"There are a lot of people like me there who somehow wander into the space thinking there must be some intellectual merit to it because so many smart people are going there," said Mario Schlosser of the social gaming start-up Vostu, who studied computer science in college before ending up at Bridgewater Associates. "But literally the feeling I always had is that it was basically moving things from left to right or from right to left. And those things would move just fine even if we didn't move them. ... If we hadn't been there, the world would not be any worse off."
"I remember overhearing people who were like, 'Why should I really work hard on this, when all I'm doing is making some extra money for some rich guys who are investing in a bank?" said Mr. Montalenti. "I can tell you from experience that most software engineers I know really, truly want to have an effect on people's lives with their work."
While I have an interest in promoting this sort of thing, both as Y Combinator's Ambassador to the East and as an angel investor through Das Kapital Capital, I still think I'd be quoting it regardless.