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Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

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Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#41

Post by grabcocque »

onewaystreet wrote: post #25
grabcocque wrote: post #9

That's not the real reason public opinion has shifted sharply against denizens of the Valley. That would be Uber. A company so sociopathic, so awful, so entitled, so full of loathsome self-aggrandising bullies they became an unwitting figurehead for hatred of the Valley. And Uber make it so easy to hate them.

The fact that Uber hasn't suffered any noticeable loss of business suggests that this is false. Or at least that it doesn't matter if people love you or not.

You don't have to be loved to be profitable. That said Uber is currently neither, nor is it likely to be any time soon.

But my point is that Uber's reputation plumbing the abyssal depths, and to a lesser extent AirBnB's, is dragging down the reputation of the rest of the valley.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#42

Post by [deleted] »

gotthemwmds wrote: post #17
carbocation wrote: post #8

As someone outside of SV (Nevadan living in Boston and practicing medicine), I think this article largely misses the mark. I think it is true that there is a diversity problem in SV, just like there is a diversity problem in medicine. It’s a problem, because there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields. But that’s probably the only point that resonates. Th…

" there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields." Sure there is: racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions. And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone.

[deleted]

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#43

Post by RestlessMind »

The article is shallow and it would be easy to rip apart most of its arguments (eg. [1][2]). But the worrying trend is that such articles are now appearing very regularly, and at some point perception becomes reality. At this pace, SV will be the Wall Street in no time, if it is not already.

[1] > You’re churning out companies that are raising hundreds of millions of dollars, and going bankrupt in literal satires of themselves

Yes, and that is an aspect of capitalism. You take risk on crazy ideas. Some of them will be a fancy juicer, but some of them will also be an electric car.

[2] > Your companies are now solving “my-world problems” (food delivery, cold-pressed, on-demand juice) versus the “real-world problems” you used to solve

Google wants to deploy Loon in Puerto Rico to offer connectivity. Tesla offered to rebuild Puerto Rico electrical grid based on Solar energy. If these are not real world problems affecting everything, I don't know what the author has in mind.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#44

Post by jrs95 »

gotthemwmds wrote: post #17
carbocation wrote: post #8

As someone outside of SV (Nevadan living in Boston and practicing medicine), I think this article largely misses the mark. I think it is true that there is a diversity problem in SV, just like there is a diversity problem in medicine. It’s a problem, because there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields. But that’s probably the only point that resonates. Th…

" there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields." Sure there is: racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions. And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone.

>developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions

Some who make this argument (and I'm not necessarily saying you're in this camp) are essentially saying that "nerd culture" is some oppressive sexist force. That's sort of ironic given that it's basically a subculture formed by social rejects. There are of course aspects of workplace culture which do this, but an appreciation of science fiction and dungeons and dragons really shouldn't be on that list.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#45

Post by imaginenore »

autokad wrote: post #18

sv has a diversity problem, but I think its more geographic than related to skin color.

It's more of a gap between the educated in the useful fields vs everyone else. And it's not going anywhere. The people who don't have the capacity to learn complex and useful things are left behind in our quickly accelerating world.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#46

Post by jabot »

This article bashes Juicero - rightfully, in my (humble) opinion; it is a stupid and wasteful idea, and ridiculously overpriced.

However, it has that in common with Keurig - which is a huge success.

My point is that just because something is stupid and wasteful it doesn't have to fail...

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#47

Post by [deleted] »

wtflmaohnisdumb wrote: post #20
carbocation wrote: post #8

As someone outside of SV (Nevadan living in Boston and practicing medicine), I think this article largely misses the mark. I think it is true that there is a diversity problem in SV, just like there is a diversity problem in medicine. It’s a problem, because there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields. But that’s probably the only point that resonates. Th…

> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV, and then to lambaste SV for trying to come up with solutions to ameliorate that problem as it proceeds to its logical extreme. People don't like new people getting money. A story as old as time.

[deleted]

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#48

Post by [deleted] »

gotthemwmds wrote: post #17
carbocation wrote: post #8

As someone outside of SV (Nevadan living in Boston and practicing medicine), I think this article largely misses the mark. I think it is true that there is a diversity problem in SV, just like there is a diversity problem in medicine. It’s a problem, because there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields. But that’s probably the only point that resonates. Th…

" there is no a priori reason for women and ethnic minorities to be less prevalent in our high-paying fields." Sure there is: racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions. And the sooner people accept this, the better for everyone.

[deleted]

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#49

Post by jedrek »

What this piece misses the obvious financial privilege that many startups have. Uber is slaying yellow/black cabs around the world, but only by massively subsidizing its rides through investment capital. Amazon is the world's largest store, by working on margins that don't let people who actually expect a return on the investment compete.

It's gotten to the point that if a company actually does things the old fashioned way: taking a small seed, creating a product that people want, selling it and expanding based on that revenue... we ooh and ahh, calling it "organic growth". Everywhere else, it's just called "building a business".

Pair that with the "thought leaders" who dismiss businesses that allow people to build a life for themselves and their families. Because Silicon Valley isn't really about making things anymore, it's about making financial bets. And that's a shame - watching billionaires blow money on reinventing the vending machine isn't much fun.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#50

Post by dsfyu404ed »

julianozen wrote: post #36

To you, in the words of one Silicon Valley investor, this seems like “the only logical conclusion.” To the average person, this seems like the height of arrogance. People are uncomfortable with universal basic income because you’re essentially saying their labor isn’t worth anything — but you don’t see it! I think this point is really missing from most UBI conversations that happen on HN. UBI is the answer when you b…

>I would be interested in seeing startups trying to solve suburban problems and producing suburban jobs. I think the fact that are very few companies like this is indicative of our increasing cultural divide

You'll have an uphill battle because "environment". Nobody wants to invest in making commuting more bearable or making areas with non-city population densities more environmentally friendly. Everyone wants to hitch their wagon into whatever the latest scheme to cram people into carbon neutral shipping containers.

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