„Startup“ subculture?

@LEriksonas

5 Nov. 2014

Content

• What is a „startup“?

• „Startup“ and subcultures

• „Startup“ networks in Lithuania

• Results from network analysis

Why are we talking about “startups”?

„startup“searcheson google trends

A new global phenomenon – hackerspaces

1833 hackerspaces1087 active355 planned, of whichtwo in Vilnius

Hackerspaces.org

Technarium: the first hackerspace in Lithuania

In operation since 2013, Vilnius

New premises of the Technarium hacker collective in a defunct tool factory (4 Nov. 2014)

Hackerspace initiator, Tomas Verbaitis,played in Dr Green, a punk rock bandwww.technariumas.lt

Technarium’s mission statement, Vilnius

• Technarium shall be a place with tools for your dreams. We are building an open, community-operated space in Vilnius, Lithuania, where people with technology-related interests can collaborate, work on their projects, share their knowledge and skills. We've been operating an informal workspace where our friends and friends of friends could come and make or fix things for several years, we havelots of experience and the basic equipment. Now we would like to expand the place and open it to the broader community.

Hacker Collective at Technarium, Vilnius

Tomas: engineer / technician

Kęstutis: technician / engineer

Steph: agronomyengineer

Adomas: music makeGiedrius: entrepreneur/ administrator

opit: astrophysicist / ceramistrxdtxd: electronics engineer / metalworker / sysadmin

Karolis: artist / scenographer

Ieva Marija: artist .Graphic designer

Mic: software architect/ electronics engineer

R: chemist / technician

Kipras: technical /Punk rock musician

What is a „startup“?

• A social group, an informal work collective, aligning a lifestyle, values and personal preferences of its members with an ambition to make a million and “change the world”:

• you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast (Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters, 2004)

• Sociologists describe a volunteer workforce in startups as „venturelabour“or „entrepreneurial workers“ who are:

• Mostly graduates with higher education (often with degrees business or creative industries) yet without adequate opportunities on the job market, often with a previous career track in the corporate world disrupted by the economic crises

• Technologically savvy, highly skilled (programmers, designers)• Well socially integrated, prone to networking and other socializing activities online

„Startup“ culture and relations to subcultures

Centre for Rational Thought, 2014

„Startups“ and subcultural values

• Hacker subculture:• Programmers („nerds“, „geeks“, „hackers“, „crackers“, „makers“): sharing of programming code,

bricolage programming, • Main values: a freedom of information, anti-establishment views, equality • Raison d’etre: to „hack“ software or hardware and demonstrate their abilities in achieving such

hacks, despite the power structures, demonstrating the claim that they are above the system

• Rationalists:• Latter day atheists, trans- and post-humanists, who believe in the abilities of an individual to

racionalize oneself through the application of pure reason,• Main values: trans-humanism, singularity, elitism, affective altruism.• Raison d’etre : „life hacking“, self-education through a rational reflection

• „Startup“ values: • Borrowed from hackers: a declared aim to hack (disrupt) economics, horizontal relations• Borrowed from rationalists: group self-reflection, mission-driven, elitism (founders) • Borrowed from libertarians: a belief in the dialectics of business development, social darvinism

Rethorical differences between subculturesHacker author- Eric S Raymond,Libertarian party

Rationalists ideologue – ElezierYudkowski, movement Less Wrong

„Startup“ guru – Paul Graham,Y Combinator incubator and VC fund

Using the online tool http://www.analyzewords.com/

Differences in styleHacker party with Eric S Raymond Rationalists’ lecture by Kenzi Amodei „Startup“ day with Paul Graham

Environments and groups within an ecosystem

Hackerspacesshared

working tools and work

space

Incubators for startup teams:

Team work in a shared, institutionalized work space

Coworking hubs:

Individual work places in a shared work space

DIY/ Makers

IT professionalsworking on their own or as subcontractors

Hacker subculture

Startup founders

Hypotheses for the ongoing research

• During the research the following hypotheses have been addressed:

• Hypothesis 1: The development of „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by subcultures bottom up.

• The hypothesis will be proved if there are evidences to suggest that subcultural ideas are present in the startup environment and that former hackers are participating in the startup ecosystem in shaping it.

• Hypothesis 2: The development of „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by the institutional development from above.

• The hypothesis will be proved if there are evidences to suggest that the facilitators representing different institutional actors in the ecosystem are more central in the “startup” networks than entrepreneurs themselves

Defining a „startup“ ecosystem in Lithuania

• The research was carried out in two phases (2013 ir 2014) by analyzing the Twitter followers and friends of the core actors in the “startup” ecosystem in Lithuania (the approach is scalable and could be applied in other communities)

• Data collected via Twitter API:• 1 stage: a seed list of 24 actors (identified through a „snowball“/ respondent-driven survey)

created and used for analyzing a network of 19515 Twitter users following or followed by the users on the seed list

• 2 stage: the seed list extended by additional 33 Twitter users, identified as sharing more than 8 users with the members of the original seedlist

• In total: the collected data on 83000 Twitter users linked to the startup ecosystem in Lithuania, including 198000 relationships between them, were analysed using a network analysis approach

• The total population of a „startup“ ecosystem in Lithuania was nailed down to ca 1200 individuals

• Software used for data mining and analysis:• Python scripts (courtesy of Dr Derek Ruths, McGill University, Canada)• Neo4j graph database and additional Python scripts for network visualization from GitHub

Initial core network of a startup ecosystem in Vilnius

StartupHighwayaccelerator, Vilnius

Hub Vilnius coworking centre

Startupteams

The data from June 2013Hub Vilnius, a coworking space (2013)

H1: have subcultures shaped „startups“?

• Hacker collective GamejamLT(2002)

Participants of GamejamLT 2002: NeARAZ, Oasis, rtfb, Voblia, ReJ Teaman, ProNinja, OneHalf, simple

Viktoras Jucikas, a founder of Yplan, London, a former ex hacker (BigtoP) from a „demo scene“In Lithuania

• One of the members of the GamejamLT hacker collective (2013)

From subcultures to startups: a career path in inversion

• Subcultural environment

Hacker collective

• Institutional environment

• „Startup“ ecosystem

Founders’ teamShared values:

• „life hacking“• rationalism• affective altruism

A core network of a startup ecosystem in Vilnius (after 1 year)

Facilitators vs. Founders

Data from October 2014

H2: does „startup“ ecosystem depend on institutional development and imitation?

Year Subculture texts Institutional development In Lithuania

2002 Gamejam LT 2002*

2003 Eric S Raymond, Hacker emblem How to become a hacker (a local translation)

2004 Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters

2005 Y Combinator (Palo Alto, CA) Raymond’s

2006 Yudkowski, Less Wrong blog‘as Twitter

2007 Open Coffee Club (London)

2008 Seedcamp (London) Open Coffee Club

2009 Yudkowski, Less Wrong Sequencies BarCamp

2010 Less Wrong meetups AngelList „Startup Weekend“

2011 Singularity University „Startup Highway“Hub Vilnius, Gamejam LT

2012 Startup.Lt

* - Modelled on the example of a gamejam festival in the UK

Conclusions and directions for further research

• H1: The development of a „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by subcultures• NO, not in the case of the Lithuanian startup ecosystem where subcultural influences

are few (though some hackers have contributed to founding some startups after failing to pursue their institutional careers in a corporate world). In the further analysis an assumption will be checked that the „startup“ culture is an imitation of subcultures,allowing the highly skilled individuals whose careers have been abrupted by crises to create meaning narratives about their careers;

• H2: The development of a „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by the institutional development from above

• YES, the development of the startup ecosystem in Lithuania is driven by the facilitators and institutional intermediaries who represent the economic interests of risk capitalists and public investment programmes. In the further analysis an assumption will be checked that a founders’ team is an imitation of an institutional business setup, allowing the highly skilled individuals to differentiate vis-à-vis other skilled labour with similar job tasks but having a different social status.