It actually goes both ways. In fact, some start-up people welcome this kind of approaches, because they can turn around and show potential investors/employees that "we are validated by Big Names at Google, come and join us". Hell, I've seen this first hand and it was not even an email, just a passing compliment from some reasonably "big name".
So it's all a game, don't hate the players, hate the rules. It makes it hard to know when someone is legit though. I think that's one reason why investors are over reliant on their networks, as the signal/noise ratio is too low in SV. "Fake it till you make it" is the motto.
However, I don't think I can complain too much. Without all the hypes, we wouldn't have this favorable job market. Not sure how long it's going to last, but at least it's good for now.
You're thinking of "rules" as in externally-imposed rules. The parent is using "rules" in the sense of social contracts and market incentives: best-practices that emerge from the game-theoretic equilibria between players.
For example, "don't start a nuclear war" isn't an explicit rule by some world government, but it does seem to be a rule all the world-leaders are implicitly following. For another, "don't appear to be physically weak in prison" is a "rule" that everybody knows, despite no single authority enforcing it. The environment itself—made up of the other players and their incentives—enforce it, through their self-interested reactions.
No, you're telling me that that's what I'm thinking. I haven't said what I'm thinking.
If I _were_ to do so, it would sound like "There's no point in hating the rules, because the rules don't care. Hate the players, because they are the ones who care enough about them to follow them."
I don't care if these rules are explicit or not; I care that they don't produce the outcome I want. And the people who follow those rules are not absolved by weakness, ignorance, self-interest, or any other excuse in failing to resist those rules.
(There's no rule that says anything done in self-interest is correct. Sometimes it is correct to make sacrifices for others.)
So it's all a game, don't hate the players, hate the rules. It makes it hard to know when someone is legit though. I think that's one reason why investors are over reliant on their networks, as the signal/noise ratio is too low in SV. "Fake it till you make it" is the motto.
However, I don't think I can complain too much. Without all the hypes, we wouldn't have this favorable job market. Not sure how long it's going to last, but at least it's good for now.