You're both ignoring an important contextual clue.
We’d have $8 drip coffee in the mornings with a rosemary or lavender scone, or something else ridiculously fancy, rubbing shoulders with the people our age and older who actually made money.
Pick up any guide on how to get ahead in business or sales, and it will include advice to project an air of success and engage heavily in networking activities. Now I'm personally pretty frugal, but that in itself can be a limitation. You're not likely to meet your next hot netowrking prospect standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts, even less so making coffee in your kitchen and hunching over your computer at the library.
I'm not saying the way to success is to go out and spend yourself down on fancy coffee. but look at how so many startups operate; they set up very very nice work environments and then burn through their runway cash hoping they can innovate enough to attract another funding round while also attracting talent by creating a great team with a great place to work. This writer is just trying to leverage the same approach that is promoted all over the place. I don't think she's doing a very good job of it, but if you want to meet people who can advance your career then you need to put yourself out there and putting yourself out there costs money.
I can concede that most startups operate as you describe. However, most startups also fail. If you fail in a startup, you can dust yourself off and try again. If you fail in your life, you're going to have a harder time of it.
Maybe it's not best to follow the all-or-nothing strategy that works for startups (or, should I say, that works for the VCs that fund them because they can spread their risk over many investments).
We’d have $8 drip coffee in the mornings with a rosemary or lavender scone, or something else ridiculously fancy, rubbing shoulders with the people our age and older who actually made money.
Pick up any guide on how to get ahead in business or sales, and it will include advice to project an air of success and engage heavily in networking activities. Now I'm personally pretty frugal, but that in itself can be a limitation. You're not likely to meet your next hot netowrking prospect standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts, even less so making coffee in your kitchen and hunching over your computer at the library.
I'm not saying the way to success is to go out and spend yourself down on fancy coffee. but look at how so many startups operate; they set up very very nice work environments and then burn through their runway cash hoping they can innovate enough to attract another funding round while also attracting talent by creating a great team with a great place to work. This writer is just trying to leverage the same approach that is promoted all over the place. I don't think she's doing a very good job of it, but if you want to meet people who can advance your career then you need to put yourself out there and putting yourself out there costs money.