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Diary: Google Invades

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Re: Diary: Google Invades

#81

Post by csharpminor »

rdouble wrote: post #21

The whole of the US sometimes seems to be a checkerboard of these low-pressure zones with lots of time and space but no money, and the boomtowns with lots of money, a frenzied pace and chronic housing scarcity. Neither version is very liveable. After taking a few extended cross country road trips over the past couple of years, this sentence from the article rang the most true.

I was about to just make the same comment. I think the "tech boom" has done a lot for SF, but it's a great example of how wealth and investment is highly concentrated in just a few areas of the country.

Ideally, startups would look at those costs, do the analysis, and make the decision to locate elsewhere in order to minimize risk. But SF (and NYC) have a kind of legendary status as being where successful tech companies begin. I think that status makes it difficult to consider the value of location based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Paradoxically, the sector that has the knowledge and employee base to be geographically independent are also the ones that pay the most for their location. At a gut-check level I feel there is quite a bit of "Irrational Exuberance" going on in the VC/Tech sector right now.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#82

Post by brown9-2 »

DannyBee wrote: post #42

I stopped reading at " It means that unlike gigantic employers in other times and places, the corporations of Silicon Valley aren’t much interested in improving public transport, and in fact the many corporations providing private transport are undermining the financial basis for the commuter train." This is such complete bullshit i don't even know where to start. Every single company in the area has either offered t…

I'm curious if you could link to any stories about Google's or Apple's (or other company's) offers to help the public system? Not that I don't believe this, but I am curious to read more about the topic.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#83

Post by frdgr »

This article raises interesting observations. I find it fascinating to see how technology might be perceived as a distant animal. The tech industry, like most schools of thought, regularly faces the danger of becoming an Ivory tower, disconnected from the real-world. After all, technology bubbles hurt us all in the past. Similarly, technology is hard to understand, it is magical in a way, an alien tool. If you work in tech, don't be offended. Solnit is not claiming an absolute truth. She's raising awareness of potential collateral damage by tech companies.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#84

Post by rayiner »

specialist wrote: post #80
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tiny piece of the puzzle. To have a really usable public transit network ala Chicago or New York, you have to coordinate zoning with transit. 1) The terminal transit station should be built so as to exit right into the central business district. The Caltrain station is too far from SOMA and lacks decent public transit. Meanwhile, Chicago's three transit stations exit right at the perimeter of the Loop (within…

> To have a really usable public transit ... you have to coordinate zoning with transit. +1 My position is a bit stronger: It all starts with zoning. There was a geek news item recently that note the difference in USA and Canadian sprawl, which the authors believed started with how parcels of farm land were measured out. In the USA, parcels were squarish, requiring roads everywhere, requiring everyone to have automob…

Great comment. Also: where can I subscribe to your newsletter?

My wife and I were just talking about this the other day. The "campus" tendency of old-line tech firms seems to be the result of wanting a smooth transition between college and work for new employees. But the newest batch of college kids is more urban and don't necessarily want their office to resemble a college campus or the suburbs where they grew up.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#85

Post by brown9-2 »

DannyBee wrote: post #79
hoverkraft wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several people have alluded to this outreach elsewhere in the thread. I'd certainly believe it. Any links/references on what these companies have offered?

As I said elsewhere, most of this is known to employees of these companies, and privately mentioned, but not highly public. This is done because otherwise, the towns get yelled at. Heavily. There are lots of interest groups involved in this kind of thing.

It's hard to make an argument with private/secret evidence.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#86

Post by inafield »

jmspring wrote: post #22
ak217 wrote: post #12

This kind of journalism really bugs me. There are too many ways in which the author strains logic and reason. I think the companies of Silicon Valley are very interested in improving public transportation, but held back by an ineffective transit governance system. I think the comparison to the gold rush is ridiculous, as is the statement that "technology is just another boom" (what?). I think being a technology hub h…

Journalism? I read it more as a blog rather than any sort of investigative journalism piece. People have their perspectives on how places have changed with the boom and bust cycles that have come to the Bay Area. The bus analogy is really just an example of the larger observation that the author is making -- with the technological boom currently going on, there is an impact on the city, it's culture, and those living…

All I read from the author is a bunch of whining. My employer hires a masseuse once every two weeks and all employees who want to will receives a 15-minute chair massage. Should the "person on the street" whine because this isn't provided to non-employees?

My employer also buys us fresh fruit once a week. It's a perk for a healthier snack rather than a vending machine. Should the "person on the street" whine because this isn't provided to non-employees?

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#87

Post by farinasa »

This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't live in SF, nor California for that matter, but this comes across as "I was living in SF before it was cool. Money is evil and so is anyone with it. Especially if they are young."

Every paragraph includes an insult, but one of my favorites was comparing tech companies to coal mining companies. Wow. Couldn't be further from the mark. The tech industry frees people to work remotely and is even willing to ship them in expenses paid in luxury. The coal mining companies enslaved people, paying pennies in fatally poor conditions.

Runner up was:

"...but still has a host of writers, artists, activists, environmentalists, eccentrics and others who don’t work sixty-hour weeks for corporations"

This insinuates that tech is less honorable than these jobs. Again, missing the mark, assuming that tech can't somehow help these people. Or perhaps people in the industry aren't creative or some other dismissive nonsense.

This is borderline bigotry.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#88

Post by lukeschlather »

jstalin wrote: post #31

Public transit, even in the densest of American cities, is a money loser and often pollutes more than if the riders were taking cars. It's badly in need of innovation and revolution. Fixed-route transit is a mess. That's why I can't wait until we have self-driving cars. Most public transit would die on the vine as cars, which typically are utilized perhaps 10% of the day, can increase toward 100% utilization. No more…

Self-driving cars don't necessarily help. Really, it's more a routing problem. Buses with human drivers would probably be fine if you could come up with a working system to route them on demand. Self-driving might save money in the long run, but cars are probably not as efficient as buses in a big city.

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#89

Post by farinasa »

jlev wrote: post #55
baddox wrote: post #8

Someone doesn't like young people who work in tech.

I'm a young person who works in tech in Oakland, and I don't like the young people who work in tech in SF and ride the comfortable google bus every day to their jobs in the valley. Ride public transit. Get out of your tech bubble and experience a sliver of the lives of other people who live in your adopted city. Not everyone owns an iPhone 5 and is downloading the latest app. Work on something that will actually "cha…

Yeah, stop getting paid well for working hard!

Re: Diary: Google Invades

#90

Post by baddox »

jlev wrote: post #55
baddox wrote: post #8

Someone doesn't like young people who work in tech.

I'm a young person who works in tech in Oakland, and I don't like the young people who work in tech in SF and ride the comfortable google bus every day to their jobs in the valley. Ride public transit. Get out of your tech bubble and experience a sliver of the lives of other people who live in your adopted city. Not everyone owns an iPhone 5 and is downloading the latest app. Work on something that will actually "cha…

That's just a complicated way of saying that you think some people's social choices are inherently worse than some idealized social path that you are advocating. Not everyone is the same as you, or even wants to be the same as you. Not everyone gets social satisfaction from "getting out" and "experiencing the lives of other people" in the way you're talking about, and that doesn't mean there is something wrong with them. Some people derive satisfaction from finding cool phone apps, some don't. Not everyone wants to "change the world," or disrupt a market, or get rich. Et cetera.
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