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The Real Teens of Silicon Valley — The California Sunday Magazine

story.californiasunday.com · 6,127 words · saved by 1 readers

“Do you know Zach Latta?” asked Fouad Matin, 19, on the roof of San Francisco’s unofficial tech teenager headquarters one recent night. “You know he rebuilt Yo’s backend. He’s baller.” We watched the sun set over Twin Peaks, and Matin told me about his high school dropout friends like Latta, 17, who served as lead engineer of Yo, a viral messaging app that simply sends the message “Yo.” A large steel vent, on which someone had written the words BOOB MANSION, pumped out hot air and the smell of tortillas from a vegan Mexican restaurant downstairs. Matin warmed himself under it. When I’d arrived that afternoon, Dave Fontenot, 22 and the group’s elderly leader, met me at the door of a dingy-looking building in the Mission District. He led me up the narrow stairs, past pink salt lamps and a fog machine left over from a Himalayan sunset–themed party the previous weekend. The stairs open to the first of two expansive living rooms with utilitarian decor. Residents, who pay between $950 and $1

The Real Teens of Silicon Valley Inside the almost-adult lives of the industry’s newest recruits By Nellie Bowles Photographs by Michael Schmelling “ Do you know Zach Latta?” asked Fouad Matin, 19, on the roof of San Francisco’s unofficial tech teenager headquarters one recent night. “You know he rebuilt Yo’s backend. He’s baller.” We watched the sun set over Twin Peaks, and Matin told me about his high school dropout friends like Latta, 17, who served as lead engineer of Yo, a viral messaging app that simply sends the message “Yo.” A large steel vent, on which someone had written the words BO

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