Equity compensation has long been an essential element of the startup mythos, and the economic linchpin of a system through which Silicon Valley converts "hustle" into intellectual property. Valley lore about early Google and Facebook employees whose stock options made them overnight multimillionaires plays an important role in

The recent revelation that tech investor Peter Thiel provided the funding for a series of lawsuits against Gawker Media is one of those periodic stories that divides reaction so sharply it feels like the lines are drawn along inter-dimensional boundaries, not merely sociological ones. Journalists (even the "respectable"

There's a specter haunting Silicon Valley—the specter of magical thinking. While tech's true believers (particularly among the brahmins of the investor class) like to imagine themselves as enlightened, hyper rational stewards of humanity's best interests, their public statements increasingly betray such a lack