&gt; I also think being on the receiving end of ostracism is valuable experience (but not for 8 years, a few months would suffice). It works as a vaccine against tribal thinking.<p>Peter Thiel said something about this once, speculating on why &quot;disruptive&quot; (pretty sure that was not the word he used) start-ups are disproportionally run by awkward social outsiders, and his theory is that &quot;normal&quot; kids instinctively seek validation from peers, and for these &quot;disruptive&quot; start-ups, they are saying that it&#x27;s insane, it can&#x27;t be done (go work in law&#x2F;finance&#x2F;management consulting instead). The awkward kids don&#x27;t care (as much), and are therefore able to focus on actually doing it.