set up against competing products at the time that were functionally quite similar).
Especially for someone at 24, expending effort to exude maturity opens doors for your company, and helps to defuse criticism of youthful inability (as has plagued Mark Zuckerberg over and over).
That's a silly, misleading, and self-serving statement Leone made.
The reason guys like him target 20-somethings is the same reason con artists target the elderly. They are vulnerable.
In the case of 20-somethings, they're vulnerable because they are still green/naive. All they see is some friendly dude with a slick pitch who knows how to throw around a few buzzwords and sound smart to their virgin ears.
They don't yet realize that 99% of VCs are reading from the same used-car salesmen's script, jumping on the same latest-and-greatest bandwagon, and generally trying to position them for an *ss f-ing. You can do that to a 20-something. Not so much to a 30 or 40 year old.
I'm exaggerating and using loaded language for effect and spice, but that's the crux of the biscuit.
But in any case, I never said you should never call someone immature, but that in this case as an alternative to name-calling someone a baby, it doesn't mean much. Pinning some social situation on someones communication skill, or friendship, or personal virtue for example.
Exactly. Thanks. Besides, I include that mostly to show that I think like an 18 year old. I'm talking mostly about behavior I've seen from other 18 year olds. That's where I am in the world right now.
Note that I didn't actually agree with all points (well, rather the point implied by the title) of your original article, I just thought that the irony was thick of someone who appears to be about 24 leading their argument with a dig about the other side being a bunch of inexperienced 20-somethings.
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