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This Is Silicon Valley

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Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#181

Post by berlinerluft »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #111
berlinerluft wrote: post #95

Personally I find discussing machine learning and blockchain more interesting than discussing diversity (yet again). Also, perhaps she could have a bigger impact in SV where few people are woke, than in some place where everybody is woke.

I don't think she was focusing on the relative interesting-ness of diversity vs. {ML, blockchain}. Rather, it was about the narrow focus on such a small set of discussion topics.

I find it difficult to believe that even in SV people have no other things to talk about.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#182

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

smallgovt wrote: post #176
rsweeney21 wrote: post #23

I totally bought into the Silicon Valley dream. I moved to the bay area to work at Netflix and launch a startup. I bootstrapped my first company because I didn't know how to raise VC money. That was pretty great. For my second company I raised millions of dollars from VCs. I went to exclusive parties, did press interviews and had a huge net-worth (on paper). I became the person I always envied. It was HUGELY disappoi…

The disappointment you describe is either because your achievements don't actually contribute to your core values or the benefits are short lived. I recommend taking some time to figure out what your core values are. Why did you want to start a successful startup? What were you really chasing after? Some superficial answers might be financial security or social status, but you should keep asking why these things are…

I think going about it while still retaining this concept that you have to min/max for some singular goal will ultimately defeat the purpose.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#183

Post by CompanionCuuube »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #53
smacktoward wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN, where wishing you could talk to your neighbors and co-workers about something other than blockchain makes you superficial.

Exactly. The problem isn't the writer of this piece, it's the person you're replying to. pot/kettle/black/etc

It's mind boggling that a criticism of the narrowness of a monoculture is being called superficial.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#184

Post by jjulius »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #170
jjulius wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. The Bay Area was always one of the only places my wife and I could mutually agree on whenever we'd chat about places we'd like to move to. I grew up in Seattle and have family scattered throughout SF and the East Bay, and was fortunate enough to have made multiple trips per year to the area since I was a kid. Those trips fostered a love for the region, for SF as a city, and the people here. The…

I have a somewhat similar perspective, having moved to Colorado about four years ago. There are clearly a lot of transplants here, but if you go for a walk around Denver, it's A LOT of affluent white people. Go to Boulder and it's even more pronounced (similar to a miniature Silicon Valley). I'm very conflicted because there is a lot to like about Colorado, but I sometimes wish I moved to an area that was not so whit…

>That being said, states like Colorado and California are some of the few areas with solid protections for LGBTQ people.

For sure. That, and similar aspects, are what we really enjoy about living here.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#185

Post by crushcrashcrush »

jjulius wrote: post #184
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a somewhat similar perspective, having moved to Colorado about four years ago. There are clearly a lot of transplants here, but if you go for a walk around Denver, it's A LOT of affluent white people. Go to Boulder and it's even more pronounced (similar to a miniature Silicon Valley). I'm very conflicted because there is a lot to like about Colorado, but I sometimes wish I moved to an area that was not so whit…

>That being said, states like Colorado and California are some of the few areas with solid protections for LGBTQ people. For sure. That, and similar aspects, are what we really enjoy about living here.

Full admission - my hetero/cisgendered worldview made me ignore this side of reasoning for living here. But doesn’t NYC, Seattle, Portland, LA, Miami offer similar protections?

Great point none the less!

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#186

Post by NTDF9 »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #81

As someone not in the valley (Michigan resident here), do other jobs not exist? I'm sure nurses, financial analysts, and auto mechanics love to go to Lake Tahoe and talk about their professions. It sounds to me like the OP doesn't like spending 100% of her time in the tech sphere. And that's fine. Find people who are in completely unrelated fields, and become friends with them. Spend 50% of your time at work, in the…

Let me explain the monotone.

In Michigan, if you go knock on the door of your neighbors, what is the probability that they work in the same industry as you?

In SV, the probability that they work in tech is very very high (99% in my case, the 1% is an old retired engineer).

SV's monotone is a bubble of gigantic proportions. Everyone is in tech. There are no auto-mechanics living nearby (they drive in from 1.5 hours away)

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#187

Post by etrautmann »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #150
jonathankoren wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think back to this obviously first coffee date I came across one weekend at Red Rock in Mountain View. The woman came in, she's dressed nice, walks in with confidence, and finds her date, who is dressed like a schlub wearing a faded free company t-shirt, and couldn't even bother to comb his hair. If I was her, there wouldn't have been a second date.

Oh. My. God. I thought I was the only one. This will probably go over most heads here, but man - the way people DRESS, particularly men, is staggeringly bad. Hysterically awful. I've seen this same situation before as well. Here's a hint - don't wear anything with your company logo on it unless you're at a company event. You're welcome.

You're not necessarily wrong, just condescending.

I'm still going to wear sneakers, t-shirts, and a puffy because it's dramatically more comfortable than dress shirts and leather shoes. I can know I'm dressing poorly and still choose to do it...

company logo is another story - that one escapes me

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#188

Post by jlukic »

smallgovt wrote: post #176
rsweeney21 wrote: post #23

I totally bought into the Silicon Valley dream. I moved to the bay area to work at Netflix and launch a startup. I bootstrapped my first company because I didn't know how to raise VC money. That was pretty great. For my second company I raised millions of dollars from VCs. I went to exclusive parties, did press interviews and had a huge net-worth (on paper). I became the person I always envied. It was HUGELY disappoi…

The disappointment you describe is either because your achievements don't actually contribute to your core values or the benefits are short lived. I recommend taking some time to figure out what your core values are. Why did you want to start a successful startup? What were you really chasing after? Some superficial answers might be financial security or social status, but you should keep asking why these things are…

If anyone's interested in reading something along these lines from the literature. One of my professors in college who I greatly admired has written a tremendous amount around PPA (personal project analysis) a framework for interpreting motivation and happiness in relation to your core life projects.

http://www.brianrlittle.com/articles/%EF%BF%BCpersonal-proje...

I find this to be a very helpful framework for engaging in a more scientifically rigorous discussions around happiness and life satisfaction.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#189

Post by rak00n »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #90
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you solve it? I think it's a really tough problem and a significant fraction of the homeless population has serious mental health problems. I live in a city (Salt Lake City) that did a great job fixing its homelessness problem... for a couple of years. Now it's worse than it has ever been. Partly this is because more homeless people are coming to the area because they've heard about how great the resources…

It's simple. We need more fucking housing. Period. End of story. We need condo towers. We need townhomes. We need mid-rises. And secondly, we need free and low cost mental health services. That's it. Problem solved. The problem is we're 20 years behind.

Nope, your just indentfied the problem that needs to be solved. You haven't "solved" the problem, which is massively more complex.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#190

Post by erulabs »

DanBC wrote: post #178
erulabs wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't see your post before it was deleted, but i'm genuinely curious. I live in SF, and I'm doing well, but I was not born into this world. A good chunk of my friend group has died of heroin overdoses, and the rest fled to Texas to work on oil fields because there was no other escape from painkiller addiction. I _hate_ having to bring up my sadness credentials in this area. Everyone is always trying to prove how h…

> I didn't see your post before it was deleted It wasn't deleted. There's a setting in your profile called "showdead" which will allow you to see all the flag-killed comments.

Ah, thank you. Didn't expect to be attacked for being a programmer on Hacker News. Nor did I expect that being a programmer somehow means I can't understand stress or hard work. How crazily insulting and how dim that persons view of others must be.

Never meant to imply no one should complain. Life is hard for everyone. But a 6 figure job out of college after getting rejected from Harvard _is not tragedy_, and I don't really care who says otherwise.

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