It started when 6 HBS students dropped out - together, of course. They marched up to the dean’s office, demanded a meeting, and then waited patiently for the next 1 hour and forty five minutes. Nothing of particular importance happened in that meeting, after they were finally admitted, besides the exclamations of dropping out.

In a blog a former students writes, “All of the most successful people from the last 10 years have been college dropouts, or didn’t even go in the first place. Is it a coincidence? I don’t think so. Studies are even starting to come out that demonstrate that even jobs with hard degree requirements are commodified. It used to be cool to be a doctor or an engineer. Now it just shows that you’re on the fast track to an on-time mid life crisis. If you want to do something real, college isn’t the place.”

The Thiel Fellowship closed its doors shortly after. The vibe had shifted. It should be no surprise that none of these students amounted to anything. But the event was an irrefutable flag that that which was is no more. No longer would the richest and most influential founders wear the dropout badge. The landing was softened. It no longer meant running life directly on the metal, it no longer meant risking death to satisfy an insatiable thirst.

There had come a dawning realization that the number of things worth doing was fewer than the things being done. This had always been the case - but now the path was a shredder of life and soul even in the success case. Early career-entrepreneurs felt listless. They had built the equivalent of a factory that makes adhesive for the backside of bumperstickers. They were told a lie. The alpha they found was in creating the lego blocks that others would use for their world changing ideas. But who has those?

At one point someone built the “last tech company,” as they characterized themselves. CaaS, company as a service. Have a billion dollar idea? We’ll build it for you. Ironically, it was the last new big tech company, for a while anyway. And not because they gobbled up every idea with alpha left in it, which it also did, but because nothing of interest came out of it.

Despite all of this, somehow the insatiable thirst was still quenched. It was nearly quiet and invisible at first, appearing almost as an afterthought in the Buc-ee’s press release that announced aggressive expansion. Hotels. Of course we see this only with the benefit of hindsight.

The leading indicator was the comeback of roadtrips. Gone were the days of in depth planning, maps, gps. Just point your car in a direction and stop at a Buc-ees. In most places you were never more than a hundred miles from the next one. Fill up, head on to the next. Sleepy? Get a room. In Buc-ee’s fashion there was always room. The great expanse of the US became a pastime. The landscape of beauty, and the darkness of night skies was rediscovered after generations lost.

The Mobile Generation would pile in a car, and for the first time in their lives, sit quietly with their friends and look out the window. It became a lifestyle. A Buc-ee’s subscription was not much more than a cheap apartment. It granted you bathrooms, showers, an assortment of food, rooms to sleep. It was oddly a kind of prosperity, laid atop seas of road, islands of gas pumps, and mountains of Buc-ee’s locations.

Buc-ee’s created and grew a new way to live. It wasn’t building gas stations, it was building the infrastructure that emptied cities. It was an accidental, country sized megastructure.

One day it was named. It came shortly after the release of the Buc-ee’s subscription. The company had to scrabble to deal with the demand. It was initially uttered from a marketing intern, “The Buc-ee Frontier.” That’s how its rumored anyway. In the biographies it’s attributed to a marketing exec, who later spun off and founded a company to handle nationwide traffic control.

The Buc-ee Frontier was an overlay. It wasn’t undiscovered physical space, outer space, or a virtual space. It was the same space, overlayed with the experience of journey rather than destination. Everywhere is home. New problems to solve. New ways to grow.

And there was a flurry of creation. Buc-ee’s had built or incubated the tidal wave of change to come. Not only road, car, and megastore technology - but new worlds to solve in governance, tax, vr, safety, education and getting people to their jobs on time (for those who still had to be physically present). This is to say nothing of the vast logistic infrastructure used to get families together for holidays, friends to meet up for drinks, and manage seasonal migration patterns, all while cruising along at 60 MPH.

In retrospect it’s still hard to understand the draw of the road. Even before state and nationwide traffic control, vehicles with standing room, and the reduction in road accidents by 99%, the growth was astronomical. Some argue the draw results from a kid’s reaction to the struggle of pulling their parents away from their phones. Others think it’s simply became the default option for housing. I think differently, I think it’s the quiet moment when you’re between locations, knowing there’s not anyplace else you could be.

It’s still a life of toil for most. Families travel between oases where the parents work. White collar take meetings from vehicles that double as an office. Kids go to school. But at least they’re going somewhere. And next month, the first location in Mexico is opening.


---

By Devon Armistead, find him on Twitter.