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

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

#51

Post by stcredzero »

johngalt wrote: post #13
stcredzero wrote: post #4

Since I moved to California and the Bay Area, I have to say I've encountered more smarmyness and arrogance than in Houston Texas. This by itself isn't a negative indicator. However, if you couple it with a tendency for people to judge you by "your cover," then it is. The real attitudes of people, and how they differ from stated ones, are a big part of the downsides of a milieu like the "Gilded Age." Success itself is…

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 a…

> How do you tell the difference between someone who is legitimately experienced and someone who's skill is putting on appearances?

Those who have legitimate experience can detect their peers. Unfortunately, this is highly contextual. You can be a competent Ruby on Rails guy, but still suffer from Dunning-Krueger when trying to evaluate an iOS developer.

You can also go back to first principles. Do people live their lives and engage in conversations in a way that indicates they understand the epistemological stance of scientists? I have a super power in this regard. I exude a field that makes undesirable people prejudge me, to the point where they make factual mistakes.

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

#52

Post by bjhoops1 »

smacktoward wrote: post #19

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 s…

> But they're all billionaires, so issues that don't affect billionaires personally... just don't get included in the debate.

I recently came across this fascinating statistical study[1] of U.S. Senators responsiveness to the political positions of their constituents, which found that both Republicans and (to a slightly lesser extent) Democrats were overwhelmingly responsive to the positions of the wealthiest 1/3 of their constituents, and entirely unresponsive to the positions of the lowest 1/3. Well worth a read.

[1] http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/economic.pdf

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

#53

Post by gyardley »

stephencanon wrote: post #38
brown9-2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> what is the "Los Gatos" in reference to? Presumably the town of Los Gatos (a relatively wealthy suburb of San Jose). Why Los Gatos in particular? I have no idea.

If I had to guess, I'd guess the writer's appreciation of alliteration. 'Learning from Sunnyvale' doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely.

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

#54

Post by onemorepassword »

One foundation of the entire argument seems to be that support for the Democratic party makes SV progressive. However, in a global context only the minority left wing of the Democratic party could be called progressive.

Also, a simpler explanation for the large support for the Democrats would be that SV consists of intelligent, highly educated and well-informed people that wouldn't dream of supporting the extremist, anti-intellectual and downright insane collection of circus freaks the Republican party has become.

Just based on the purely anecdotal evidence of online and personal encounters with SV-dwellers, I would consider most of them to be "open minded conservatives".

The other foundation is the way companies in SV are organized and equity dived compared to traditional companies. This could simply be explained as "pragmatic", which is how most companies view it themselves.

It seems to me the author is trying to project his own ideas on SV.

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

#55

Post by TheCoelacanth »

arh68 wrote: post #35

Sort of a unexpected result, isn't it? The more 'egalitarian' companies distribute (massive) amounts of wealth into a (relatively) large number of people, gentrifying the entire Valley, and threatening to push the old inhabitants out. Is this egalitarianism? In making the middle managers (or whoever these people are) into millionaires, the divide between billionaires and the layman isn't actually improved: now the ga…

> There is also some curious use of evidence: Obama won Santa Clara by 42% implies "the most dynamic sector .. is now decisively in the camp of the Democrats", but it was only 30 years ago that Reagan won the same county by >10%.

Keep in mind that Reagan won the nationwide popular vote by 18%, so winning by 10% in his home state doesn't indicate a strong Republican following there. It just indicates a very one-sided race.

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

#56

Post by nostromo »

onemorepassword wrote: post #54

One foundation of the entire argument seems to be that support for the Democratic party makes SV progressive. However, in a global context only the minority left wing of the Democratic party could be called progressive. Also, a simpler explanation for the large support for the Democrats would be that SV consists of intelligent, highly educated and well-informed people that wouldn't dream of supporting the extremist,…

I think that's correct.

Anecdotally, my personal network in tech seems to side with Democrats for reason like environmental protection, global warming, gay marriage, abortion, and olive branch foreign policy; not because of economic reasons like union support, wealth redistribution, or strengthened regulators.

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

#57

Post by WalterSear »

api wrote: post #39
Alex3917 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Thanks for reminding me again why I'm not in The Valley. Seems to me the place has become a very trendy echo chamber, more of a hot fashion and marketing center than a center of innovation or creativity.

FWIW, I've found it to be a hotbed of creativity and innovation, >and< a hotbed of flash-in-the-pan douchbaggery, if that's what you seek that out. The stupidity is easy to avoid.

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

#59

Post by api »

stcredzero wrote: post #51
johngalt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> How do you tell the difference between someone who is legitimately experienced and someone who's skill is putting on appearances? Those who have legitimate experience can detect their peers. Unfortunately, this is highly contextual. You can be a competent Ruby on Rails guy, but still suffer from Dunning-Krueger when trying to evaluate an iOS developer. You can also go back to first principles. Do people live their…

This applies to business and marketing too.

A big problem is that innovators lacking business experience are easy prey for self-promoting douchenozzles who pretend to be able to "accelerate" them. In reality they don't know what they're doing, don't have the connections they claim to have, and just want to entangle themselves with something in the off chance it might turn out to be big.

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

#60

Post by dyno12345 »

tomkarlo wrote: post #6
mcarvin wrote: post #2

Author states that Silicon Valley corporate structures are more egalitarian when measured against traditional firms. Author attributes this to a more progressive, 'stakeholder' culture in SV. Question: human capital is disproportionately more important to building value in the tech sector than it is in the broader economy (think mines, manufacturing etc). Isn't it more likely that a more equitable equity split is a p…

This a good point. Investment banks also generally have a very high percentage of employee ownership (50%+) because so much of their value is their employee base.

50%? That's way better than any SV firm
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