> that incredible sense of idealism

The idealism that has been sucked out of the tech industry. It was so (naively) hopeful at one point, and now the arms race and profit-maximization has eroded it all. Your observations really resonate with me.

I'm surprised I hadn't heard of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, it seems like a much healthier direction for the market.

You might want to ask yourself why, in all these years, you haven't heard of it. There's quite a few people invested in keeping it that way.