Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This Is Silicon Valley

onezero.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 227 posts

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#81

Post by SamuelAdams »

As someone not in the valley (Michigan resident here), do other jobs not exist? I'm sure nurses, financial analysts, and auto mechanics love to go to Lake Tahoe and talk about their professions.

It sounds to me like the OP doesn't like spending 100% of her time in the tech sphere. And that's fine. Find people who are in completely unrelated fields, and become friends with them. Spend 50% of your time at work, in the tech world. Then leave work and spend the other 50% talking to different people about more diverse problems.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#82

Post by watwut »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #30
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #25

I'm gonna offer a slightly different perspective: SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. There is a distinct lack of culture, of nightlife, of arts and humanities - even in San Francisco. We're a mediocre land of strip malls and suburbs masquerading as an international destination. Go to any other city and tell me that it's not MORE vibrant (Chicago, LA, NYC, Miami, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Houst…

Also, I'd like to point out that if you have a family, and have settled into a sort of more standard family life, SV is great - if you can afford it. If you're a young(er) single person, my god literally anywhere else is better to live. For example - if you're on Tinder, use the "passport" feature to set your profile to NYC for two days. Let me know the number of matches you get.

Article seems to suggest SV does not work well for families and children.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#83

Post by lordnacho »

I think I can see why the teenagers are so angsty.

The problem when you grow up surrounded by an elite is you really want to join the elite. This is what everyone mentions about the bay area: there's lots of 6 figure jobs, but everything is expensive even if you have one.

And how do you get these jobs? The standard path, and that's just about all you'll hear as a kid, is get good grades, get into a good school, do internships, interview well and then you're on the ladder.

If you fall off the ladder, you'll know just enough friends to go green with envy, and you won't be able to afford anything.

The thing is teenagers who are going to be part of the elite tend to be clumped together in their affluent schools. They see disproportionately many other success stories, and they see other kids pushing themselves as well.

All I can say is when you get a little older, your circles widen. Or they CAN widen, it's up to you who you hang out with. Also, you tend to get a bit less intense, nothing really bothers you as much as when you were young.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#85

Post by bproven »

"It’s where everyone wants something from you, and you never know when someone will betray you because they want something from someone else more."

This is the part I really hated about SV and the bay area.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#86

Post by crushcrashcrush »

jiveturkey wrote: post #79
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #25

I'm gonna offer a slightly different perspective: SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. There is a distinct lack of culture, of nightlife, of arts and humanities - even in San Francisco. We're a mediocre land of strip malls and suburbs masquerading as an international destination. Go to any other city and tell me that it's not MORE vibrant (Chicago, LA, NYC, Miami, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Houst…

> SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. For lifestyle, yes. For the opportunities in tech, there's no place like it. Before you name the other not quite as good tech hubs, yes there is opportunity but not like there is here.

Agreed with you on this, but I'm in Marketing so I can go anywhere I'd like for similar opportunities. But 100% agreed that if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#87

Post by president »

People that enjoy living in Silicon Valley are either delusional, have never lived anywhere else in their life, or moved here from the middle of nowhere. The only thing this soul-less valley is good for is tech and money. If that's not what you base your life on (most normal people with a life), then you're not going to like it. Most people I've talked with (excluding new college grads and people in their 1-2 year Valley honeymoon phase) don't plan on staying here permanently.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#88

Post by nielsbot »

gowld wrote: post #38
nielsbot wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an industry town now. I personally worry how sustainable it is to have a city that's just "high paid white startup workers and fancy restaurants." I think a more diverse and affordable San Francisco would benefit all its residents.

It's interesting how Chinese and Indian people are hated for being "white" now, not long after they were hated for being non-white.

Is that happening? I used "white" as a stereotype to make a point, but maybe that was a bad choice.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#89

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

thedz wrote: post #45
Para2016 wrote: post #26

I had to stop reading this. The complaints of a wealthy narcissist and her wonderful childhood are absurd, despicable even.

Did... you read the same article I did? The author describes a hyper competitive childhood that explicit took a mental and physical toll on the student body

It seems a lot of people commenting here basically just see money == happiness.

Basically, these commenters are proving the article’s point. Why be depressed when you have money? Who needs empathy for the homeless when you live in a gated community away from them?

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#90

Post by crushcrashcrush »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #78
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also look at this as - individuals have so much wealth, along with these companies, yet no one is doing a single fucking thing to help the homeless. Facebook and Google could reverse their negative PR so quickly if they actually put some money meaningfully toward the problem, not into fake tax shelters for their founders.

How would you solve it? I think it's a really tough problem and a significant fraction of the homeless population has serious mental health problems. I live in a city (Salt Lake City) that did a great job fixing its homelessness problem... for a couple of years. Now it's worse than it has ever been. Partly this is because more homeless people are coming to the area because they've heard about how great the resources…

It's simple.

We need more fucking housing. Period. End of story. We need condo towers. We need townhomes. We need mid-rises.

And secondly, we need free and low cost mental health services.

That's it. Problem solved. The problem is we're 20 years behind.

Post reply on HN