Blindfolded kids, driven off in a car, and dumped into the woods at night. In America, we call that a crime. In the Netherlands? It's called a "dropping," and it's a beloved childhood tradition.
"It's a rite of passage," says Mark Pols, an investor living in Silicon Valley who grew up in Holland. When he was a kid, Pols says, droppings (pronounced drope-ings) were always a part of scouting—and still are. "There'd be various degrees of challenge, meaning what time of night, how far away you'd get dropped, how few people you'd get dropped with, etc."
