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Yes, immigrant communities historically have been known to be more collaborative and to have more upward social mobility because of that.

When I worked in East Palo Alto, which is a low-income community in the heart of Silicon Valley, I sometimes felt like it was like living and working in a bucket full of lobsters. Instead of being helped up out of the bucket, we'd get clawed down.

But slowly and surely, the work of community leaders, nonprofits and community organizers are changing this landscape and building up a new generation of kids who think differently.

I love how you articulate the privileges you've had in your life, which buoyed your career. It's a rare exercise and one that I encourage people to do. All too often, we take for granted these "invisible stepping-stones" that brought us to where we are now (I recently wrote about these invisible privileges for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rey-faustino/the-empathy-gap_b...).

I also was an immigrant to the US, and it sounds like we have a similar immigration story. I wonder what it would be like to be born in a low-income community in the US where social mobility is difficult. Do you think you would be where you are now if you grew up in that kind of environment?

I considered getting a fiscal sponsorship when I launched my tech-driven nonprofit organization, but I ultimately decided that that was not the best course for us. Getting a fiscal sponsor can save you some paperwork and headache in the beginning, but the biggest drawback (other than that they take anywhere between 7-15% of your revenue) is the issue of control. Technically, your fiscal sponsorship has control of your program, operations, and hiring. While you can find and work with a fairly hands-off fiscal sponsor, if you want full control of your startup organization, then file for the 501(c)3. It's more upfront work, but will save you the headache of spinoff and potential conflicts.

Also, get a pro-bono lawyer or accountant to file for your tax exempt status. Most law firms actively look for nonprofit pro-bono work to do, and you can also look for pro-bono work at law schools. I had an accountant do ours pro-bono, and in the end the actual application did not take that much time.

Thanks for posting this. I'm running at tech-driven nonprofit right now, and I've been racking my brain about how to attract tech talent on our team. This post helped to highlight that there are way more similarities than there are differences. The most striking and difficult one for me to navigate is the "lottery ticket," though. It seems that most hackers I meet are looking for the next big thing (the next Instagram) and can't be bothered with a nonprofit's world-changing mission. Where are all these altruistic hackers?

This was a useful post. It gave me a lot to think about when I hire my own COO.