The group you've identified as modern "hackers" aren't the descendants of the "real hackers" of the 80s and 90s, but are instead members of the web startup scene. The real hackers haven't changed and are still doing what they always have done: learning about and hacking on cool/interesting/challenging stuff, and, in contrast to the web startup crowd, they generally don't really care to self-promote (and that might be a bug, but it's how they usually are). They are just driven by their curiosity to build and explore. What you're pointing out is that there's now a hugely hyped group of web programmers and startup-founder-wannabes who are now self-identifying as "hackers", but hype is not value. The web startup folk seem to be sourced from a different slice of society than where "real hackers" come from. I don't know the exact difference between the two, but I think the main thing is that hackers are driven primarily to understand, but the startup founder type is driven to create. Both groups do have both traits in abundance of course, but there definitely seems to be a difference in the primary focus/emphasis. There also seems to be a difference in how the groups treat social status: hackers mostly don't care, and are almost exclusively interested in their projects and the opinion of those who are qualified to judge their work (i.e. other hackers in their domain). But compared to the hacker, the web startup founder cares a lot more about the external social rewards of his actions, and cares about social standing as judged by society at large.