"Hacker" is more about confidence, it seems, and cowboy coding isn't really a good thing in most cases. Don't get me wrong: there are a lot of good things about hacker culture's emphasis on flowful programming, fast iteration, and frequent engagement (demo early and often). Those are all good things, but I feel like (especially thanks to the VC chickenhawking) there is now more of an emphasis on the superficial-- the overblown confidence that is usually just massive ego and upper-middle- to upper-class entitlement-- that if you don't have that arrogant air, you're not seen as a real hacker. This is sad, because we need technologists more than ever to attack the truly hard problems (cancer, oil scarcity, global warming, economic inequality) and instead, the VC's have created this Disneyfied technology economy that is 99% hot air. It wouldn't be a problem if that nonsense were self-limiting, but it's now transferred so much wealth to undeserving people as to have set off a terrible and probably permanent housing price problem in the Bay Area.