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Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
21–30 of 148 posts
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#22The 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 s…
The fundamental error of this piece is that it assumes that if you vote Democratic, you're by definition not a one-percenter.
What? Much of the article is devoted to making the opposite point: that the SV elite overwhelmingly support the Democrats.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#23The "10Ks of millionaires" figure is striking, but the Bay area is ~8M people and ~2.5M households, so thats ~1-4% of households are millionaires. People using liquidity cash to buy houses isn't nearly a strong an effect regionwide as high salaries and building restrictions.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#24The 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 s…
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Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#25This article conflates Libertarians with Republicans which I don't think makes sense in Silicon Valley. Yes, nationwide they tend to be in the same group but not in the valley. Judging from comments on HN the valley does sound quite libertarian but not the kind that register and vote Republican. It seems more intellectual and based in logic while Republicans are more about dogma and scoring political points.
Conflating libertarians with Republicans doesn't make sense anywhere. The simplified definition I give people who ask me what a libertarian is is "someone who is economically conservative but socially liberal." The conventional "Republican = conservative, Democrat = liberal" model of American politics casts a vector quantitiy as a scalar.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#26This article conflates Libertarians with Republicans which I don't think makes sense in Silicon Valley. Yes, nationwide they tend to be in the same group but not in the valley. Judging from comments on HN the valley does sound quite libertarian but not the kind that register and vote Republican. It seems more intellectual and based in logic while Republicans are more about dogma and scoring political points.
I think he did a good job at making the distinction. Not sure if you got the jist of it, but he clearly states that despite the heavy libertarian leaning culture, SV overwhelmingly voted for Democrats the last few elections, indicating they were not on board with the Republican platform. My take on it is that SV is 'liberaltarian', in that they prefer small, efficient, decentralized organizational structures, but tha…
but he clearly states that despite the heavy libertarian leaning culture, SV overwhelmingly voted for Democrats the last few elections, indicating they were not on board with the Republican platform.
The author seems to use this fact to negate the idea that many in SV lean libertarian:
If libertarianism is so rampant in Silicon Valley, why are they voting for higher taxes and funding a big government liberal by such overwhelming numbers?
The premise that voting for the Democratic Party is the opposite of a "Gilded Age" is confusing to me though - it seems too reductive to assume that every person who voted for a Democrat is an ardent redistributionist who wants to see the welfare state expanded. I agree with your take on the politics of the region though.
Also, I wish that the title "Learning from Los Gatos" was explained in any way - what is the "Los Gatos" in reference to?
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#27"I would be surprised if there were any new industry in the history of capitalism that distributed its economic rewards to its employees as widely as Silicon Valley has." Wall street has been distributing most of it's profits to employees in the form of bonuses for decades. Though unlike SV, it get criticised heavily (a lot unfairly IMHO) for it. Having worked in both, I feel they are full of the same 'type' of peopl…
Having worked with both, they are not quite the same type of people. You might find some similar personality traits (ego, intelligence, and/or arrogance). But there is one major difference: The typical Silicon Valley worker is much more capable of creating a product or service than the average Wall Streeter.
This is anecdotal, but the i-bankers I have worked with and met generally have a limited skillset which boils down to Excel spreadsheet manipulation, 10K reading, and Powerpoint presentations.
The skillset of Silicon Valley employees crosses a wider intellectual range (CS, statistics, math, art+design, EE, other hard sciences). Their knowledge is also deeper in a wider breadth of fields and can put their knowledge to work.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#28This article conflates Libertarians with Republicans which I don't think makes sense in Silicon Valley. Yes, nationwide they tend to be in the same group but not in the valley. Judging from comments on HN the valley does sound quite libertarian but not the kind that register and vote Republican. It seems more intellectual and based in logic while Republicans are more about dogma and scoring political points.
I would say there are few dominant strands of political views in Silicon Valley:
* "Liberaltarian" (http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/liberaltarians). Generally libertarian views (support for free markets, drug de-criminalization, gay rights, right to bear arms, open borders, etc...) but where views on social issues (namely basic civil liberties, gay rights, drug de-criminalization, open borders) trump (by far) the economic issues.
Most of these folks also don't subscribe to Randian/Nietzschean "virtue of selfishness" so given a candidate whose economic policies might benefit them but who opposes gay rights and immigration, they'll vote for his opponents even if they happen to be straight and native-born.
* Conventional style liberalism, but with heavier focus on civil liberties and technology. Zoe Logfren is probably great example of candidate that appeals heavily to this group.
* Bloomberg-style centrism: some degree of social liberalism (particularly in regards to gay rights, abortion), moderate-to-center-right economic views (mainly dictated by self-interest), but strong opposition to personal liberty-issues that are perceived to have social costs (e.g., drug de-criminalization, right to bear arms).
This is generally common with older folks, likely the ones that supported Reagan and Nixon earlier. Generally these are also the view of many California republicans (e.g., Meg Whitman) but also a significant chunk of Democrats. Given national republican party has now deviated from significantly from this view (with big factions now being religious right, Tea Party, and some libertarian-leaning folks), again there's a tendency to vote democratic on national level.
* Actual libertarians tends to be somewhat more common than in the rest of the country, but again there's a tendency for people to come to libertarian views from a more academic point of view (study of economics, philosophy, etc...) as opposed to from reading Atlas Shrugged.
So yes, if you define libertarian as Objectivist (a view that goes far beyond libertarianism -- the idea that poor deserve to be poor and do not deserve even voluntary charity, as opposed to the idea that economic planning hurts the poor more than it helps), then there's only few libertarians in Silicon Valley. If you use a more open-minded definition (opposition to economic planning and support for personal liberties) the picture changes a bit.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#29[deleted]
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#30So here are my reasons for high equity allocation in tech (notably missing from this list is that us techies are simply just progressive nice guys).
1. Less cash = more equity. Cash is expensive relative to equity for a start up and payouts are backended. In traditional firms (ie ones that make money) - your salary presents a larger % of the total comp pkg.
2. Human capital more important (in tech vs traditional businesses) = equity alignment is more important
3. VC rounds typically structure 10% to 20% option pools in to contracts. Ostensibly this is to create a pocket of equity for new employees. In practice this is often used as a tool to reduce the implicit valuation - creating a larger option than is needed, which is subsequently allocated because it is there.