"A group of friends who enjoy each others' company ought to build something together."

I just want to highlight this sentiment, it seems deeply correct to me. I also think that learning or creating with others is a surefire way to deeper and more meaningful emotional connection; it's certainly a dimension of friendship that I've paid insufficient attention to--in large part because it absolutely requires a more regular and sustained commitment than simply having a get-together every once in a while.

> "A group of friends who enjoy each others' company ought to build something together."

I am surprised this is rare in the Valley; very much common among folks in South Asia starting up medium to small scale business.

There's certainly a common attitude with both romantic relationships and businesses, with the expectation among many that if it goes wrong it's the end of the friendship, so people seek out people from other circles so as not to ruin a long friendship (be it from dating apps for romance or working with professional associates / startup incubator neighbours / whatever for business formation)

> that if it goes wrong it's the end of the friendship, so people seek out people from other circles so as not to ruin a long friendship

This is indeed true, and acrimonious splits aren't that uncommon, but folks also tend to move on, seek other partnerships and look to do better than before.

Absolutely. The older I get, the more I appreciate the deep running connections I have with friends. I never would have thought it mattered as much as it does to me now.

"“Let's buy a bar together” or “Let's buy land and move to the country and raise our kids together”

YES! I had this sentiment as a kid. I do at least now see some friends who have purchased houses on the same street and all hang out together. But now that I'm in SF Bay area I crave leaving...

... yet I think the reason people don't do it as urban 20-somethings is that currently its very hard for these types of people to actually move to the countryside. I went from being one of those people to being a 30 something tech worker who talks about leaving silicon valley constantly never does. Most of us stay because homeostasis is very strong. Now the discussions are "If we leave, will there be good sushi... blah blah blah blah blah" will there be this will be there that, I like it here, we'll miss this.

Here I am, but I can't help feeling I'm left holding the bag.

I bought a house in SF with some friends, it's going pretty well, but I guess we're only a few years into it so far. I'm also buying a rural place this year, and I'm hoping that having a foothold in both urban and rural settings will provide me with plenty of opportunities to build group living arrangements around what my friends most prefer. So far it's rewarding!

That's cool! Do you have a family yet though?

No, although I don't know if I ever will, so "yet" seems like a weird way to phrase it. I do have friends in Massachusetts attempting it in a situation that should be more amenable to families, but it's a whole other level of difficulty to purchase properties that large; there's an extent to which private citizens cannot get loans on unusually sized properties.

This seems a like a classic SF perspective. You can enjoy the present without always needing to "build" something for the future. I very much enjoy the time with my close friends talking about whatever - philosophy, men and women, programming, productivity, art. No building required!

I took it less as "build to create a unicorn and get rich" vs "building as intimate act of interdependence" that brings people closer in a rich way, just as any kind of interactive play will do. I'm trying to migrate some work friends into personal friends, and this constructive / collaborative interaction is a thing I'm hungry to keep once work no longer provides it to us for free.

I suppose some people hear about making business with your friends and think "leverage your friends into making more money", while others think "leverage business into spending more time with your friends".

Those are not just different ways of looking at the same thing, they will actually result in different business strategy. For example, if your friends are just a tool to make you money, you will gladly replace them later with someone more productive. But if the business is just a tool to spend more time with your friends, as long as your friends are not actively super harmful, you will keep them at the company, because being there together was the entire point.

Many people spend 8 hours a day at work. Spending 8 hours a day with your friends can make a huge difference in your quality of life. (And don't confuse it with being friendly with your coworkers in an average company. The difference is, in the average company, your friendship is a hostage to the company.)

+1

  > Similarly, there's a version of modern friendship
  > that feels like dating around, especially because
  > it's extremely easy to meet new people these days.

Maybe that's the problem? In earlier generations, one had to work harder to get in touch, get together, and have a conversation with someone, so every hard-won connection felt meaningful. These days, everyone you know is instantly reachable, and you can talk to anyone in the world without leaving your chair.

I agree with all of this, and also want to say I think people's free time is at a low right now compared to the past, maybe?

I feel like most people in my generation either define themselves fully by their careers, or they are scrambling constantly to make ends meet.

It's hard for me to find people around my age who have free time when I have free time and personalities or lifestyles that align with what I want out of friends or life.

I imagine a lot of people are in the same boat.

I don't know. I think of my dad, and almost all of my friends dads, and they worked all of the time, seemingly. Granted, I'm GenX, so I may be older than a lot on here. My mom worked when I was younger and could stop when my dad got to a certain point (and my parents remarried), but most dads were only home for dinner and then looked over some papers while I was getting ready for bed, as long as I can remember. That was the promise of the 80's and 90's, right? The boom economy.

Maybe we lived in a few anomalous neighborhoods.

I’m sure there are cases where this is absolutely the truth of the situation, but from my personal experience it was obviously a conscious decision. My father basically spent as much time as possible away from his family doing things, work and hobbies. It’s pretty clear to me now as an adult. People can make time, it’s just not a priority to them.

Of course we have extremely little in common now so I rarely talk to him. I have better things to do. That is a conscious decision. It has consequences.

I don't think there's anything more rewarding than building things with people you care about and are invested in the success of. Wins are amplified, losses are overcome more readily, there's a level of trust that extends beyond the bounds of immediate economic needs and into the iterated game.

Good piece, and something I've thought a lot about over the past year.

I am fascinated by the idea of risk pooling and companies like Pando that make this process simple. I think it's a great fit for groups of ambitious tech young folks, not just as a way to either reduce risk or capture increased upside, but also as a way to ensure that you will always have a group of extremely competent people looking out for you, even if it's out of self-interest. There are programs (OnDeck, Interact, and others I'm sure?) out there that to bring together groups of ambitious young people in order to build support networks, find co-founders, etc. but to my knowledge none of these programs give the participants any economic interest in the outcomes of their peers.

I went to Cal and the best thing about going to school there was the friends I made. I spent a lot of time with people who were clearly extremely talented and I (selfishly) always wanted to be able to ride their coattails if I could. The most common way to do this, of course, is to invest in their start ups. But even just 5 years ago, this was _much_ harder than it is today. First off, I didn't have any money, and even if I did, I certainly didn't have enough to write the $25k minimum check that most founders required, and even if I had _that_, I didn't meet the income thresholds for being an accredited investor and there were no alternative paths to certification.

This is less of a problem these days since younger folks can become an accredited investor through alternate pathways, and you can invest in startups at much lower thresholds thanks to products like AngelList's Roll Up Vehicles[0]. Yet, you still have to be invited to invest and I've been continuously surprised about how few of the founders I know want to bring non-strategic or non-famous people (aka their friends) onto their cap table.

Another aspect is that startup investing only allows you to ride along with your founder friends. What about your friends who join early stage startups, or breakout unicorns? Everyone wanted to hire engineers from Cal, and the Law of Large Numbers meant that it was inevitable that one of your classmates would be engineer #6 at Stripe or the first hire at Notion. This is almost as risky as founding a company yourself, but there's really no way for me to join a friend on that ride without an actual risk pooling structure.

[0] A product brought to the forefront by a contemporary of mine I met at Cal whom I think the world of, Sumukh Sridhara, and my #1 pick if I were to choose a group to risk pool with

I don’t disagree with the idea of “building” with friends but over the history of civilizations, humans find the most meaning in building families and communities. So, yes, build with friends, but think “village” and not “SaaS.”

> It's about antimemes, defined as "an idea with self-censoring properties...which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it."

Rather than imagineering "antimemes", why not use the working definition and body of "anti-memes" a la r/antimeme so that the only content which gets spread is satire about spreading memes?

Edit: clarification

None of my friends who I'd do this with are in the same economic class. Otherwise I think I would have.

What does “economic class” prevent building something?

Depends what you want to build. Homes together? Kind of matters.

This makes me sad as I feel low on friendships right now, maybe that’ll change but I have a lot of trauma and energy/fatigue issues to overcome just to have the friendships let alone the friends making stuff together which sounds like a beautiful dream!

Relationships exist outside of productivity and usefulness. Don't ruin it plz.

Starting any kind of joint venture which involves money seems like a sure way to end friendships.

Not everything in life has to have utility.