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This Is Silicon Valley

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Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#91

Post by throwaway-1283 »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #65
throwaway-1283 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price premium you are paying, especially for housing, is really all about raising kids e.g. sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country all while keeping your high paying SV jobs. Basically assume that the quality of public SV schools are high enough that high earning parents are "OK" sending their kids to those schools rather than paying for private school. If you have…

100% Agree. I'm leaving in 6 months. Buying two pied-a-terres in cool cities for the cost of a down payment in SV. Can't wait!

Where?

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#92

Post by aeorgnoieang »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #43
conanbatt wrote: post #11

Its a rant but I'm also surprised at how she writes "people's perfect life". Whats perfect about San Francisco, that has such a low demographic representation of family, the city is super dirty, people live with 6 figure salaries live in terrible housing conditions. Maybe google gets to shelter their employees from a lot of the cruft of SF, but walk 2 blocks away from the google offices in SF and you'll get yelled at…

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 many homeless people could one even very wealthy person help in San Fransisco or Silicon Valley? Even just building a homeless shelter, which I think are still uniformly pretty terrible places, is probably near-impossible; and not just because of the opposition from residents to them being built in their areas or neighborhoods, but also the regular, general opposition to any new development.

And just giving homeless people a better place to live is only one, tho extremely important, dimension along which homeless people can be helped.

And then of course one should expect side-effects to any help one would give, e.g. increasing 'demand' for help for homeless people. I'd imagine one reason why there's so many homeless people in San Fransisco is that it's already one of the best places to be homeless.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#93

Post by JesseObrien »

bsamuels wrote: post #57
JesseObrien wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checking out your profiles on other social media, looks like the only thing you ever do is code related, so of course this article goes over your head. Nothing in this article says "look how tough we have it". It's a thought provoking piece on how broken an entire city is, and just how tone deaf people like you are to all of it. You're so busy worrying about code and lack any sort of empathy with others that you can'…

I think it's a little invasive to go out of your way to find someone's social media profiles to help prove a point in a thread on a hacker news post

I didn't go out of my way, I clicked his profile here, which has a link to his website, which has all of his social media on it.

I made an honest attempt to understand someone before engaging with them, next time I'll just spew some uninformed BS if that's better?

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#94

Post by ericd »

mykowebhn wrote: post #76
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…

I agree about the lack of culture, but I'm not sure it's much better anywhere else in the US. I used to love NYC for its out-there, underground cultural options, but now it just feels like a mall geared for tourists.

Have you lived in NYC? I don’t get this sense at all, as long as I stay away from the touristy parts of Manhattan.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#95

Post by berlinerluft »

Personally I find discussing machine learning and blockchain more interesting than discussing diversity (yet again).

Also, perhaps she could have a bigger impact in SV where few people are woke, than in some place where everybody is woke.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#96

Post by starpilot »

mykowebhn wrote: post #76
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…

I agree about the lack of culture, but I'm not sure it's much better anywhere else in the US. I used to love NYC for its out-there, underground cultural options, but now it just feels like a mall geared for tourists.

This is happening to all cities. Silicon Valleyification is an aggressive strain of gentrification.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#97

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

They are still hated for being not-white, regardless of the fact (if it is one) that their not-whiteness is discounted by some other not-white people leaving them lumped in with white people in resentment of the visible, economically advantaged (from the perspective of other non-whites) groups.

White America is hardly free of racism targeting East and South Asians (or Central or Southwest or any other Asians, for that matter.)

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#98

Post by sgarman »

seibelj wrote: post #28

I think it's more professional not to encourage talking about politics at work. It is unrelated to your job and is more likely to divide people than bring everyone together, unless the author would be happy if someone said they didn't care or disagreed with whatever issues they are passionate about.

Obviously there is a plethora of reasons to not talk politics at work, but is "unrelated to your job" really one of them? I can't think of a single major startup who's success and direction are not directly influenced by the political landscape. Perhaps your mindset is employees should just do tasks assigned and not be interested or vested in their work and companies raison d'etre (assuming it's more then just making $$$$). IMO that attitude is how we get to what the author is explaining in this article.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#99

Post by quest88 »

cpr wrote: post #6

So moving away in the hopes that SV will magically get better while you're away? Doesn't sound like a practical plan.

I had the same feelings.

"I care so much about these things that I'm going to leave and hope it works out!".

Let's add another piece to the article:

"Well paid tech employees would rather look the other way, some even leaving, instead of putting in the tough effort of making change. But tech employees are used to other people doing things for them. They hire dog walkers to walk their dog, cleaners for their homes, and laundry services to do their laundry. This is silicon valley."

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