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

techcrunch.com

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

#51

Post by jrs95 »

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

I think some of the people that do have a problem with SV or tech in general also just have a problem with people they perceive as having lower social status succeeding. It's not anti-intellectualism exactly, but it sort of parallels it in my opinion.

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

#52

Post by gggdvnkhmbgjvbn »

RestlessMind wrote: post #43

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…

Yeah I think little has changed in SV in the last year compared to the near 180 in public opinion. My theory is that journalists and readers who used to hate trump as a hobby are bored with the lack of scandal and have turned to SV, the only other interesting new thing in the us.

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

#53

Post by dsfyu404ed »

snerbles wrote: post #22
hienyimba wrote: post #7

Techcrunch forgets its a "Part" of Silicon Valley. Most Valley stories cannot be told without Techcrunch in it e.g the T.v show - Silicon Valley.

The author danced around but missed the detached, holier-than-thou elitism that radiates from the entire Bay Area.

That's like saying an atom bomb produces a warm glow.

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

#54

Post by ernst_klim »

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

>a world without iPhones, Facebook, Google, Uber/Lyft

World without insane eulas, itunes, exploitation of drivers? Such an utopia.

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

#55

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

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.

> racist and sexist white males making decisions and developing a workplace culture

One need not be white or male to be biased against people of color or women. It's probably easier for us to fall into those patterns, and historical patterns of deliberate oppression were undoubtedly a major factor in establishing those biases as dominant cultural patterns, but anyone can do it with a little extra effort to rationalize how they're "one of the good ones".

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

#56

Post by staticelf »

As a non-american and as a person who has never been to SV but love the idea that is described in the article that anyone can start up a company I would like to adress the points in the article.

1. Your ideas are only as good as the people in the room. And your door is shut to most people.

Well, if anyone can start a company the door isn't shut. I don't buy that white men only invests in white men. I think people invest in companies (for the most part) where investors think they will gain the most money from.

2. Your rainforest of innovation has turned into a factory farm.

Totally agree, this is why startups should bootstrap and perhaps not start up in Sillicon Valley. Perhaps it is better to start up somewhere cheaper.

I think countries of the world should make it easier and less expensive to start a company. That is the best recipee for success in my view. If it is less of a risk to create a company, more people will do it.

I have been wanting to start a company for years but haven't just yet because of the economic game. I am still planning to do it, hopefully pretty soon but I want to save up enough so I can run my company for at least 1-2 years without any other income.

In my country Sweden, unfortunately, smaller companies get taxated pretty hard which makes any earning disappear. You will need a pretty good stream of incoming cash to be able to survive. Since I do want to create a product and not simply be a consultant this is much harder to achieve.

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

#57

Post by gt_ »

jrs95 wrote: post #51
austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

I think some of the people that do have a problem with SV or tech in general also just have a problem with people they perceive as having lower social status succeeding. It's not anti-intellectualism exactly, but it sort of parallels it in my opinion.

I agree. It is not the classic anti-intellectualism, but I think a refined version of it.

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

#58

Post by autokad »

ryanb23 wrote: post #32
autokad wrote: post #18

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

what does that mean?

people from the midwest and south are largely not represented in sv companies. sv has done a great job at basically hiring the same type of person over and over. I believe this is mostly because of their preference for a narrow set of universities, among other things.

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

#59

Post by cn8812 »

supercanuck wrote: post #40
gotthemwmds wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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.

OP used Latin to signal their intelligence, the assumption being they've already considered and ruled out sexism and racism, therefore there must be some other under-developed theory to explain the gap.

Where "under-developed" means: Not the party line propagated by some useless gender "study" department that has exactly zero clue about technology and the personal sacrifices necessary to be good at it.

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

#60

Post by snerbles »

201709User wrote: post #28
gotthemwmds wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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.

What about plumbers and garbage collectors gender diversity? Is it "evil patriarchy" or "ugh it's icky"?

The loud evangelists for social justice are usually seeking power.

Blue-collar jobs aren't considered prestigious, so they'll get little more than lip service.

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