31–40 of 44 posts
The New Yorker article link is broken (it goes to Pocket). Here's the actual link: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_...
I can't leave any comments on the actual blog so I'll just leave it here: This is some bullshit written by a very entitled young man that is apparently aimed at very entitled young people. To wit: "You didn’t even need to be a finance major to get aggressively courted by the bulge bracket firms. Goldman Sachs, in particular, seemed to have an obsession with taking the most liberal-arty kid" Maybe if you are one of th…
I want to add an addendum that I shouldn't have necessarily included the author when I said "what's wrong with this country." He may be a thoughtful guy after I considered the ending to the article. I also think anyone who really loves technology should have a seat at the table. It just seemed tone-deaf in many ways to the reality that most people in this world face, let alone most Americans his age.
Yes, the premise was built on some generalization. Not "everyone" was courted by Wall Street 10 years ago, just as not "everyone" is trying to get into tech these days (though I would argue that from certain points of view both feel that way).
I am aware that these narratives don't represent the typical American experience and should have made that clearer.
Thanks for reading and responding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. This wasn't exactly an essay, just some thoughts around a "trend" I picked up on (ie the backlash). I could write a whole separate article about the NSA but I let Carr's article speak for itself. The reason for including it was that the NSA disclosures put a different light on the tech vs society question. But yea, it could have been more developed.
It just seemed like a lazy attempt to somehow slur those kooky libertarians, god bless 'em! Guilt by a vague association: * Some libertarians live in the Bay Area * Some people in the Bay Area worked on projects, companies and systems being exploited by the NSA * Therefore ... wait, huh?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with most of what you've written, though I don't agree with the part about "intellectual superiors." Certainly it seems like a flashy rich kid can walk into a room and have a lot of success selling a pretty silly idea built with some hard work by some smart folks just because of his connections and advantages and that really bites, but I think sometimes engineers and scientists can fall into an ego trap as we…
My only caveat is what does "in tech" mean nowadays? > Enterprise software/SaaS Companies have very often been started by sales oriented founders (Siebel, Benioff come to mind). > Ecommerce/marketplaces have very rarely been started by CS majors/engineers. So sure, you can have very engineering focused Companies like New Relic, Heroku or Dropbox, and that's great, but if you send all business people to Hollywood, I a…
Except for, you know, the biggest and most successful ones: Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist.
Who were you thinking of?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My only caveat is what does "in tech" mean nowadays? > Enterprise software/SaaS Companies have very often been started by sales oriented founders (Siebel, Benioff come to mind). > Ecommerce/marketplaces have very rarely been started by CS majors/engineers. So sure, you can have very engineering focused Companies like New Relic, Heroku or Dropbox, and that's great, but if you send all business people to Hollywood, I a…
Ecommerce/marketplaces have very rarely been started by CS majors/engineers. Except for, you know, the biggest and most successful ones: Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist. Who were you thinking of?
I couldn't have said it better myself. And sadly the author doesn't see anything wrong with the statement while for many of us - this sums up EVERYTHING that is wrong.
"I find it difficult to distinguish what tech is doing to the valley and SF from what Wall Street has been doing to New York and London for decades." I couldn't have said it better myself. And sadly the author doesn't see anything wrong with the statement while for many of us - this sums up EVERYTHING that is wrong.
"I find it difficult to distinguish what tech is doing to the valley and SF from what Wall Street has been doing to New York and London for decades." I couldn't have said it better myself. And sadly the author doesn't see anything wrong with the statement while for many of us - this sums up EVERYTHING that is wrong.
"I find it difficult to distinguish what tech is doing to the valley and SF from what Wall Street has been doing to New York and London for decades." I couldn't have said it better myself. And sadly the author doesn't see anything wrong with the statement while for many of us - this sums up EVERYTHING that is wrong.
That's a misunderstanding: I am not saying there's nothing wrong with what is happening (and my personal beliefs are very much to the contrary). My point is rather than much of the criticism of tech seems to be a criticism of capitalism. So if you want to have a debate about inner cities, poverty, etc, by all means, let's have it, but it's not a tech phenomenon.