Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#381

Post by andrewjl » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 6:53 PM UTC

anonacct37 wrote: post #119

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

> As an aside, I’ll never understand why people get so upset for rich people making bad bets and losing a bunch of money. Me neither. Sometimes people get upset that the pensions of teachers and firemen are being spent on subsidizing growth of meal delivery and transportation in San Francisco. Actually I live in a state that has spent a bunch of taxpayer money on a alt-coin currency based company that recently had an…

These types of investors are largely intermediaries and their role can be automated away with technology and good financial education in high school / community colleges.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#382

Post by omarchowdhury » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 6:54 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #218

unclebucknasty wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Respectfully, this may be a biased perspective. Are you in SV? Because there are many non-media people outside of SV who don't share your enthusiasm. > I’ll never understand why people get so upset for rich people making bad bets and losing a bunch of money. I think some consider it audacious and see a certain cynicism in it,…

Note to non-commenting down-voters: Down-votes are just bits in a database. Down-voting doesn't actually have the power to alter reality. Carry on.

It made your text greyer, though. But have an upvote.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#383

Post by Clubber » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #361

Clubber wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kinda the point. I don't believe MJ ever called himself elite. He didn't really need to, did he?

He did. He may have never used that word but he was the biggest trash talker. At the Olympic workouts there was an All Star's All Star game and afterward he told Magic Johnson there was new sheriff in town. http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-johnson-trash-talking-m... Elitism is a self-protecting cabal. SV doesn't really do that. That's the point of disruptive technology. You're disrupting an existing order. That's…

So, for one, he said that in private, you called yourself elite on a public form. Two, that's MJ, are you saying you're the MJ of SV software engineers? (please do, that would be hysterical).

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#384

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 6:58 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #205

leggomylibro wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle America doesn't seem to be keen on much of anything these days, besides torches and pitchforks. I'd rather put my money on the people trying to build solutions rather than more problems. Sure, it seems like the actual silicon valley location is mostly making solutions for problems that it created, these days. But there's plenty of tech outside of California. And anyways, dire imprecations of fire and brimstone…

> And anyways, dire imprecations of fire and brimstone if we don't do things your way is so 1700s. You think if the majority of people in this country continue to experience a declining quality of life, there won't be riots in the streets? This method of shifting blame from economic issues to social issues won't work forever. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? Am I wrong in some way?

There are already riots in the streets, fueled by economic conditions.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#385

Post by jowjejiwer88 » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

rtx wrote: post #344

pdimitar wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the truth. Well articulated. The companies came along and gave us things we needed. There are such events in history that would inevitably happen regardless of the person (or people) who started it. People needed electricity. People needed long-range quick communication. People needed places to form groups, physically or not, etc. Most of the corporations' products were inevitable. Thing is, they are a…

So who pays the cost and profits.

> So who pays the cost...

the workers in terms of time

> ...and profits

the owners, in terms of everything else

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#386

Post by hawski » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #111

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

>"People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates." No, your average non-techie consumer knows and cares very little about Silicon Valley. People like convenience and innovation that leads to convenience in their lives. There is no transitive property where if I "love" ride-sharing I "love" Uber's leadership, business tactics and company culture. >"Ask people to go to a world without iPhones, Facebook, Go…

I don't know how I first got to this quote, but I like it:

(...) Users don't love your software. They tolerate it. And they will abandon it when they find something that's just 1% better than what you offer, or you do something that makes your software 1% worse than your competition. (...)

It comes from this e-mail: http://blu.org/mhonarc/discuss/2013/05/msg00128.php

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#387

Post by Applejinx » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 7:01 PM UTC

gggdvnkhmbgjvbn wrote: post #52

RestlessMind wrote: post #43

The article is shallow and it would be easy to rip apart most of its arguments (eg. [1][2]). But the worrying trend is that such articles are now appearing very regularly, and at some point perception becomes reality. At this pace, SV will be the Wall Street in no time, if it is not already. [1] > You’re churning out companies that are raising hundreds of millions of dollars, and going bankrupt in literal satires of…

Yeah I think little has changed in SV in the last year compared to the near 180 in public opinion. My theory is that journalists and readers who used to hate trump as a hobby are bored with the lack of scandal and have turned to SV, the only other interesting new thing in the us.

If there was another interesting new thing, how would you know?

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#388

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 7:01 PM UTC

calebm wrote: post #198

> "As evidenced by the major backlash over the recent launch of a company called Bodega — where the founders and investors genuinely didn’t understand why the name was problematic — you don’t always have the best handle on how your ideas will be received outside of the Silicon Valley bubble."" I find it ironic that the article claims that people in the "SV bubble" don't understand why "Bodega" is a bad name... if you…

I too was confused - doubly so because here in Denmark a Bodega is a low end bar, and I thought it might be the same in English.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#389

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 7:03 PM UTC

shoefly wrote: post #78

The small midwestern town from which I hail is rotting. The residents could never afford the luxuries flowing here in the valley. They are angry. They are huge Trump supporters. They don't want handouts. They want jobs. They want to contribute. They don't want to leave their homes. They are stuck.

Valuable comment - because both sides of the spectrum miss something in there. It cost the democrats the election not to understand that these people wanted jobs, not welfare, and the reason they won't get jobs is that they won't go where the jobs are.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#390

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #323

s73ver_ wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true at all. Clinton had plans with job retraining for coal miners. They were offering jobs. They got swept because Trump came in and said, "We'll keep coal mining," despite having no actual plan for what to do.

Yes, but coal miners are such a small subset of middle America. I'm talking about all the blood letting between VA and CA. And (I'm not being snarky) but what would you retrain them to do? Unless those cities grow an economy, they will just be retrained, still unemployed people. Unless you have a massive migration to large cities, it's not going to do much good. I mean think about that for a few steps. You have milli…

Then have the migrate to the cities. Seriously, the US was founded by people moving over the Atlantic in search of better opportunities and the west was converted the same way.