Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
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Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#2interesting take. I'd like to hear what PG and others think. Coming from a middle class background, I can relate a bit and see-observationally-the other components to what Ricky's calling "mindset inequality". It's almost like "new money" vs folks that have bigger dollars to spend growing up. I know a lot of friends that have deeply entrenched psychological elements they need to overcome before reaching that "next level" that were engrained because of their upbringing. And, to Ricky's post, it's sometimes more of a challenge than the monetary differentials.
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#3Has anyone done a survey of the family socio-economic status of startup founders and early employees? I'd be curious to see how many founders/early employees are from low-income families, whether their parents graduated college, etc. If not, I'd love to create one.
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#4Has anyone done a survey of the family socio-economic status of startup founders and early employees? I'd be curious to see how many founders/early employees are from low-income families, whether their parents graduated college, etc. If not, I'd love to create one.
This is a great idea!
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#5Great read.
I've become allergic to words like "privilege" as they usually are seen in the company of ill-thought-out and grandiose/insulting/wrong proclamations about How Things Should Be Done,
..but this is none of that - it's an honest look and deep analysis of someone's experience.
And knowing how important upbringing is, and the sheer (almost superhuman) tenacity the author had to go through to even partially overcome the (poisonous? non-optimum?) mindset that was completely a result of things out of their control...
what the heck is everyone else supposed to do? How does society do right by people like this? Overall, we're pretty horrible at dealing with things that are as subtle as mindset.
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#6Ricky mentions the guilt at not cashing out on his Stanford degree immediately and providing for his family.
Day-to-day, how do founders in similar positions coming from cultures with tight-knit families address this? Especially as parents age?
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#7Has anyone done a survey of the family socio-economic status of startup founders and early employees? I'd be curious to see how many founders/early employees are from low-income families, whether their parents graduated college, etc. If not, I'd love to create one.
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#8Has anyone done a survey of the family socio-economic status of startup founders and early employees? I'd be curious to see how many founders/early employees are from low-income families, whether their parents graduated college, etc. If not, I'd love to create one.
There is this: http://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2010/05/the-anat...
Thanks-- that's useful: "More than 90 percent of the entrepreneurs came from middle-class or upper-lower-class backgrounds and were well-educated."
I'm curious about the socio-economic background of the parents as well.
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#9This is a really poorly written post.
Where exactly is the inequality in Silicon Valley? The OP got into Stanford, and then got an entire free ride something most people can't get. How exactly does this prove inequality? And then he got into YC. If anything this proves how equal things are in the Valley, if you're hardworking enough, there isn't anything you can't do, regardless of your social status. Sure, you have to work hard, but that goes for everyone. But if you're hardworking and poor, the blog poster seemingly proves that he can get whatever he wants, ie. into Stanford, and then YC.
True inequality is when you can't get into Stanford no matter how smart you are, because of bias or prejudice. Or that you can't start a startup because you're not white and rich. Yet this OP disproved this. So I don't get what the point is.
The entire "mindset inequality" part of the blog post is nonsense as well. The things he mentions aren't characteristics of poor people. They're characteristic of the BLOG POSTER who just happens to have grown up poor. I know plenty of people who share a bunch of the same characteristics as well. There is nothing that pertains to poor people as whole, it really just pertains to the blog poster, who happens to have once been poor.
Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
#10Great read. I've become allergic to words like "privilege" as they usually are seen in the company of ill-thought-out and grandiose/insulting/wrong proclamations about How Things Should Be Done, ..but this is none of that - it's an honest look and deep analysis of someone's experience. And knowing how important upbringing is, and the sheer (almost superhuman) tenacity the author had to go through to even partially ov…
To be honest, one thing you can do is retrain yourself to be un-allergic to words like "privilege", and see their use as the consequence of a lot of people's suffering systemic unfairness and injustice.
When I see that word, "privilege," especially tied to attacks on white/male/hetero/whatever, my response isn't "oh jeez, not that again".....it's "yeah, that is a problem, and I really wish the other white male hetero folks in the room could see it and not just roll their eyes".
It sounds like you want to be an ally, and that's great. I think the hardest part is probably recognizing that when people talk about privilege, it's really not personal, it really isn't about you, even though you're a beneficiary of it every day. Knowing about systemic injustice and doing nothing/remaining silent, though, that's pretty callous, and knowing about systemic injustice and perpetuating it, well, then it would be about you.