The Eclipse, the dreamer and the suck.

"Nothing to write home about, is it?", said my boss, a serial entrepreneur in his 40s after snapping an Instagram of the eclipse. His soft British accent made the somewhat scathing remark sound sensible, as it probably does when he negotiates or fires people. 

My boss's sentiment echoed the strange duality of Silicon Valley. We are comfortable having a child's like wonder and withering criticism of a given idea at the same time. He was basically saying that an eclipse could be fascinating, but in this case the experience was shit.

We have spilled out onto the streets of San Francisco and strained our heads to the sky. It was grey and overcast with a small cloud opening around the sun. We awaited the moon to block out said sun and momentarily plunge the world into darkness.

I wore jeans and a red vest over a black V-neck, ready for an imminent VC pitch on the slopes. But I could have been wearing a loin cloth, somewhere in the African savanna as our ancestors must have done witnessing an earlier recurrence of this space dance.

"Is this gonna be sick, or should I be getting brunch right now?" I asked no one in particular, clutching my phone for a good shot. I didn't buy the goggles, suggested for best viewing, hoping my iPhone's camera would do better than my eyes for looking up at the sky.

We witness shooting stars, sunrises and sunsets often and yet the heavenly bodies appear stationary in our minds. Planets keep time in much grander swaths of history. So it must be vainly glorious to witness two of our closest solar neighbors have a momentary face-off, a dramatic conversation, measured on a scale that you and I can relate to.

I often chat with execs who sincerely believe that at an idea whispered on an napkin has the power to change the world and then express brutal pragmatism around the unit economics required to get the idea off the ground. The balance can drive you crazy, or make you rich.

In this case my sense of wonder was reserved (because it's Monday) and my sceptical realism quickly took over, spurred on by hunger and the relentless notifications wave of my calendar.

I announced my departure and shoved my oversized phone in the front pocket of my undersized jeans. 

The planets can wave, but investors won't.