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Businesses United States Technology

Silicon Valley Is Over, Says Silicon Valley (nytimes.com) 304

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a New York Times report: In recent months, a growing number of tech leaders have been flirting with the idea of leaving Silicon Valley. Some cite the exorbitant cost of living in San Francisco and its suburbs, where even a million-dollar salary can feel middle class. Others complain about local criticism of the tech industry and a left-wing echo chamber that stifles opposing views. And yet others feel that better innovation is happening elsewhere. "I'm a little over San Francisco," said Patrick McKenna, the founder of High Ridge Venture Partners who was also on the bus tour. "It's so expensive, it's so congested, and frankly, you also see opportunities in other places." Mr. McKenna, who owns a house in Miami in addition to his home in San Francisco, told me that his travels outside the Bay Area had opened his eyes to a world beyond the tech bubble. "Every single person in San Francisco is talking about the same things, whether it's 'I hate Trump' or 'I'm going to do blockchain and Bitcoin,'" he said. "It's the worst part of the social network."

[...] Complaints about Silicon Valley insularity are as old as the Valley itself. Jim Clark, the co-founder of Netscape, famously decamped for Florida during the first dot-com era, complaining about high taxes and expensive real estate. Steve Case, the founder of AOL, has pledged to invest mostly in start-ups outside the Bay Area, saying that "we've probably hit peak Silicon Valley." But even among those who enjoy living in the Bay Area, and can afford to do so comfortably, there's a feeling that success has gone to the tech industry's head. "Some of the engineers in the Valley have the biggest egos known to humankind," Mr. Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressman, said during a round-table discussion with officials in Youngstown.
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Silicon Valley Is Over, Says Silicon Valley More

Silicon Valley Is Over, Says Silicon Valley

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  • Also Crime and Sh*t in the Streets. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zorro ( 15797 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @12:45PM (#56217003)

    http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/05/epidemic-of-car-break-ins-makes-parking-a-nightmare-for-bay-area-drivers/

    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Car break-ins are on the rise across the Bay Area. In fact, 2017 was a record-breaking year for our three largest cities.

    We’re seeing record numbers of car burglaries in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Chances it has happened to you or someone you know.

    San Francisco leads the pack with 31,120 break-ins last year.

    In the same period, San Jose reported 6,476 car burglaries. That number is the highest the city has ever seen and a 17 percent increase compared to 2016.

    It was also a record year in Oakland with 10,007 reported cases in 2017, up 32% compared to the previous year.

    • There is an answer to this (Score:5, Funny)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @12:56PM (#56217081)

      The obvious conclusion from the wave of car breakins in San Francisco is this - not only do we need self driving cars, but we need self-defending cars and a amendment to the second amendment that specifically lays out the right for self driving cars to be armed.

      Thus we have the three laws of self-driving cars:

      1) A self-driving car may not cause harm to other cars, or through inaction allow humans to damage or scuff the paint job of another car.

      2) A self-driving car must obey orders given by the owner except when it would conflict with the protection of itself or other self-driivng cars.

      3) A self-driving car must protect its own existence unless self-immolation would protect cars of higher value, or result in a really awesome YouTube video.

    • Tell me about it. I probably parked in San Francisco 50 times over the decade I lived in the area, and had my car broken into twice. I've also live in South Africa for a few years, parked hundreds of times in Durban and other "dangerous" towns and never had a break-in. Or any problems at all. Saw a guy get stabbed at Mission and 16th BART station, though.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by crgrace ( 220738 )

      I live in San Francisco. Had my car broken into three times over the last seven years.

      My favorite "experience", though, was this year. Someone stole our registration tags off our car while it was parked near my wife's work. We found out because we got a ticket for not having a registered vehicle.

      So, we sent it an appeal that included the police report and a photocopy of our valid DMV registration. Open and shut, right?

      Wrong. Our appeal was denied (!) and we were told we had to pay. We could go to their meet

      • Re:Also Crime and Sh*t in the Streets. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tatman ( 1076111 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @02:09PM (#56217721) Homepage

        Wrong. Our appeal was denied (!) and we were told we had to pay. We could go to their meeting in person to appeal again but I don't have the patience or time for that. It wasn't that expensive, so we paid the f-ing thing.

        This is probably the reason they denied your appeal....they "knew" you would pay it rather than deal with the hassle. Its just another form of robbery imo.

      • When applying your new stickers each year:
        1. Remove as many layers of previous stickers as possible. Ideally, take it back to the paint on the plate.
        2. Clean the area with alcohol.
        3. After applying the sticker, score it several times with a sharp knife so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to get the sticker off in a form in which it can be reused. You may lose the sticker, but at least the thief won't benefit from it.

      • FYI they definitely do not even read your first appeal. My wife did eventually win on the incorrectly filed parking ticket (she did not curb her wheels on a road with a 1% grade that was surveyed as a 1% grade, cited for not curbing wheels on a >4% grade).

      • San Francisco is one of the great sewers if humanity. Enjoy all the shit!

    • Silicon Valley has worked really hard to bring crime to the Internet.

      Now the Internet is full, and the crime has, naturally, spilled over into the streets.

      Tech companies already have private bus lines, so their employees don't need cars anyway.

      All they need to do is "Mad Max" armorize their buses, and then they will be all set to defend against Master Car Burglar Wez, and his pals.

    • Re:Also Crime and Sh*t in the Streets. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:46PM (#56217509) Journal
      In a city where a six figure salary can barely get by, I'm not surprised there is a crime problem.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 )
      That's mostly due to Proposition 47 [ballotpedia.org]. It was billed as a way to reduce overcrowding in jails, but did so by reducing the property theft crimes where less than $950 was stolen/damaged from a felony to a misdemeanor. In California, you can break into and steal from as many cars as you want now, and as long as you keep the property loss below $950 per incident, the only punishment you'll get (if you're caught) is a fine and maybe 1 year of jail time. In many cases the police can't be bothered to prosecute th

  • Moving SV, Not Leaving It (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @12:50PM (#56217039)

    From TFA: The trip, which took place on a luxury bus outfitted with a supply of vegan doughnuts and coal-infused kombucha, was known as the “Comeback Cities Tour.”

    Vegan doughnuts. Coal-infused kombucha. Wherever it is these people think they're going to relocate to, it looks like they're taking Silicon Valley with them.

    • Re:Moving SV, Not Leaving It (Score:5, Funny)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:13PM (#56217225)

      From TFA: The trip, which took place on a luxury bus outfitted with a supply of vegan doughnuts and coal-infused kombucha, was known as the “Comeback Cities Tour.”

      Vegan doughnuts. Coal-infused kombucha. Wherever it is these people think they're going to relocate to, it looks like they're taking Silicon Valley with them.

      I mean, you can't just pull them out cold turkey, they would go into shock. You have to ease them into it slowly. Like putting a fish in a new aquarium.

    • If they were just moving it in-situ, they'd pick a city and gang up on it. For awhile I thought Austin, TX would be the New Silly Valley, but nope... companies are (at least form what I've seen) moving to New York, Oregon, Washington, Texas, lot of other places...

      The days of needing to be in one physical spot are, well, over. All you need is decent Internet infrastructure these days. The same is coming true for startups as it is coming true for tech workers.

      I see this as a good thing, and would love to see

    • This is often Big-City thinking, where outside such cities, people live in such an isolated world where trends and culture just don't reach them.
      When population shifts, people bring their preferences with them, and takes only a little coaxing to the grocery store that you want some type of food, that they can order it the next week, and often a restaurant will pop up to meet demand.

      Small towns may not have such things, not because they can't but because no one wanted it before. When people show up, such ser

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )

        However the biggest risk is if the population moves to a small number of locations. Say to the Mid-West, Where there would be an influx of highly paid professionals genderfacating an area.

        I can't figure out if you misspelled "gentrifying", or if you're on to something I haven't yet heard about. If it's the latter, it sounds terrifying.

  • "I'm a little over San Francisco," said Patrick McKenna, the founder of High Ridge Venture Partners

    Said the nobody.

    Complaints about Silicon Valley insularity are as old as the Valley itself.

    Slow news day huh?

    Basically the sky-high prices for property is true for any major city in the world, from London, to Paris, and especially Hong Kong.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Carewolf ( 581105 )

      "I'm a little over San Francisco," said Patrick McKenna, the founder of High Ridge Venture Partners

      Said the nobody.

      Complaints about Silicon Valley insularity are as old as the Valley itself.

      Slow news day huh?

      Basically the sky-high prices for property is true for any major city in the world, from London, to Paris, and especially Hong Kong.

      San Fransisco is not a major city by any measure, and it is ridiculously overpriced even compared to real major cities.

      • SF proper is small. SF proper doesn't contain Silicon Valley, or any real tech worth speaking of.

        When people say 'SF' they generally mean the SF bay area.

        SF is like Manhattan.

        • Are you on crack? There's a huge number of top tech companies based in SF. Uber, Twitter, Square, Dolby. Google, Yahoo, and Cisco have big offices there. It's not as big as Palo Alto (and doesn't have have the space for the huge office complexes Google and so forth have) but it's definitely one of the top tech cities in the Bay.

          • Are you on crack? There's a huge number of top tech companies based in SF. Uber, Twitter, Square, Dolby. Google, Yahoo, and Cisco have big offices there. It's not as big as Palo Alto (and doesn't have have the space for the huge office complexes Google and so forth have) but it's definitely one of the top tech cities in the Bay.

            Those are all in the bay area not actually in SF or even near SF.

      • It is actually considered a "major world city" by this UK data center [lboro.ac.uk]. And this list from a Japanese site [jspacesystems.or.jp]. And even this GitHub project [github.com].

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by XXeR ( 447912 )

          And even this GitHub project [github.com].

          I was going to mod you up, but that last link is useless in the context of this conversation. My home town of 10k people in the middle of the midwest is on it..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sootman ( 158191 )

        > San Fransisco is not a major city by any measure

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Yeah, It's only the 13th largest city in the U.S. Not major at all. :-/

  • FAKE NEWS (Score:5, Funny)

    by Merk42 ( 1906718 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @12:54PM (#56217069)
    It's not over, Season 5 starts March 25th.

  • I recently took a training at work on the 7 habits of highly effective people. In that I did an exercise where we list what's important to us, big picture and long term. What I wrote down didn't surprise me as much as what was missing; being part of a start-up that was successful. The point of the exercise was to make one really think about what they wanted out of life. You can't go somewhere until you know where you want to go.

    Even though I'm not working on anything really exciting that might change the w

  • If we could get rid of the billionaire VC's and 58% of these insufferable millennials, San Francisco could flourish again! Where do I send the vegan doughnuts and coal infused kombucha to help make this happen?

  • If the Bay Area were really "over"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:08PM (#56217187)

    If the Bay Area were really "over", then the traffic issues and high rents would disappear overnight. The Bay Area is crowded and expensive because (surprise!) people actually want to live, work, and start businesses there!

    Good climate, access to research universities (Stanford, Berkeley, etc), a collection of extremely smart, talented people are pluses. In many ways, the area is a victim of its own success.

    • Yogi Berra said it best: "Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." --Yogi Berra

  • The whole Left echo chamber statement seems idiotic. Left or worded better liberal views fit the development of technology better than right or conservative views. The word or idea itself (conservative) is not the ideal way to run a small tech start-up for example. Being conservative implies that you don't like taking risks which is the opposite of what's needed to work on new technology. All new technology is by its very nature risky which is why technological centres tend to be left politically. The

    • Indeed. People who are actually conservative by modern political standards and technologists are a minuscule minority, because the conservative mindset clashes with the required open-mindedness. We do, however, have lots of mavericks. Mavericks are all over the map, and we have many libertarians and anarchists and socialists here. People sometimes get excited by pointing at people like Thiel -- "oh, look! a conservative!" No. He is a maverick with strong libertarian tendencies. Put Thiel in a room f

    • Wrong idea about "conservative" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:52PM (#56217579)

      The word or idea itself (conservative) is not the ideal way to run a small tech start-up for example. Being conservative implies that you don't like taking risks

      That is totally wrong. It means conserving energy for things that are important. So risk taking is fine, but you can be prepared for failure or alternative paths before you take risks, not just jump in blindly.

      It can also mean taking BIGGER risks, just fewer of them. Basically you cannot ascribe risk taking with a political bent, as people of all persuasions are happy to take risks, they just have different approaches or conditions.

    • A "liberal" supports free speech. A "leftist" wants to take away free speech from others.

  • This handwaving article only makes these nominal "leaders" sound vacuous in their treatment of the issue. Not saying that these people are vacuous. Or not. However what comes through is a lot of whining while they are coddled during their looking-for-tax-breaks-from-cash-strapped-cities tour.

    In a nutshell, if you need to grow a company very quickly for strategic reasons, you need access to many seasoned engineers or you will be throwing your money down the toilet. You cannot just import 5 solid engineers from the Valley and hope that 50 college grads mixed in will figure it out -- that doesn't work.

    There are many options if your business model is around organic growth over a decade(s). But that is not really what this article is about.

  • All the reasons to move here are gone (Score:5, Insightful)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:22PM (#56217303) Homepage Journal

    My family has been in San Jose over 100 years. We lived through many tech and population booms, but they were always manageable. Traffic wasn't too bad in the 70's and 80's. Schools were pretty good, housing was affordable, and there was enough space to feel like you could escape the bay area.

    90's came, and that's when a huge influx of people started moving in. Every square inch of buildable land was built out. None of it had any of the charm, uniqueness or craftsmanship of the previous architecture. Slowly we started seeing OSB and stucco square boxes everywhere. A lot of places started doing "mixed use" putting retail on the bottom and residential on top. Our politicians, fueled by special interests began dismantling laws meant to keep the growth in check. As more people came in, the freeways congested. Not just Monday through Friday, but every day of the week. We had a small stall during 9/11 as the economic downturn caused a lot of people to lose their jobs, but through the 2000's and into the 2010's the growth was fast and steady.

    Today it's very very hard living here. State income tax is sky high. Property taxes, home prices, hell even rentals are so high that it causes everything else to be expensive. Food, gas, clothes, cars, everything is $0.50 higher than it would be in any neighboring state. Even if you wanted to take a drive over the hill for the day to Santa Cruz, you can't, because everyone has the same idea. The gas is sky high, and a night at the movies for your family is a $100 affair. Some people act like $100 isn't a lot of money, well it is when you have a family of 4. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, and in the words of Goonies Data's father, "My greatest invention" Your prison is basically stay home. At least my family has computers and can keep ourselves entertained, but we can't let the kids go out and play because there are 4 sex offenders on every block. It's not the life I grew up with.

    At some point, maybe you do get a vacation. You pack your wife, kids, and dog into the car to drive up the Oregon coast. You realize that slower life you had, the decent people, the lack of trash, graffitti and income inequity simply don't exist. People don't go 15 miles under the speed limit in the fast lane, and if they do, they move over. Traffic doesn't crawl to a stop because of a little rain. Nobody tries to run you over in a crosswalk. You can all go to the movies for $40 less than in the bay area. Gas stations actually have employees that fill your tank so you don't have to get out of you car.. It's such an odd feeling NOT having to pump your own gas. As if.. customers were important up there. Please, thank you, you're welcome aren't considered quaint little constructs, but are demanded.

    I'm really getting tired of living and working here. I just don't feel it anymore. I'm tired of the tribal politics. Tired of my neighbors constantly trying to get into my business, or my employer spying on my social media. I have to have some forms of "social media" now, every employer needs linkedin as a minimum. You also need indeed, monster, dice, all told at least a good 6 profiles so your employer knows you're a real person here.

    It's not all bad, there are some good points, but are they even worth mentioning? Crime, cost of living, homeless suffering, bad schools, the list goes on. Not sure if it's worth the salary anymore.

    • I was with you until you claimed that Oreganos don't drive SLOW and SHITTY.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cyn1c77 ( 928549 )

      Why don't you move?

      (I am not being snarky.)

      Are you locked into the area due to your job?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by t0qer ( 230538 )

        Nah, we just don't want to uproot our kids right now. When they get college age we're probably going to move.

    • Re:All the reasons to move here are gone (Score:5, Funny)

      by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @02:32PM (#56217887) Journal

      FYI...

      1) You get your gas pumped for you in Oregon because someone thought it would be a great (protectionist) idea to make it a LAW to not allow folks to pump their own gas in most circumstances. It sucks waiting for someone to amble out and pump your gas for you on your commute (and if it's someone new to the job, well, that car wash you did the day before just went to hell...)

      2) A lot of us drive slow as hell up here. Kinda sucks, but fortunately I only have to commute about once a week, so for me at least, it's tolerable.

      3) Oregon is full. Move to Washington. ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by t0qer ( 230538 )

        In other words, Oregon is awesome! Don't fuck it up by moving up here! Don't worry I won't. I'm not like the rest of the asshats moving up there for "Cheaper cost of living" I could stay here perpetually. I'm not leaving the Bay Area, it's left me.

    • ". Even if you wanted to take a drive over the hill for the day to Santa Cruz, "

      VALLEY GO HOME

  • No, you should stay there. Really. Please.

    "Every single person in San Francisco is talking about the same things, whether it's 'I hate Trump' or 'I'm going to do blockchain and Bitcoin,'" he said. "It's the worst part of the social network."

    So, you're going to stop talking that way when you go elsewhere?

  • I'm surprised that no one has tried to turn Detroit into the next SV. You've got a decent sized city that's on the rebound (although it still needs A LOT of work), a large and affluent suburban ring around the city, and tons of well educated people already in tech with the car industry. Not to mention you have the uber liberal Ann Arbor and U of M a half hour away. The only major thing holding Detroit back is the lack of good infrastructure, but that could be remedied if someone was willing to pay for it

    • Incompetent city and state government is what prevents any significant tech investment in Michigan or Wayne County. A large portion of the technology and industry is attached to the auto industry, and most of the nice things we have in our schools are because Ford or GM donated. Betsy DeVos is from my part of Michigan. She works hard to ruin public schools for the middle and working class. Not that they were so great before she got involved.

      Operating a business in Michigan is about making sure every little

      • >>Also I think most people would rather live where you can grow orange and lemon trees in your yard rather than where you have to shovel snow. (although if I didn't have to work for a living I would love to live on the lakeshore in West Michigan)

        Actually I grow lemons in my house, so it is possible to grow lemons in Michigan. :) The snow isn't so bad, but the oppressive humidity in the summers are what gets me. It's like being in Florida, only without the huge cockroaches and alligators.

        • My parents grow them in Michigan too, after converting the deck into a large sun room / green house (I call it The Conservatory). The lemons are small and not very abundant. I probably throw out a bushel of oranges a year at my California home because they start to pile up on my yard waste, and they don't seem to compost that well. It's amazing how many things I can grow here in Silicon Valley, but not so amazing when I realized that this land used to be cherry, peach, plum, apricot and orange groves some 7

    • Immediately to the north/northeast of Detroit is Oakland County. Population 1.2M, one of the 25 richest counties in the country by median household income (top 10 if you only consider counties with >1.0M people), one of the largest concentrations of engineering jobs in the country. When a new research or design center is opened in the area -- and that happens from time to time -- they very carefully site it in Oakland County, where the real estate prices are much closer to an Austin or Denver than to D

    • What made silicon valley is the 3 large and very many small universities producing a large "high-tech" labor force ready to be exploited....er...disrupt industry at a particular time in history where we were going though an economic revolution, and in a location where people wanted to live, with extremely good infrastructure already in place, where there were already several world-class research operations running (ie. Xerox PARC and DoD/NASA $$).

      So you can't just say "but the land's cheap!" or "we've got a

    • There is also one commodity Michigan has, which California doesn't... water.

    • Detroit's infrastructure is weak and crumbling and the weather is god awful for a big piece of the year. No chance.

      • Depends on your definition of 'god awful' is. Sure we get snow but we don't get blizzards or a foot of snow dumped on us at a time like some other parts of the state. SE Michigan is actually a micro-climate of sorts. Check any planting map and you'll see it listed a zone 5a instead of just zone 5. The lack of sunshine for much of the winter is a killer though. We get a lot of gray overcast days, but if that were that big of a deterrent to people then Seattle would be a ghost town.
      • Oh and you can thank our corrupt as sh*t road commission for the crumbling roads. It doesn't matter who is in charge, Republican or Democrat, the road commission will continue to do the absolute minimum they can as cheaply as they can. Budget doesn't matter, that all goes into kickbacks and contractor pockets.

  • On the East coast they say that about NYC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:46PM (#56217515)
    We know this to be tried and true Slashdot click-bait. Damn I miss actual technology & science articles. There's some subset of people who want SV to implode, others to defend it. Some predict the whole place will fall into the ocean ("A View to a Kill" style) or that SV is just at the cusp of a 1000 year AI-induced dominance.

    But you get the same talk about other places like NYC, London, etc. It's too expensive, traffic is terrible, its crowded. But those places and their respective industries still thrive despite some firms leaving, and others setting up shop. Nothing is forever, but for our respective generations things won't change that dramatically. Heck, even Hong Kong was supposed to empty out after China took over, but it's as strong as ever. Just that those people now have vacation homes in Vancouver too.

    People should just be content with where they want to live and work not worry about everyone else. It's exhausting. You want to live in the countryside and telecommute, kudos to you. You want a three car garage in the burbs, good for you. Wanna spend $3k/mo for a 1 BR in SF, why not.

  • "Every single person in San Francisco is talking about the same things, whether it's 'I hate Trump' or 'I'm going to do blockchain and Bitcoin,'" he said. "It's the worst part of the social network."

    Stop surrounding yourself with people just like yourself - if you want diversity, seek it out. But don't hang out in a tech-heavy bar sipping $18 hand crafted artisanal cocktails and bemoan the lack of diversity there. There are still a *lot* of people in SF and the Bay Area that don't work in tech.

  • I disliked the bay area (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quietwalker ( 969769 ) <pdughi@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @02:08PM (#56217711)

    It wasn't the weather - that was great.
    It wasn't the traffic - I grew up outside of chicago and lived all over the country. It's not fun, but it's not a big deal.
    It wasn't the cost of living - pay was commiserate with the increased costs.

    I loved that the Frys was right down the street, that I could get great food from a million different cultures easily, and that there was so much to do and see and hear.

    It was the people, though, that made it horrible. Shallow, money-oriented, image-driven, always so focused on labeling everyone: Suit, Hippy, LGBT Activist, Clubber, Gang Member, Artist, etc.

    Story time: I worked at a big company in the area, we had 3 buildings on the campus I was on, each 3 floors, each with at least 1000 employees. At 4:30, I was working on my floor by myself. How do I know? The overhead fluorescents were sensor based, and only the one by my cube was still on. I was organizing test results in an excel sheet when I heard the mechanical 'ka-chunk' and humming noise that indicated another group of lights had just spun up.

    It was the cleaning staff. I watched as each bank of lights turned on as they made their way down the path, a slow snake of lights as they explored the bin in each cube, till they arrived at mine.

    He was an illegal. I'm not judging. He radiated it without shame. He wore that identity like a comfortable sweater, and exuded it in his body language and broken english. Folks like that probably don't get the acknowledgement they deserve, so I made it a point to always smile, make eye contact, and nod to them when I see them.

    So I smile, make eyecontact, and nod at him. He looks at the screen, sees numbers, looks at me - young, working late by the standards of my coworkers - makes some sort of decision about social interactions - and starts giving me quetionable stock market tips in a thick Latin (or maybe Portuguese) accent.

    So I thank him for that, smile broadly and make sure to include my eyes in the smile so he knows I appreciate it, make some statement about how work never seems to end for folks like us, and go back to it.

    But internally, I'm putting him in the bucket with everyone else. He can't even speak english, and what he wants to do is talk stocks? This is a guy who - and yes, I am judging here a bit - probably hasn't got a legitimate bank account, much less trading account, and he vacuums office buildings for a living. Given his current situation, he does not instill within me the belief that he is a highly successful backchannel stock market advisor. ... but that's not his fault. He seemed like a hard working, genuine person in all other ways. See, that's what this area does to you. You end up getting hollowed out, till you're focused on the money and outer appearances. You start thinking those are the most important things, the things that defines you and allows you to relate to others.

    The mail guy (we were big enough to have an actual mail department) bought an 80,000 dollar car. He HAD to. He couldn't afford it, but he HAD to have it. He couldn't justify it any other way except that it was expected, knowing he had to, to be known, caring that others cared about him for his car.

    That's my takeaway from the bay area. Nice place to visit, but for the people.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by t0qer ( 230538 )

      I mention the identity politics in my post above. No doubt one of the biggest reasons I want to leave. Why can't I just be myself? Why do I have to fit into some category in the first place?

  • Oh, they JUST NOW figured out the cost of living and tax rate in California is awful, not to mention the overreacting governmental decisions. They really are the best and brightest apparently.

  • "Nobody does business there any more, it's always too crowded."

  • I'll reserve judgement until the big one hits. It's actually very interesting. Everybody KNOWS that a big earthquake is due in SF, but people seem to be able to arrange their minds so that somehow when it happens, THEIR livelihood and real estate will not be affected.

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