Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age

Those are profits in absolute terms. I suspect the author is arguing that relative to the size of the company, wage ratios are important. I would argue he is mistaking consequence for cause. Companies with egalitarian wage ratios can afford (read 'need') equitable wage ratios precisely because of the nature of their business (think software firms with barriers to entry, high margins that are dense with human capital vs a company) vs (a chemicals company, that produces a fungible good and can only compete on price - business is characterized by low margins and a greater proportion of unskilled labor - ie more wage equality would put you out of business)

Tech Cycle:

1. Small groups of dedicated technologists create a large step forward in technology. Generally becoming wealthy.

2. People following money all pile in. Pretenders abound; both founders and investors.

3. It becomes impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. How do you tell the difference between someone who is legitimately experienced and someone who's skill is putting on appearances?

4. Big crash as the pretenders fail to produce similar results. All the crazy money leaves the technology sector. "Who needs an online pet store anyway?"

5. The only people who are left are small groups of people dedicated to technology regardless of the headlines. (return to step one)

Both oil companies and big banks compensate their skilled employees very well. It's not hard to make six-figures straight out of an MS as a petroleum engineer or geologist; you can do $200K/year with 5-10 years experience. And banks, of course, are legendary for their comp structures: you could be doing $80K salary + $160K bonus straight out of college and making half a mil or more 5-10 years out.

It's the roughnecks, construction crews, and bank tellers that don't make big money. Of course, those tend to be the numerical majority of employees because they're relatively cheap.

It's the same thing at Google - engineers can get paid $250K/year, but book scanners get paid $10/hour.

"Since I moved to California and the Bay Area, I have to say I've encountered more smarmyness and arrogance than in Houston Texas."

I'd describe it more as snobbishness and cliqueyness, but same basic idea. Silicon Valley is great if you're working on something trendy, but it can be surprisingly unfriendly if you're just trying to make cool stuff.

The fundamental error of this piece is that it assumes that if you vote Democratic, you're by definition not a one-percenter.

But this is just wrong. There are lots of one-percenters who vote Democratic. They just mostly feel more strongly about cultural-liberalism issues than they do about economic ones. But when it comes to economic issues, these folks still tend to lean rightward; they overestimate the degree of social mobility the economy makes possible today, they support "ownership society" initiatives like 401(K)s and health vouchers over social insurance programs, and so forth. These folks aren't found just in tech, they're also quite common in the entertainment industry and other "new economy"/"information economy" sectors. (The derogatory term for them used to be "limousine liberals"; rich people who were totally down with helping the poor, as long as doing so didn't cut into their personal bottom line.)

So you have billionaires on both sides. American politics, in fact, has mostly become a battle between billionaires. On one side you have billionaires who care about social liberalism, on the other you have billionaires who care about economic liberalism. But they're all billionaires, so issues that don't affect billionaires personally (like the minimum wage, or how to pay for retirement, or the unemployment rate, or affordable housing) just don't get included in the debate. As far as the political system is concerned, they're non-issues. They don't exist.

There used to be institutions that brought these issues into the discussion anyway, like political parties and labor unions. But those have mostly atrophied over the last 50 years, so we have a system where whether the capital gains tax rate is low enough (a question that billionaires of all stripes care deeply about) is continuously and loudly debated, while whether the minimum wage is high enough is hardly ever discussed.