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Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

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Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#171

Post by [deleted] »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #161
nickff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other possibility is that going to the parties is a good use of time, and that is where many students develop their networks. In addition to that, signalling theory would indicate that what classes you take and how well you do are much less important than the university you attend and the faculty you graduate from.

yes, and also I am not sure it's really that hard to be a reasonably decent student and attend parties. I mean you could study 8 am to 8pm on a Saturday, go to a party, be in bed by 1 am and study 9 am to midnight the next day

[deleted]

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#172

Post by staunch »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #100
rezistik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like that survey. The lower class is completely unrepresented in tech. It's been one of the weirdest and hardest things for me to handle personally.

I know a number of people from truly lower class backgrounds in tech including some that have built substantial startups. It isn't as though they wear a "lower class" badge so that they are easily identifiable. Nor do they generally talk their lower class background -- when has it ever been socially cool to literally be rural "trailer trash" in America? No one likes to identify as a low status member of society. A lo…

> ...when has it ever been socially cool to literally be rural "trailer trash" in America?

You're the one calling it trailer trash. Even educated poor people often speak in a more genuine and direct way than elite people do. It may sound funny to a fancy person but that doesn't make it trash.

> ...no one checks your papers at the door.

Yes, they do. Every job, startup accelerator, and VC checks your background. Elite VCs fund elite founders. Elite founders hire elite managers. Elite managers hire poor people to do the actual work. The order is maintained.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#173

Post by stegosaurus »

yeureka wrote: post #38

This sounds very familiar. When I was in University I didn't understand why some people didn't care about grades and partied so much. When we left school and got into the real world I understood why: they had rich parents with contacts that could get them good jobs or seed capital for their own businesses. I had lots of ideas and worked in a lot of startups for more than 10 years but now the following phrase from the…

"Most of the time, potential founders who share my background tend to work at lucrative jobs in finance or tech until they can take care of everyone in their families before they even dream about taking more risks — if they ever get there."

This is so absolutely on point.

I've been through life, until now, with exactly that feeling, expecting but not knowing that others feel the same way.

I've been in a bit of a rut recently, and this gives me some ammunition to get myself back together... so thank you for quoting, and thank you, author.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#174

Post by poof131 »

gozur88 wrote: post #129
nickbauman wrote: post #71

There's a strong thread of meritocracy in the tech community, but there is no such thing. When you choose the clearly better developer over the other, you're often choosing the one who had better resources growing up, not just natural ability. The poorer developer may have had a natural advantage over the other one, but didn't have the money to develop it as much. So you're really just selecting for wealth all over a…

>There's a strong thread of meritocracy in the tech community, but there is no such thing. When you choose the clearly better developer over the other, you're often choosing the one who had better resources growing up, not just natural ability. You're using an overly restrictive definition of "merit". When you hire the best person for the job you're hiring based on merit. How they got there isn't really that importan…

So could we then say based upon your comment and the parent that a meritocracy is antagonistic to diversity. Not trying to be argumentative, just more of a thought exercise. If a meritocracy chooses the best, and the wealthiest tend to have the resources and opportunity to make themselves better, then always choosing based upon merit means favoring less diverse backgrounds. Additionally, we tend to always view ourselves as ‘having merit.’ So we will also be predisposed to choose people like ourselves further hindering diversity. I personally have always favored the idea of being meritocratic, but am also leaning more toward purely favoring diversity, not diversity of superficial attributes, but the diversity of peoples background. I feel it helps to expand the breadth of knowledge of the team and avoid blindspots.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#175

Post by gottam »

yeureka wrote: post #38

This sounds very familiar. When I was in University I didn't understand why some people didn't care about grades and partied so much. When we left school and got into the real world I understood why: they had rich parents with contacts that could get them good jobs or seed capital for their own businesses. I had lots of ideas and worked in a lot of startups for more than 10 years but now the following phrase from the…

Rich people network and want their kids to be successful, what a shocking revelation, so different from us poor people.

Chances are if they're slacking off in university then they're going to slack off at work too, which means whatever they're not doing will need someone to be hired to do it anyway.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#176

Post by gottam »

nickbauman wrote: post #71

There's a strong thread of meritocracy in the tech community, but there is no such thing. When you choose the clearly better developer over the other, you're often choosing the one who had better resources growing up, not just natural ability. The poorer developer may have had a natural advantage over the other one, but didn't have the money to develop it as much. So you're really just selecting for wealth all over a…

There has been no society in history that has ever truly had an answer for people born into privilege, except ours. We're in the information age, and its possible for people to learn highly technical skills through a bunch of free internet content, and apply it with very little to no starting capital. Sometimes its luck, other times its just a really good idea.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#177

Post by Inthenameofmine »

nish1500 wrote: post #152

I grew up other side of the world, amazing by what I heard in the news - that there existed a world beyond mine where smart people with smart ideas built great companies overnight. I am smart. I have merit. I dropped out at 19, taught my self how to code, and built a 6-figure business with my projects online. I want to learn more. I got turned down by 15+ companies and startups in the past few weeks because they coul…

Have you looked into remote jobs? Honestly, moving to the US is overrated. I'm staying in a developing country myself. Get 50% of a US salary, live on the other aide of the world, live a laid back and cheap life.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#178

Post by yummyfajitas »

CamatHN wrote: post #98
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called the Internet. The problem is that people generally don't know what to search for, if they even know they should be learning more about some facet of modern life.

This is a ridiculous comment. Certain ways of behaviour, certain nuances, cannot accurately or reliably be picked up through reading online, only through interactions.

You seem to be postulating that it's impossible to learn social techniques from the internet. Yet pickup artists do this regularly.

They do of course practice in real life, turning theory into practice. That's an essential stage which comes after learning theory on the internet.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#179

Post by gozur88 »

poof131 wrote: post #174
gozur88 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a strong thread of meritocracy in the tech community, but there is no such thing. When you choose the clearly better developer over the other, you're often choosing the one who had better resources growing up, not just natural ability. You're using an overly restrictive definition of "merit". When you hire the best person for the job you're hiring based on merit. How they got there isn't really that importan…

So could we then say based upon your comment and the parent that a meritocracy is antagonistic to diversity. Not trying to be argumentative, just more of a thought exercise. If a meritocracy chooses the best, and the wealthiest tend to have the resources and opportunity to make themselves better, then always choosing based upon merit means favoring less diverse backgrounds. Additionally, we tend to always view oursel…

>So could we then say based upon your comment and the parent that a meritocracy is antagonistic to diversity.

Yes, I would say that's the bias. It's human nature to allocate your resources to give your children the best possible start in life. In poor societies that may be as simple as feeding them when you yourself go hungry. In our society it means scheming to get them into the best college or giving them seed money to start a business.

I would note that making alterations to promote diversity don't change that, either. They just distort the system such that people with resources game the system in unproductive ways. A good example is all those "women and minority owned" businesses that get preferential treatment in government contracting. From what I can tell nearly all of them are headed (wink wink) by the wife of a white guy with a relatively upper class upbringing.

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