The Crazy Years

This is a slide from a talk Balaji Srinivasan gave at Y Combinator Startup School 2013, based in large part on Albert O. Hirschman’s 1970 book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States.

Hirschman observes that while we often weigh the alternatives of voice and exit when a customer (complaining, making suggestions vs. choosing a competitive product) or an employee (seeking to change from within vs. going to work elsewhere or founding a start-up), we seldom do so when considering the societies within which we live (voting or running for office vs. getting the Hell out of Dodge while you still can), which often have a far larger impact on our lives than vendors or employers.

You can see in Hirschman’s book and Srinivasan’s talk ideas which would later come together in the latter’s The Network State (available to read on-line or download as a PDF for free).

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