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Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

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Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#111

Post by newnewnew »

mtrimpe wrote: post #94
SilasX wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"SV thinks it's extremely meritocratic. It's only very meritocratic. This is a big problem."

And what if it's only moderately meritocratic? Or even below average? I'd love for PG to run an analysis once of what words occur most frequently in flagged posts and their comments. I don't think you could get a better representation of this community's unspoken biases than that. I'm also pretty sure you'd find that words like feminism, female, sexism e.a. would feature quite high on the list.

Maybe the community has a bias against pointless class warfare. You want to make an effective feminist statement in Silicon Valley? Start with a github profile.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#112

Post by beat »

newnewnew wrote: post #88
21echoes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is a field famously overrun with white men. Probably not the best comparison to make if you really want to talk about what a "meritocracy" should look like. Unless, of course, you think white men naturally have more merit than everyone else..

I never thought I'd live to see Marxists attack Math with their class war nonsense, but there you go. Shameless.

So anyone who questions merit vs privilege is "Marxist"?

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I don't see any Marxism here.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#113

Post by newnewnew »

freefrancisco wrote: post #104
21echoes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is a field famously overrun with white men. Probably not the best comparison to make if you really want to talk about what a "meritocracy" should look like. Unless, of course, you think white men naturally have more merit than everyone else..

So just because white men predominate in a field that automatically makes the field less meritocratic? If you live in a society where white men have more access to the tools that will allow them to forge their merit, when those white males encounter a meritocracy they will naturally rise to the top. You can argue that the society where these men come from is not meritocratic, but you can not argue that the field they…

Notice that if any other group is proportionately overrepresented in a population, it can still be "meritocratic". It is only if there are too many white men, and only white men, that a group can no longer be considered meritocratic.

Meanwhile, people tend to forget that half of successful startup founders are immigrants, including large portions from China and India. Most tech companies I've seen are not very white. If Silicon Valley is a good old boys network, the good old boys have done a terrible job at exclusion.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#114

Post by freefrancisco »

sp332 wrote: post #96
SilasX wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"SV thinks it's extremely meritocratic. It's only very meritocratic. This is a big problem."

SV believes so strongly that it's meritocratic, that every successful person believes they deserve it. That's a problem.

Why is that a problem? Because someone who can say with moral certainty "this is my money, I earned" is not an easy mark for the sort of people who produce nothing but demand an equal share of the work of others? Because they won't subscribe to the ridiculous notion that there is no virtue in creating wealth but only virtue in giving it away? Maybe that is precisely why those who produce nothing hate the concept of meritocracy so much. It makes it harder for them to guilt people into giving away what they rightfully earned.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#115

Post by williamcotton »

pg wrote: post #92
freefrancisco wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting question, is there an institution or subculture in the world that is more meritocratic than Silicon Valley? If there is, then the author's argument has some merit. If there isn't, then the author is wasting time attacking the one institution that comes the closest to embodying the meritocracy ideal. To what end?

That is an interesting question. I still can't think of one better than math and the hard sciences, which in my experience are roughly tied with SV. The to what end question is easy to answer though. It gets you a lot more attention to claim SV isn't a meritocracy than to claim that math isn't.

> math and the hard sciences, which in my experience are roughly tied with SV

Can you point me to the great mathematical and hard science accomplishments going on right now?

All I see is ad sales and hucksterism.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#117

Post by jacalata »

freefrancisco wrote: post #104
21echoes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is a field famously overrun with white men. Probably not the best comparison to make if you really want to talk about what a "meritocracy" should look like. Unless, of course, you think white men naturally have more merit than everyone else..

So just because white men predominate in a field that automatically makes the field less meritocratic? If you live in a society where white men have more access to the tools that will allow them to forge their merit, when those white males encounter a meritocracy they will naturally rise to the top. You can argue that the society where these men come from is not meritocratic, but you can not argue that the field they…

That's a well stated argument, and it's definitely true that you can't look at the tech industry in a vacuum. But I think it would be very difficult to argue both that US/Western/California society is sexist in a way that prevents women from entering the field, and also that all the men that entered the field have magically freed themselves from the sexist cultural biases and attitudes of the larger society they grew up in.

Also, in this scenario, even if the tech industry is not actively sexist, it is being affected by the sexism of the wider society - and, if you think there is anything wrong with that (eg decreased pool of potential employees/founders/idea people), then it is quite possible to make tech-industry-specific moves that counter the extra disadvantages imposed from outside the industry, like affirmative action programs for girls that give them increased access to the tools that will allow them to forge their merit, even when you can't quite identify the process that is reducing their access in the first place. In fact I think that for a field which prides itself on solving big problems, saying 'it's not us it's the rest of society' is a cop-out, and to agree with your statement and not support affirmative action in some form is equivalent to supporting entrenched sexism.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#118

Post by [deleted] »

beachstartup wrote: post #20
Anechoic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of the point this guy's trying to make i think this guy I think this post makes the article's point nicely. (take another look at the article byline, and lookup the author on Google)

well the point specifically said white men. not men, white men. i was reacting to the content - what does it matter who wrote it? aren't we discussing ideas here?

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#119

Post by mcguire »

mathattack wrote: post #3

I think it's fair to start with, "No industries or geographies are pure meritocracies." Then it's worth asking, "Where does Silicon Valley fit in the spectrum?" Is it more or less meritocratic than teaching? Being an actuary? A politician? A banker? A lawyer? Advertising? Writing? I don't know all of the answers, but my impression is the market forces on startups (Can you get funding? Can you get customers?) at least…

"Can you get funding?"

I believe that was actually part of the argument: the necessity of looking the same for the venture capitalists pushes them away from meritocracy.

And software doesn't care whether or not you dropped out of Stanford or Harvard.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#120

Post by beat »

delinka wrote: post #60
altoz wrote: post #32

tl;dr silicon valley isn't the liberal utopia and therefore not a meritocracy.

That presumes liberals are redefining 'merit' such that it's meaningless. While I would not be surprised in the least if that's the case, I have yet to see indications from any liberal thinkers that they'd ever want to base anything on merit. Even a redefined "merit."

I'm a liberal who believes strongly in meritocracy. The problem starts with limitations of opportunity. I grew up poor, in a poorly educated family, and I appreciate just how difficult it is to grow out of circumstance.

There are two separate problems here: What opportunities you have, and what you do with the opportunities you have. The latter is where merit comes in. The former is where the -isms live. Those who are fighting disadvantages must spend tremendous amounts of personal energy just getting to be on the level, merit-based ground.

Now, I think the author is fundamentally wrong in a lot of ways. She's faulting Silicon Valley itself, but I think the problems are upstream, and she did basically no analysis on that. So white males are getting the majority of venture deals? What's the ratio of deals applied to deals received? White males are the ones looking for venture deals and other Silicon Valley entrepreneurial stuff. No one is stopping women, minorities, etc from doing the same thing, and I doubt there's a significant punishment for them compared to the other 99+% of companies that get rejected.

And another thing she glossed over is the meritocracy of simply getting to that point. You don't get to waltz in and get showered with angel money just because you're white and male. You have to deliver. Those institutional biases to twenty-something Stanford CS dropouts reflect both the kind of people likely to succeed, and the kind of people likely to choose the path at all.

So while the article itself is mostly a fail, there's some truth to it. Whining about how liberals hate merit, on the other hand, is just political nonsense.

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