10 ms·

How the world came to hate Silicon Valley

37 points by dolphenstein 13y ago

nirnira 13y ago
Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, spent a reported $US10 million on his wedding Wow, how unbelievably arrogant. Spending his money however the fuck he wants? Paying people to render him services of their own free will? What an asshole. He must've forgot signing that social contract with angry poor radicals that once you hit $(whatever today's immoral amount of money is) you no longer have the right to spend it... oh wait. Whatever. Give me a break. This article is really about the worst side of SF - not the successful businessmen, but the unsuccessful, jealous, negative, unproductive "radicals" whose politics boils down to "I hate everything that I don't understand, and I'm not going to bother to try and understand it because I hate it." an arrogant and often tone-deaf industry The only arrogant people here are these fucking losers who think they deserve to live in the one of the world's most expensive and desirable cities, and think they deserve to dictate how other people can and should behave, despite providing absolutely nothing of value to anyone. Perkins is right. The closest parallel to the mindless, hate-drenched opprobrium of these people is Nazi Germany turning on the Jews (a similar group of successful, largely innocuous businesspeople.)
- doktrin 13y ago
  > Perkins is right. The closest parallel to the mindless, hate-drenched opprobrium of these people is Nazi Germany turning on the Jews This perverse non-analogy is an embarrassment. It reads like absurd satire. Please stop repeating it.
  - nirnira 13y ago
    Sorry, no, it does have merit. In both cases, a failure of popular economic intelligence lead or is leading to self-defeating national attitudes and policies, driven in both cases by misattributed resentment.
- waps 13y ago
  People getting thrown out of their houses due to lack of money (and lack of earning capability) are complaining about other people spending massive amounts on frivolous uses ? I am amazed. Wait ... no I'm not. I'm even inclined to call those claims justified.
  - nirnira 13y ago
    Sorry, what? Nobody is getting "thrown out" of "their" houses. People who were renting other people's for a period of time found themselves outbid by other people who wanted to live in the same area and were willing to pay more for it than they were. And so they were asked to leave. Perfectly legal. 100% the property owner's right. Nobody signed a contract with these people promising to let them live there forever. They were rentors, and if they didn't understand that they could be asked to leave at any time by the true owners of the property, that's their fault. And if they were so concerned about their ability to continue living there indefinitely, maybe they should have worked harder to ensure their position? Maybe they should have striven to provide more economic value, so they could have purchased this apparently extremely important good? These people have no excuse. They knew the rules. The rules were clear to everyone. They were happy as long as they got what they wanted. Now the situation no longer favours them, they want the rules to be changed - so that they get everything exactly how they want it.
    - waps 13y ago
      I don't know about America, but in Europe, this is not how things are done. Rentors need those homes. Landlords, by definition, don't. You should always err on the side of rentors, which is exactly what European courts do. > Nobody signed a contract with these people promising to let them live there forever. No but they agreed to something stronger than a contract called "Rent control". And before you say otherwise, if you read this law, it specifically states that it overrides contract provisions. Since we live in a democracy, those landlords agreed to this. > And if they were so concerned about their ability to continue living there indefinitely, maybe they should have worked harder to ensure their position? Ah the mafia argument. As if this is anything but money grabbing through threats. As if there is any amount of money that would leave these vultures satisfied. > These people have no excuse. Look I am normally pretty right wing, but make this statement to my face and I'll be the first to start throwing bricks through your window. It's that simple. Btw : do I get to throw you out into the streets the second you are less economically valuable than me too ? Fair's fair after all.
briantakita 13y ago
Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
- rsl7 13y ago
  but the players deeply love this game, and play it ruthlessly. What then?
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    The people being targeted by the hate are low- and mid-level engineers at companies like Google and Twitter, who have nothing to do with San Francisco's absurd housing policy or the economic inequality in general. They might be better-paid peons, but they're still peons. They aren't responsible for "this game" and many of them detest it. (Would you want to have no savings at age 37 because, despite your relatively high salary, the landlords have taken everything?) The First Estate of Silicon Valley (here, including San Francisco) are the highly influential angels, VCs, and corporate executives who can force acquisitions. The Second Estate are the engineers, mid-level product managers, and data scientists. The Third Estate is everyone else. Naturally, the First Estate is trying to prevent any chance of alliance between the Second and Third Estate, and actively encourages tension between the those two groups. It's also clear, however, that the First Estate screws the Second (all of the collusion/anti-poach agreements that have been uncovered). In fact, the Second and Third Estates have a common enemy in the First. They've just been prevented from realizing it, in large part, by all the obfuscation that's going on. To people in poverty, $120,000 per year is a large amount of money, but it's not nearly enough to bribe city councils into enacting the NIMBY policies that make San Francisco unaffordable. The real bad guys don't ride Google buses. They have private drivers, and the Google buses don't stop on Sand Hill Road.
    - countrybama24 13y ago
      I believe they're using the Google buses as symbols in lieu of direct knowledge of the First Estate's whereabouts or access to them.
    - 13y ago
kaa2102 13y ago
This reminds me of a tweet from Alexia Tsotsis saying that everyone will either work for Google or Walmart in the future. It looks like San Francisco is giving us a preview of that future.
- gojomo 13y ago
  Notably, there are no Walmarts in San Francisco.
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  Just as long as we get to call google neighborhoods the burbclaves
steven2012 13y ago
Certainly Silicon Valley has their fair share of douchebags, but the media hype surrounding this is simply nonsense. The world hates Silicon Valley? You're telling me that somehow all these SV douchebags outweigh Hollywood or Wall Street douchebags? Come on, now.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  You're telling me that somehow all these SV douchebags outweigh Hollywood or Wall Street douchebags It's not a contest, we can all be douchebags. The point isn't that we're the worst, it's that supposedly we're up there.
- craigvn 13y ago
  You don't think the world hates Hollywood and Wall Street as well?
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  The ethics of the power players in Silicon Valley are far worse than those on Wall Street. (I don't know dick about Hollywood other than its reputation.) Wall Streeters are greedy, but they don't go out of their way to ruin peoples' careers (except in the movies). They'll do a lot of things to get that $10 million bonus, but they don't hold long-term grudges and wreck careers of people who've since flown away from them. A trader will get you fired if it suits his career goals, because he is ruthless, but once you're out of his way, he'll take an active interest in making sure you get a better job afterward. Valley people, when they separate, tend to make it really ugly: lots of gossip, negative references, long-term grudges and other nonsense that wouldn't exist among people who cared more about themselves winning than about other people losing. Silicon Valley attracts people who want power, and those tend to be worse than those who want money. It also attracts, more than nerds, people who come on specifically to take advantage of nerds. The latter set tend to be horrible, and to rise fast. Finally, there's the false poverty effect. If you make $10 million in a year, you're rich. If you're a trust-fund kid, but you're only paying yourself a $25,000 salary because that's all your investors will let you take out, you feel more entitled to fuck people over because you're "the little guy" and because, being "scrappy" (or "lean"), you "can't afford" the costs of being ethical.
salgernon 13y ago
It should be noted that San Francisco isn't the only area blighted. Cho's in Palo Alto is being pushed out by the landlord. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_25015784/chos-close-palo-alto http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_25015784/chos-close-palo-alto
morgante 13y ago
There is a clear cognitive dissonance in articles like this and the actions of protestors. They highlight on the extreme wealth of certain founders/executives, yet direct their wrath (and stones) on the entire tech industry. Regular Facebook employees aren't Mark Zuckerberg, and certainly aren't paid like it. Most tech workers make less than twice the median family income in the Bay Area—good pay, but not obscene. If people have a problem with income inequality, they should be siding with tech workers—we're way closer to barista wages than being in the 1%. So why are tech workers the ones getting attacked? You can bet Larry Page isn't taking the bus, but he's the one making the money.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  They highlight on the extreme wealth of certain founders/executives, yet direct their wrath (and stones) on the entire tech industry. Not even, the protestors manage to direct their wrath at the employees low enough level to be riding the shuttles. It's pretty ironic seeing the ostensible radical leftists following the lead of the Valley Wag's middle brow demagoguery.
  - epoxyhockey 13y ago
    employees low enough level to be riding the shuttles Yes, SF's banking-class and politicians are loving this. The middle-class is distracted fighting their middle-class peers.
    - waps 13y ago
      Are you really unable to see the problem is not "the banking class" and a few politicians. The problem is thousands of developers making much more than normal people, and a way too big fraction of them wanting to live right smack downtown San Francisco ? Or are you truly unable to see that you are not making anything remotely near average wages ? That you are not middle class, and certainly also not working as hard as the average middle classer ? You get sundays off, for one. The result of these actions is people getting thrown into the streets by their landlords. Here's a tip : there does not exist an argument that will make people OK with that. Stop looking for it.
magicalist 13y ago
Uh, except for a single mention of taxes in Britain, this is an article about How San Francisco came to hate Silicon Valley. I mean, seriously, Valleywag really capturing the zeitgeist of the common man? Jesus. (I thought the plural "bricks through the window" in the subheadline was particularly indicative, when as far as I know that was brick singular) The world, meanwhile, follows a bit of news about tech companies, they have opinions about some of the bigger ones, and they like taking sides over their favorite phone brand, but they continue to steadfastly not care about Silicon Valley. Seriously. Go on vacation, get out of the bubble, talk to people. They don't even have an opinion on the place.
parennoob 13y ago
Seriously, employees who ride buses to their 10-hour jobs who are probably scrabbling to get some work done on the commute (those buses have wi-fi for a reason) are causing "heightened anxiety about the widening income gap between tech workers and "ordinary" citizens"? These protesters are either misinformed or being deliberately malicious if they are targeting the ordinary tech employee. At $39000 average spending per year ($3250/month according to the article), how much do they exactly think SV engineers get paid? At say, 100k, which would be considered pretty decent by an SV engineer, the 28% tax bracket, leaves 72k actual income. Minus the $39000 housing expenses mentioned, that's $33000/year, or $2750/month for food, clothing, paying for your kids' education. etc. If your spouse doesn't work, you will be living a pretty Spartan life. Hardly the kind of money you imagine rich assholes throwing around, is it?
- mercutio2 13y ago
  While I don't in any way think the antagonism towards tech workers make sense, I don't think you're quite on target with your numbers. A) income tax is progressive and continuous, you can't say $28k in taxes for the 28% bracket (however, FICA and CA income taxes mean that number is in the right ball park) B) a couple living on one income in a 2-bedroom isn't considered a birthright in dense cities like SF C) $100k would be an unusually low salary even for someone just out of school taking the megacorp buses, and this is before bonuses and RSUs So I disagree with the thesis that Bay Area tech workers are by any measure living a spartan life.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Net of deductions (Federal & State income tax, FICA, SSI, healthcare, and 401k -- remember, you've got to save for retirement too), figuring taking home 60% of your salary isn't a bad ballpark. So yes, after I'm not so sure that low six figures is considered low for someone straight out of school, remembering that not all hires are superstars, and there are a lot of less technical positions being filled as well. And in the Bay Area, childcare and/or education expenses are likely to add up unless you've got a very good local public school.
apsec112 13y ago
The real story here is not the protests, which are very small. (Compare to the Iraq War protests, which involved ten times the entire population of SF.) The real story is how a certain section of the media loves to blow up anything anti-Google, no matter how trivial or insignificant (a few dozen people staging a rally? two months ago?), into The Biggest Problem Ever. One imagines that they make big advertising dollars from spreading their ideology of hate, just as William Randolph Hearst did a few generations back. Or maybe Bill Gates ran over their puppy back in 1982 and now they've dedicated their lives to petty revenge. "Look Who’s Gawking: Inside Nick Denton’s phony, hypocritical class war against tech workers": http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/ http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-de...
- noamsml 13y ago
  I live in SF, and I can confirm that I'll walk past people and overhear the same fragments of conversation, talking about the buses and gentrification. The tone varies, but just because not everyone is protesting doesn't mean the ideas aren't out there.
unepipe 13y ago
I was wondering if this was serving as some kind of rebuttal to the occupy wallstreet stuff. As in - "don't pay attention to the actual wealth inequality that is choking the economy in many places, these recent grads who work in the Valley but live in SF are the bad guys" Sure conjecture and conspiracy-theoryish but why the fuck else would any part of the media be paying attention to 10 protesters and a staged, crass fake "nerd" pretending to be a Google employee?
bengrunfeld 13y ago
Australians despise the U.S. and The Age is simply airing the rank and fetid feelings of the people that read their newspaper. Trust me, I know - I was born and raised in Australia, and because of the country's heavy Socialist/British background and identity, we were taught to hate everything about America. My wife and I lived in Melbourne from 2009-2012, and she suffered horrible discrimination for being from the US. Silicon Valley is one of the great monuments to American individualism and entrepreneurial spirit, and it sickens most Aussies to see the success and fortune that has come of it. The Age is ensuring that the anti-American sentiment is kept at a poisonous and noxious level.
- gregsq 13y ago
  I think this is a bit extreme. Firstly, this Melbourne Age piece is syndicated from The Telegraph, a British newspaper from my home country. As a regular visitor to Australia, with relatives living there, I had presumed that the article was syndicated even before I reached the byline. This due to a clarity of language unusual in locally written newspaper articles. It sounds atrocious, the treatment of your wife, and if her treatment was as widespread as I'm inclined to take on trust from what you say, then I'll need to reassess a thing or two. Australians know virtually nothing about Americans as people, and that's a pity. Their television is acutely americanised, and their culture inculcated with American influence, but I've noticed that hardly any Australians have actually met an American. It's hardly polite or even civil to blame the rare American they meet for the perceived wrongs of the US body politic. And I can empathise with your experience somewhat. It can be parochial. I watched Grease the movie on Australian TV recently, and it reminded me that Australians love John Travolta because he loved Olivia Newton John, who's really a Brit anyway. He's in if he can say g'day. On the other hand Mel Gibson was Aussie and became American. He's not claimed anymore. But I haven't found hate as you appear to have. Australia is a lot bigger than the left wing inner city self styled intellectuals you apparently met too many of. Go to country NSW and they all dress and sing like Chet Atkins.
  - RK 13y ago
    On the other hand Mel Gibson was Aussie and became American. He's not claimed anymore. According to Wikipedia, Mel Gibson was born in the US to American parents and moved to Australia when he was 12. Somehow I remembered that factoid when I read your comment :)
stevewilhelm 13y ago
You mean installing reclaimed log cabins in your cafeteria, sorry casual dining area, isn't endearing? [1] [1] http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25251868/lib-at-large-novato-contractor-supplies-century-old http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25251868/lib-at-large-novat...
malandrew 13y ago
Why does every single one of these stories always leave out the most responsible counterparty in these matters... the landlords. The tech workers are just showing up with buying power. The decision of whether or not to pursue ellis act evictions is not carried out by tech workers, but the San Francisco landlords who are trying to free up their rent controlled units to be able to jack up the price. Many of these landlords are either San Franciscans who still live in the city or those that grew up here, but moved out to the supports and now just manage rentals in the city. So at the end of the day its fellow San Franciscans to whom these protestors should direct their anger.
cafard 13y ago
Right, I read about it all the time on Facebook and Blogspot. Many people have concerns, but a) even most of them don't all the time, and b) as a proportion of world adult population, not many.
daemin 13y ago
I would have thought having an extra $10 million in the local economy (from the wedding) would be a good thing. Isn't that the whole concept of a trickle down economy?

37 points by dolphenstein 13y ago

Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, spent a reported $US10 million on his wedding Wow, how unbelievably arrogant. Spending his money however the fuck he wants? Paying people to render him services of their own free will? What an asshole. He must've forgot signing that social contract with angry poor radicals that once you hit $(whatever today's immoral amount of money is) you no longer have the right to spend it... oh wait. Whatever. Give me a break. This article is really about the worst side of SF - not the successful businessmen, but the unsuccessful, jealous, negative, unproductive "radicals" whose politics boils down to "I hate everything that I don't understand, and I'm not going to bother to try and understand it because I hate it." an arrogant and often tone-deaf industry The only arrogant people here are these fucking losers who think they deserve to live in the one of the world's most expensive and desirable cities, and think they deserve to dictate how other people can and should behave, despite providing absolutely nothing of value to anyone. Perkins is right. The closest parallel to the mindless, hate-drenched opprobrium of these people is Nazi Germany turning on the Jews (a similar group of successful, largely innocuous businesspeople.)

doktrin 13y ago
> Perkins is right. The closest parallel to the mindless, hate-drenched opprobrium of these people is Nazi Germany turning on the Jews This perverse non-analogy is an embarrassment. It reads like absurd satire. Please stop repeating it.
- nirnira 13y ago
  Sorry, no, it does have merit. In both cases, a failure of popular economic intelligence lead or is leading to self-defeating national attitudes and policies, driven in both cases by misattributed resentment.
waps 13y ago
People getting thrown out of their houses due to lack of money (and lack of earning capability) are complaining about other people spending massive amounts on frivolous uses ? I am amazed. Wait ... no I'm not. I'm even inclined to call those claims justified.
- nirnira 13y ago
  Sorry, what? Nobody is getting "thrown out" of "their" houses. People who were renting other people's for a period of time found themselves outbid by other people who wanted to live in the same area and were willing to pay more for it than they were. And so they were asked to leave. Perfectly legal. 100% the property owner's right. Nobody signed a contract with these people promising to let them live there forever. They were rentors, and if they didn't understand that they could be asked to leave at any time by the true owners of the property, that's their fault. And if they were so concerned about their ability to continue living there indefinitely, maybe they should have worked harder to ensure their position? Maybe they should have striven to provide more economic value, so they could have purchased this apparently extremely important good? These people have no excuse. They knew the rules. The rules were clear to everyone. They were happy as long as they got what they wanted. Now the situation no longer favours them, they want the rules to be changed - so that they get everything exactly how they want it.
  - waps 13y ago
    I don't know about America, but in Europe, this is not how things are done. Rentors need those homes. Landlords, by definition, don't. You should always err on the side of rentors, which is exactly what European courts do. > Nobody signed a contract with these people promising to let them live there forever. No but they agreed to something stronger than a contract called "Rent control". And before you say otherwise, if you read this law, it specifically states that it overrides contract provisions. Since we live in a democracy, those landlords agreed to this. > And if they were so concerned about their ability to continue living there indefinitely, maybe they should have worked harder to ensure their position? Ah the mafia argument. As if this is anything but money grabbing through threats. As if there is any amount of money that would leave these vultures satisfied. > These people have no excuse. Look I am normally pretty right wing, but make this statement to my face and I'll be the first to start throwing bricks through your window. It's that simple. Btw : do I get to throw you out into the streets the second you are less economically valuable than me too ? Fair's fair after all.

briantakita 13y ago

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

rsl7 13y ago
but the players deeply love this game, and play it ruthlessly. What then?
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  The people being targeted by the hate are low- and mid-level engineers at companies like Google and Twitter, who have nothing to do with San Francisco's absurd housing policy or the economic inequality in general. They might be better-paid peons, but they're still peons. They aren't responsible for "this game" and many of them detest it. (Would you want to have no savings at age 37 because, despite your relatively high salary, the landlords have taken everything?) The First Estate of Silicon Valley (here, including San Francisco) are the highly influential angels, VCs, and corporate executives who can force acquisitions. The Second Estate are the engineers, mid-level product managers, and data scientists. The Third Estate is everyone else. Naturally, the First Estate is trying to prevent any chance of alliance between the Second and Third Estate, and actively encourages tension between the those two groups. It's also clear, however, that the First Estate screws the Second (all of the collusion/anti-poach agreements that have been uncovered). In fact, the Second and Third Estates have a common enemy in the First. They've just been prevented from realizing it, in large part, by all the obfuscation that's going on. To people in poverty, $120,000 per year is a large amount of money, but it's not nearly enough to bribe city councils into enacting the NIMBY policies that make San Francisco unaffordable. The real bad guys don't ride Google buses. They have private drivers, and the Google buses don't stop on Sand Hill Road.
  - countrybama24 13y ago
    I believe they're using the Google buses as symbols in lieu of direct knowledge of the First Estate's whereabouts or access to them.
  - 13y ago

kaa2102 13y ago

This reminds me of a tweet from Alexia Tsotsis saying that everyone will either work for Google or Walmart in the future. It looks like San Francisco is giving us a preview of that future.

gojomo 13y ago
Notably, there are no Walmarts in San Francisco.
FLUX-YOU 13y ago
Just as long as we get to call google neighborhoods the burbclaves

steven2012 13y ago

Certainly Silicon Valley has their fair share of douchebags, but the media hype surrounding this is simply nonsense. The world hates Silicon Valley? You're telling me that somehow all these SV douchebags outweigh Hollywood or Wall Street douchebags? Come on, now.

jessedhillon 13y ago
You're telling me that somehow all these SV douchebags outweigh Hollywood or Wall Street douchebags It's not a contest, we can all be douchebags. The point isn't that we're the worst, it's that supposedly we're up there.
craigvn 13y ago
You don't think the world hates Hollywood and Wall Street as well?
michaelochurch 13y ago
The ethics of the power players in Silicon Valley are far worse than those on Wall Street. (I don't know dick about Hollywood other than its reputation.) Wall Streeters are greedy, but they don't go out of their way to ruin peoples' careers (except in the movies). They'll do a lot of things to get that $10 million bonus, but they don't hold long-term grudges and wreck careers of people who've since flown away from them. A trader will get you fired if it suits his career goals, because he is ruthless, but once you're out of his way, he'll take an active interest in making sure you get a better job afterward. Valley people, when they separate, tend to make it really ugly: lots of gossip, negative references, long-term grudges and other nonsense that wouldn't exist among people who cared more about themselves winning than about other people losing. Silicon Valley attracts people who want power, and those tend to be worse than those who want money. It also attracts, more than nerds, people who come on specifically to take advantage of nerds. The latter set tend to be horrible, and to rise fast. Finally, there's the false poverty effect. If you make $10 million in a year, you're rich. If you're a trust-fund kid, but you're only paying yourself a $25,000 salary because that's all your investors will let you take out, you feel more entitled to fuck people over because you're "the little guy" and because, being "scrappy" (or "lean"), you "can't afford" the costs of being ethical.

salgernon 13y ago

It should be noted that San Francisco isn't the only area blighted. Cho's in Palo Alto is being pushed out by the landlord. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_25015784/chos-close-palo-alto http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_25015784/chos-close-palo-alto

morgante 13y ago

There is a clear cognitive dissonance in articles like this and the actions of protestors. They highlight on the extreme wealth of certain founders/executives, yet direct their wrath (and stones) on the entire tech industry. Regular Facebook employees aren't Mark Zuckerberg, and certainly aren't paid like it. Most tech workers make less than twice the median family income in the Bay Area—good pay, but not obscene. If people have a problem with income inequality, they should be siding with tech workers—we're way closer to barista wages than being in the 1%. So why are tech workers the ones getting attacked? You can bet Larry Page isn't taking the bus, but he's the one making the money.

joe_the_user 13y ago
They highlight on the extreme wealth of certain founders/executives, yet direct their wrath (and stones) on the entire tech industry. Not even, the protestors manage to direct their wrath at the employees low enough level to be riding the shuttles. It's pretty ironic seeing the ostensible radical leftists following the lead of the Valley Wag's middle brow demagoguery.
- epoxyhockey 13y ago
  employees low enough level to be riding the shuttles Yes, SF's banking-class and politicians are loving this. The middle-class is distracted fighting their middle-class peers.
  - waps 13y ago
    Are you really unable to see the problem is not "the banking class" and a few politicians. The problem is thousands of developers making much more than normal people, and a way too big fraction of them wanting to live right smack downtown San Francisco ? Or are you truly unable to see that you are not making anything remotely near average wages ? That you are not middle class, and certainly also not working as hard as the average middle classer ? You get sundays off, for one. The result of these actions is people getting thrown into the streets by their landlords. Here's a tip : there does not exist an argument that will make people OK with that. Stop looking for it.

magicalist 13y ago

Uh, except for a single mention of taxes in Britain, this is an article about How San Francisco came to hate Silicon Valley. I mean, seriously, Valleywag really capturing the zeitgeist of the common man? Jesus. (I thought the plural "bricks through the window" in the subheadline was particularly indicative, when as far as I know that was brick singular) The world, meanwhile, follows a bit of news about tech companies, they have opinions about some of the bigger ones, and they like taking sides over their favorite phone brand, but they continue to steadfastly not care about Silicon Valley. Seriously. Go on vacation, get out of the bubble, talk to people. They don't even have an opinion on the place.

parennoob 13y ago

Seriously, employees who ride buses to their 10-hour jobs who are probably scrabbling to get some work done on the commute (those buses have wi-fi for a reason) are causing "heightened anxiety about the widening income gap between tech workers and "ordinary" citizens"? These protesters are either misinformed or being deliberately malicious if they are targeting the ordinary tech employee. At $39000 average spending per year ($3250/month according to the article), how much do they exactly think SV engineers get paid? At say, 100k, which would be considered pretty decent by an SV engineer, the 28% tax bracket, leaves 72k actual income. Minus the $39000 housing expenses mentioned, that's $33000/year, or $2750/month for food, clothing, paying for your kids' education. etc. If your spouse doesn't work, you will be living a pretty Spartan life. Hardly the kind of money you imagine rich assholes throwing around, is it?

mercutio2 13y ago
While I don't in any way think the antagonism towards tech workers make sense, I don't think you're quite on target with your numbers. A) income tax is progressive and continuous, you can't say $28k in taxes for the 28% bracket (however, FICA and CA income taxes mean that number is in the right ball park) B) a couple living on one income in a 2-bedroom isn't considered a birthright in dense cities like SF C) $100k would be an unusually low salary even for someone just out of school taking the megacorp buses, and this is before bonuses and RSUs So I disagree with the thesis that Bay Area tech workers are by any measure living a spartan life.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Net of deductions (Federal & State income tax, FICA, SSI, healthcare, and 401k -- remember, you've got to save for retirement too), figuring taking home 60% of your salary isn't a bad ballpark. So yes, after I'm not so sure that low six figures is considered low for someone straight out of school, remembering that not all hires are superstars, and there are a lot of less technical positions being filled as well. And in the Bay Area, childcare and/or education expenses are likely to add up unless you've got a very good local public school.

apsec112 13y ago

The real story here is not the protests, which are very small. (Compare to the Iraq War protests, which involved ten times the entire population of SF.) The real story is how a certain section of the media loves to blow up anything anti-Google, no matter how trivial or insignificant (a few dozen people staging a rally? two months ago?), into The Biggest Problem Ever. One imagines that they make big advertising dollars from spreading their ideology of hate, just as William Randolph Hearst did a few generations back. Or maybe Bill Gates ran over their puppy back in 1982 and now they've dedicated their lives to petty revenge. "Look Who’s Gawking: Inside Nick Denton’s phony, hypocritical class war against tech workers": http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/ http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-de...

noamsml 13y ago
I live in SF, and I can confirm that I'll walk past people and overhear the same fragments of conversation, talking about the buses and gentrification. The tone varies, but just because not everyone is protesting doesn't mean the ideas aren't out there.

unepipe 13y ago

I was wondering if this was serving as some kind of rebuttal to the occupy wallstreet stuff. As in - "don't pay attention to the actual wealth inequality that is choking the economy in many places, these recent grads who work in the Valley but live in SF are the bad guys" Sure conjecture and conspiracy-theoryish but why the fuck else would any part of the media be paying attention to 10 protesters and a staged, crass fake "nerd" pretending to be a Google employee?

bengrunfeld 13y ago

Australians despise the U.S. and The Age is simply airing the rank and fetid feelings of the people that read their newspaper. Trust me, I know - I was born and raised in Australia, and because of the country's heavy Socialist/British background and identity, we were taught to hate everything about America. My wife and I lived in Melbourne from 2009-2012, and she suffered horrible discrimination for being from the US. Silicon Valley is one of the great monuments to American individualism and entrepreneurial spirit, and it sickens most Aussies to see the success and fortune that has come of it. The Age is ensuring that the anti-American sentiment is kept at a poisonous and noxious level.

gregsq 13y ago
I think this is a bit extreme. Firstly, this Melbourne Age piece is syndicated from The Telegraph, a British newspaper from my home country. As a regular visitor to Australia, with relatives living there, I had presumed that the article was syndicated even before I reached the byline. This due to a clarity of language unusual in locally written newspaper articles. It sounds atrocious, the treatment of your wife, and if her treatment was as widespread as I'm inclined to take on trust from what you say, then I'll need to reassess a thing or two. Australians know virtually nothing about Americans as people, and that's a pity. Their television is acutely americanised, and their culture inculcated with American influence, but I've noticed that hardly any Australians have actually met an American. It's hardly polite or even civil to blame the rare American they meet for the perceived wrongs of the US body politic. And I can empathise with your experience somewhat. It can be parochial. I watched Grease the movie on Australian TV recently, and it reminded me that Australians love John Travolta because he loved Olivia Newton John, who's really a Brit anyway. He's in if he can say g'day. On the other hand Mel Gibson was Aussie and became American. He's not claimed anymore. But I haven't found hate as you appear to have. Australia is a lot bigger than the left wing inner city self styled intellectuals you apparently met too many of. Go to country NSW and they all dress and sing like Chet Atkins.
- RK 13y ago
  On the other hand Mel Gibson was Aussie and became American. He's not claimed anymore. According to Wikipedia, Mel Gibson was born in the US to American parents and moved to Australia when he was 12. Somehow I remembered that factoid when I read your comment :)

stevewilhelm 13y ago

You mean installing reclaimed log cabins in your cafeteria, sorry casual dining area, isn't endearing? [1] [1] http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25251868/lib-at-large-novato-contractor-supplies-century-old http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25251868/lib-at-large-novat...

malandrew 13y ago

Why does every single one of these stories always leave out the most responsible counterparty in these matters... the landlords. The tech workers are just showing up with buying power. The decision of whether or not to pursue ellis act evictions is not carried out by tech workers, but the San Francisco landlords who are trying to free up their rent controlled units to be able to jack up the price. Many of these landlords are either San Franciscans who still live in the city or those that grew up here, but moved out to the supports and now just manage rentals in the city. So at the end of the day its fellow San Franciscans to whom these protestors should direct their anger.

cafard 13y ago

Right, I read about it all the time on Facebook and Blogspot. Many people have concerns, but a) even most of them don't all the time, and b) as a proportion of world adult population, not many.

daemin 13y ago

I would have thought having an extra $10 million in the local economy (from the wedding) would be a good thing. Isn't that the whole concept of a trickle down economy?