10 ms·

Ashamed to work in Silicon Valley: how techies became the new bankers

111 points by beauzero 9y ago

sverige 9y ago
The video of Dropbox employees trying to kick local kids off the soccer field is exactly how I picture most of the failed social interactions in Silicon Valley. Utterly clueless, then they wonder why people say they dislike them.
- tareqak 9y ago
  ~I didn't believe you~ (Update: the video was at the very bottom in the linked article, I'm sorry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awPVY1DcupE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awPVY1DcupE Description below the video: UPDATE: After public uproar, SF Rec & Park removed the policy that allowed this encounter to happen. The City - without posting the availability of the park rental on their public website - had been marketing the Tuesday and Thursday slots initially only through an app so that the demographic portrayed in the video - a tech league - was taking the space from neighborhood kids twice a week.
  - chasd00 9y ago
    i would blame the parks department more than the employees. My 8 year old has had this happen to him (we live in Dallas) and his friends. Poor communication about reservation availability and who has reserved what and when is always the issue, especially if a YMCA is involved heh. If the employees were being jerks about it though is another thing.
- counterpoint1 9y ago
  Ya, how dare some people want to use a field they had reserved ahead of time! Sometimes I wonder what bizarro world other people are living in. Every city in America has public spaces which can be reserved - playing fields, gazebos, park areas, picnic spaces, museums, art spaces. Only because it was tech workers in SF does anyone suddenly pretend like first-come first-served laissez faire is the only acceptable use of shared resources.
  - sverige 9y ago
    Obviously the kids that were there had no idea that it could be reserved. See another comment here about that reservation being available only on an app, not the website. The cluelessness is in the aggressive assertion of their "rights" and their complete failure to listen to what the local kids were saying. Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to play a pickup game with them. The frightened / annoyed looks of the two Dropboxers when they realized they were on video adds to the hilarity. I was pretty sure they wanted to be cops asserting some bogus right not to be filmed in a public space at that moment.
    - red75prime 9y ago
      One party paid the money for reservation, other party is ignorant of the rules. Situation is pretty clear to me, but I'm programmer and have trouble noticing subtle unwritten social rules.
      - mcguire 9y ago
        Please don't blame your failings on your membership in a heterogeneous group of people.
      - gyom 9y ago
        Sure, the rules are simple, but if you listen to the guy who says that he grew up here, he explains that field has NEVER been reserved. It’s easy to imagine how some bureaucrat updated the rules and accidentally destroyed a nice social space by turning it into a field that people pay for, use, and leave (opposed to a more spontaneous meeting place for young people who aren’t that organized). You can’t fault the Dropbox people there for making a reservation and expecting that it would be valid. They’re a bit clueless in how they respond, though, not realizing that those rules are clashing with the unofficial social dynamics happening there. (Semi-related : That’s why we might feel that banks are assholes for foreclosing houses that belong to deployed soldiers. Legally they can do it, but it sounds like it’s the shittiest application of the law.)
    - JBlue42 9y ago
- SirensOfTitan 9y ago
  I don't understand, why wouldn't the Dropbox employees be entitled to a field they reserved fairly in advance? If anything the Parks and Recs department is at fault for not making rules clearer. Using money to push others out is poor behavior, but so is using the tired 'how long you've lived in SF' (like one of the people mentioned in that video). Once again 'techie' hate is misguided and most of the scorn should be focused on city hall for poor policy.
  - gerbilly 9y ago
    > Using money to push others out is poor behavior, but so is using the tired 'how long you've lived in SF' IMHO $27 gives the the tech workers a lot less claim to that field than the entire lives that the kids have lived there, regardless of the piece of paper. If they didn't want to play pickup, then the right thing to do is to go and play on the dropbox campus. It's not fair or logical, but it's the right to do. I'm sure with the billions of dollars the company has it can build it's workers their own football pitch.
    - saiya-jin 9y ago
      > IMHO $27 gives the the tech workers a lot less claim to that field than the entire lives that the kids have lived there, regardless of the piece of paper. WTF? Either you have a system with rules and law (which can prioritize kids, or not), or you have some random mess where, based on current emotions stemming from some articles, rules can be bypassed, skipped and avoided because... something. Would you like to be treated unfairly when filling for taxes compared to some 'local'? I presume no. You know, treating every human being as equal and whatnot... some old school notions I see
    - quotemstr 9y ago
      Living somewhere for a while gives you no special claim to that location.
      - mcguire 9y ago
        Humanity seems to disagree, almost universally.
- wolco 9y ago
  In fairness they had a permit the other group didn't and the city put in place a permit system to deal with these issues. If that happened in a less high profile city the other party would be the one who was assigned blame. There are only so many soccer fields here if people started to ignore the permit system it would make it more unfair to the more disadvanged groups.
- mbrameld 9y ago
  How should they have handled it? Called the police? What if it had been the Dropbox folks playing pickup and a family had rented the field for a birthday party and the Dropbox folks refused to leave? My guess is you wouldn't be criticising the family even though the only difference is the identity of the players. That speaks loudly to your biases.
  - gerbilly 9y ago
    Sometimes bias is justified. These people lived there their whole lives. They grew there, we flew there. Localism isn't good either, but a bit of respect and give and take for people who, let's face it, will soon be pushed out of their neibourhoods to make way for tech workers, would be nice.
  - sverige 9y ago
    I think they should have played a pickup game with the kids. They could have had some glorious "team-building" experience and built up the community at the same time. Like, get to know the neighbors before they are displaced because rents are going up. And it's funny, I really was waiting for the cops to show up because one of the Dropboxers had called them. Their desire to avoid having any real interaction with these kids is so painfully obvious that it makes me embarrassed for them. As far as your hypothetical, it's just that: hypothetical, as is your perception of my hypothetical biases. It's actually hilarious, because in the hypothetical my mind conjures up, I'm sure if we met in some real-life context you would end up calling me a nazi. FWIW, when I was younger, I knew and hung around with people who are just like the Dropboxers, and was probably like them in many ways. I've gotten to know and work with a lot of different kinds of people since then, so now I would intuitively know a better way to handle this situation than these guys did. Step 1 is to recognize that they are valuable human beings and neighbors. That's where this exchange broke down, so no need to go on to subsequent steps till we get that part right.
    - quotemstr 9y ago
      These people reserved a field using correct, official channels. Why should they have to change their plans because some other people squatted on the field? Why should the Dropbox people have any moral obligation whatsoever to play a game with people they didn't choose?
- guiomie 9y ago
  If you read the video description, the blame should really be on the city for having an obscure system where you can rent the field that no one actually uses.
NiklasMort 9y ago
Let's be honest here, lot of people should be, there are too many jobs in tech that are morally questionable and people just do it because they get a 6+ figure salary. I had a personal experience with that in a new company and within the first hour some upper head stated "we don't like opensource, opensource is a problem" (silicon valley company). Lot of other related issues, see the threads on the homelessness issue that was posted today. Silicon Valley is living in a bubble
- thisisit 9y ago
  I don't get it. How is stating "we don't like opensource, opensource is a problem" considered morally questionable or bad? There are lot of companies out there, outside SV, which don't really care for open source for various reasons. Whether they are correct or not, is a separate matter.
  - NiklasMort 9y ago
    I should have separated that better. Those were 2 different points, although I really didn't like what they told me there and that's the reason why I did not take their offer (very generous) and left. My point was that many don't do that because the money is too good.
  - spacelizard 9y ago
    You can tell a lot about a company by their attitude on this. The fact that "you should let your users have freedom" is still a controversial statement in those type of companies should tip you off as to how they treat their customers. Also, the fact that we still often have to use "open source" as a euphemism for "free software" in these type of situations illustrates the point even further. Freedom or liberty does not matter to these companies. It's not even about money or greed to them as they often give away their software/services without charging. All they care about is establishing complete control and dominance of the market.
    - thisisit 9y ago
      I think you are conflating two different things here. I am not debating the first paragraph on how companies treat users but I really doubt the 2nd para. Not using "open source" doesn't mean what you are implying. There are a lot of considerations companies go through on selecting to work on OSS or not. That said, the quoted example is confusing at best. Companies are made of people and people have biases. You never know what kind of bias or consideration the hiring manager had in mind. Normally, for me if someone makes a statement which I don't agree with - I do make an effort to ask "Why?". I don't simply walk off because someone has a different opinion. But maybe, that is my idea of getting hired - understanding what and why of things I might end up doing.
mcgarnagle 9y ago
From one poison to the other.
alphonsegaston 9y ago
It didn’t have to be this way and it still isn’t the only path we have. It’s possible to build technologies that are fundamentally more socialist and redistribute wealth back to their users. Social media is disruptible in this fashion and so is gathering data for training AIs. San Francisco’s poverty and squalor is already a concrete example of where this Wall St 2.0 mentality leads. Let’s work on escaping this path.
- chasd00 9y ago
  you're talking cyberspace but homelessness is a meatspace problem. No technology is going to solve homelessness, it's an "assholes and elbows" problem. It takes real, hard, physical and emotional work to solve.
  - alphonsegaston 9y ago
    Solving both meatspace and cyberspace problems requires a fundamental change to how we distribute wealth in this country. Since the economy isn’t going to become less tech-oriented any time soon, making sure that technology is more economically democratic is incredibly important. Far less people in SF would be homeless if the tech economy wasn’t so focused on pushing all its gains to the wealthy (and less so to an engineer class that enables them).
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  Your argument would hold more water if the homelessness issue were not a problem all across coastal cities in California. I don't know what the cause is, but it isn't the technology industry, and I'm not a huge technology induestry booster.
  - alphonsegaston 9y ago
    Extreme wealth inequality is the source of the problem everywhere. In SF, that inequality is driven by tech.
PeekPoke 9y ago
I've been in the computer industry for 30 years now. Back when I started we were all looked down on as underachieving losers who couldn't talk to 'normal' people, couldn't get laid and would never amount to anything in 'the real world'. Look at the world now, look at programs like The Big Bang Theory - the world has change and the geeks have truly inherited the earth. How they are behaving is as clear an example as you can possibly get when the originally downtrodden get power, wealth and influence - they use it and say 'F*ck you' to those who laughed at them and are now no longer at the top of the pile. Go figure.
- BeetleB 9y ago
  I think your comment (albeit exaggerated) is a major part of the equation. Society never viewed such people well, and that's missing from the article. When I was younger, I tended to have roughly equal sympathies for everyone, regardless of wealth, race, career, etc. As I get older, I think I've become a bit more hardened and "preferential". I'm definitely a lot less sympathetic to people who I perceive as prejudiced - and I tend to see a lot of prejudice against tech folks - not related to the current sentiments, but the more common antisocial behavior towards "geeks", "nerds" and the like that's always existed. To me, it's the same as one who is overtly racist. Why would I want to help a jerk like that? Except when it comes to prejudice amongst "geeks" and "nerds", it is much more prevalent than overt racism. Of course, it's not as black and white as I put it, but I can understand if others in the tech industry are leaning that way. I've seen first hand wealthy tech people do a lot of good for people around them, but they're still treated poorly by them because "nerds" and "geeks". In fact, I think it's had a much bigger impact on me observing this over and over again than it has on the people involved. While the status quo may not be good, I prefer it to the world before the Internet giants. At least people have alternatives to joining a law firm or the finance industry. (Written by someone who does not live in SV, does not work for any of these SW giants, and does not make a lot of money).
- gugagore 9y ago
  Well, I think the people who are most harmed are those who never were near the top of the pile. Unless I don't understand what pile you mean.
- 9y ago
pjs_ 9y ago
This video is pretty strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYNuR1oaQts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYNuR1oaQts
- fragsworth 9y ago
  I don't mean to disparage him but I can't relate to the guy. Maybe I'm cold or detached, but I feel little to no attachment to the places I grew up in as a kid, so I personally don't feel like they need to be preserved. I see it not as a loss, but more like a change. Also no-fault evicting is not a terrible travesty. It sucks, but usually there's compensation to help with moving expenses. If the land owners don't have the ability to do this, renters can hold them by the balls (preventing a sale) and it would drive rent prices through the roof to compensate for this.
lin_lin 9y ago
The Guardian has a clear anti-tech/SV bias, I'll take the lot with a desert spoon of salt.
- ionised 9y ago
  And once upon a time it had an almost sycophantic pro-tech/SV bias. Think about what has changed instead of just dismissing an argument outright without addressing any of its points.
  - lin_lin 9y ago
    I honestly don't remember that. I could easily have predicated what would come up in the article, the G have a bizarre fascination with that mini-shuttle protesting story. It comes up in pretty much every tech/SV story. Throw in a bunch of anecdotes, a few jabs at gentrification (because it's only tech people who are responsible for it, not planning etc), the hilarious implication that most techies work for the big companies listed when you and I both know that bs, a video of a few morons from Dropbox and somehow that all equates to techies being the new bankers? Really? That's got past an editor?
jstewartmobile 9y ago
Until Google joins Goldman Sachs as yet another unelected branch of the government, I think they're overstating it a bit. I'm sure Google's working hard on it though!
- lovich 9y ago
  Google and Facebook have already taken a good chunk of the fourth estate
  - jstewartmobile 9y ago
    When they get their $1T+ bailout at a moment's notice, I'll agree with "became". For now, they're just evil Jr.--still in the process of becoming.
    - lovich 9y ago
      I get your point about government intervention, but you spoke about an unelected branch of the government. They are the new media and the media has traditionally been considered an unofficial branch of the government
      - jstewartmobile 9y ago
        Still a long climb up evil mtn. if they want to push the bankers off their spot. Most poor people I know are only poor because of finance--title loans, student loans, rent-a-center, medical debt, credit cards, etc., and it's a race to the bottom for everyone since the banking system diminishes the value of cash faster than most people can accumulate it. At least Google is providing some kind of benefit to mankind alongside their fuckery.
KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
I personally don't know anyone who works in finance, but I doubt that many of them are ashamed of what they do. And I know plenty of people in tech, and most of them are actually proud and well respected by their peers for it. So I guess it's just wishful thinking from the Guardian.
- taternuts 9y ago
  Anecdotal, but I actually work with someone who was in finance making 10x what the average programmer makes who gave it all up in his late 20's to code because he felt at the end of the day he was just ripping people off and morally hated it. Probably not the usual case, though (I'd like to think I'd do the same, but man, that was a lot of money to give up)
malvosenior 9y ago
> is perceived: as under-regulated, overly powerful companies filled with wealthy tech bros and “brilliant assholes” I’m not so sure the industry is “perceived” like this, it’s more like old media outlets (especially The Guardian and NYT) relentlessly push this message and this piece is no different. I get that technology has destroyed their ability to gatekeep messaging, their business model and their prestige but at some point old media attacks become too transparent and probably have the opposite effect as intended. I think technologists have reached that point. I don’t know if the general audience has yet but I’ve never heard anyone complain about “tech bros” in real life (probably because they don’t really exist).
- sidlls 9y ago
  > (probably because they don't really exist) Really? Uber isn't a thing? All the scandals about terrible sexually charged behavior and aggressive "bro" behavior aren't real? They really exist.
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    I don’t think when people say “tech bro” they mean executive (who happens to work at a tech company). They have been known sociopaths since the term existed. Instead, “tech bro” is supposed to mean some mythical programmer-douchey guy. I’m sure there are people like that but not at the scale where it matters or implicates all developers as an occupation.
    - sidlls 9y ago
      It isn't just the executives. It's the entire culture. That includes the individuals working there.
      - malvosenior 9y ago
        That’s a lot of guilt by association and blaming people for the misdeeds of others. I know developers at Uber. They’re just regular (smart) people trying to live their lives. Unfortunately they’re regularly attacked by the media but I think most let it roll off their backs at this point.
VicVee 9y ago
"“You wake up, get the shuttle bus, go to the bubble of campus and order food via an app when you get home. You are not a citizen, just a bizarre leach who makes money,” he explained." I'm not sure I understand. The whole article is just describing literally anyone in any industry. What people can't seem to grasp is that tech in SF/SV simply created a massive insular culture that doesn't contribute to the culture that was previously there. It just took over ruthlessly. All previous artistic beauty that was in SF is just gone now and replaced with tech kids that get paid a ton and would rather spend it on cryptocurrencies and music festivals than participating in the city's artistic scene. Its no wonder at all why people don't like tech people. Its not because they get paid a ton. Its just because they get paid a ton and have no care for anything that was previously there. But I mean, its a tiny city and the city's building regulations don't do much in the way in helping with gentrification at all. Not sure what else could have possibly happened.
- deleted 9y ago
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- neilk 9y ago
  > I'm not sure I understand. > The whole article is just describing literally anyone in any industry. Teachers. Surgeons. Physiotherapists. Soldiers. Artists. Grocers. Cleaners. Miners. Forestry. Farmers. Elder care. The people who drive your shuttle bus. Most industries require contact with other humans, and implicate you in their happiness. In techland, we are already a step removed from our customers (because we create autonomous artifacts.) But beyond that, now we’re powered by overwhelming amounts of capital. And the whole point of that capital is to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. In a previous decade, computer programmers could have counted themselves as citizens. Connecting and empowering people. Maybe a lot us still are. But lately, a lot of what we’re doing is finding new ways to yank Jenga pieces out of society, in hopes that all the pieces will fall into our bosses’ laps.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    > Most industries require contact with other humans, and don’t rely on overwhelming amounts of capital to try to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. I agree with the statement, but I'm not sure it squares with your list? Tech and banking aren't unique in offering the chance to sit alone in an office and turn early advantages into ludicrous excess. Broadly, we're talking about jobs that have power-law payouts among their practitioners, require highly skilled (and hard to interchange) labor, and don't intrinsically punish jerks (meaning limited interaction with coworkers or customers). Not all of them make billions, but they get something exponential that encourages them to compete - fame or professional power or job security. That's a lot of careers. Orchestral musicians fit, lawyers fit, surgeons fit in spades, artists and mathematicians and philosophers all fit. Obviously tech and banking are not equivalent to those things - heart surgeons have never destroyed the economy. But I think it's a catastrophic mistake to try and understand why tech and banking cause these problems by acting like the professional demeanor is unique. That is at best a starting point, a way of acknowledging that if yanking pieces out of society is easy and rewarding it will happen. The question from there is "how do we stop that from happening?" (I'm not sure how much we honestly disagree, I just think the distinction is important. That Jenga metaphor is fantastic.)
guiomie 9y ago
"Some of these folks aren’t the most socially gifted people and therefore suddenly having a culture encouraging this experience for them bleeds into everything, giving them a sense of self importance and entitlement." ... ahah, there are socially awkward people in every industry, this is just blatant generalization. But yah, Silicon Valley is becoming the next Wall Street, I can't count the number of MBA's at work anymore. I doubt things will get better with tech and cypto potentially getting bigger.
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mnm1 9y ago
'“Being in tech puts a badge on you. Things are going bad for a large section of the economy in this area and here’s a shiny beacon of people getting paid far too much for what they do."' While I agree that the execs are paid way too much, this isn't exclusive to tech. And if they're talking about your run of the mill software engineer (like me) then I disagree completely. There are multiple logical reasons why tech salaries are "high" (though really they're not that much higher than many other engineering disciplines' salaries). Another way to see it is that all other salaries are too low, but that's beside the point. As someone with tech skills, I can leave tomorrow and start my own business. If the salaries weren't high enough, I would either do that or work in a completely different career. Why would I do software if I could work an easier, less-stressful job for the same amount of money? And finally, let's face it, most people cannot write software and will never be able to write software no matter how many coding camps or classes they attend. Writing software isn't like making coffee, a process anyone can learn. So people who have never written software, and probably don't have the capacity to do so if they wanted to, complaining that run of the mill tech engineers like me are making too much money have no idea what they're talking about. I challenge them to learn tech, get into the industry, do real-world work, and then do that for 1/2 or 1/3 of your typical salary, if that's what they think the jobs are worth. Either that or shut up and stop being jealous, judgmental children.
brad0 9y ago
> referencing his time at Dropbox when people would “fly around the office on these stupid scooters and skateboards” Why are techies being shamed because they’ve worked hard and spent it on something they like? This is why tech has a diversity problem. It’s not the inner culture. It’s the outer culture and the shame attached to it. EDIT I don’t own one of those skateboards/scooters but I do appreciate working in a culture where people similar to me finally feel comfortable to be themselves without judgement. I feel that the people quoted in this article are a bit too manipulated by other’s opinions. In the end you have to ask yourself: are you happy doing the work here? If not, then change. But if you yourself are happy and you leave because of the media’s opinion then you’re setting yourself up for a miserable life.
- tomjen3 9y ago
  Why are techies being shamed because they’ve worked hard and spent it on something they like? Cause the powers that used to be (newspapers, the established parties) are scared. More and more power is in the hands of the tech industry and it is reasonably popular (last numbers I read was that google had 88% approval, whereas the approval of congress compared disfavourably with AIDS). Tech was the wunderkind and underdog in the 90ies, mostly harmless and a producer of shiny toys. Tech now has some amount of power, but because we are still outsiders we get stupid articles like that. My hope is that google figures out how to run an AI newspaper (so the articles can be made free) and use it to remove the rest of the power from the incumbents because they do too much damage to us.

111 points by beauzero 9y ago

The video of Dropbox employees trying to kick local kids off the soccer field is exactly how I picture most of the failed social interactions in Silicon Valley. Utterly clueless, then they wonder why people say they dislike them.

tareqak 9y ago
~I didn't believe you~ (Update: the video was at the very bottom in the linked article, I'm sorry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awPVY1DcupE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awPVY1DcupE Description below the video: UPDATE: After public uproar, SF Rec & Park removed the policy that allowed this encounter to happen. The City - without posting the availability of the park rental on their public website - had been marketing the Tuesday and Thursday slots initially only through an app so that the demographic portrayed in the video - a tech league - was taking the space from neighborhood kids twice a week.
- chasd00 9y ago
  i would blame the parks department more than the employees. My 8 year old has had this happen to him (we live in Dallas) and his friends. Poor communication about reservation availability and who has reserved what and when is always the issue, especially if a YMCA is involved heh. If the employees were being jerks about it though is another thing.
counterpoint1 9y ago
Ya, how dare some people want to use a field they had reserved ahead of time! Sometimes I wonder what bizarro world other people are living in. Every city in America has public spaces which can be reserved - playing fields, gazebos, park areas, picnic spaces, museums, art spaces. Only because it was tech workers in SF does anyone suddenly pretend like first-come first-served laissez faire is the only acceptable use of shared resources.
- sverige 9y ago
  Obviously the kids that were there had no idea that it could be reserved. See another comment here about that reservation being available only on an app, not the website. The cluelessness is in the aggressive assertion of their "rights" and their complete failure to listen to what the local kids were saying. Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to play a pickup game with them. The frightened / annoyed looks of the two Dropboxers when they realized they were on video adds to the hilarity. I was pretty sure they wanted to be cops asserting some bogus right not to be filmed in a public space at that moment.
  - red75prime 9y ago
    One party paid the money for reservation, other party is ignorant of the rules. Situation is pretty clear to me, but I'm programmer and have trouble noticing subtle unwritten social rules.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      Please don't blame your failings on your membership in a heterogeneous group of people.
    - gyom 9y ago
      Sure, the rules are simple, but if you listen to the guy who says that he grew up here, he explains that field has NEVER been reserved. It’s easy to imagine how some bureaucrat updated the rules and accidentally destroyed a nice social space by turning it into a field that people pay for, use, and leave (opposed to a more spontaneous meeting place for young people who aren’t that organized). You can’t fault the Dropbox people there for making a reservation and expecting that it would be valid. They’re a bit clueless in how they respond, though, not realizing that those rules are clashing with the unofficial social dynamics happening there. (Semi-related : That’s why we might feel that banks are assholes for foreclosing houses that belong to deployed soldiers. Legally they can do it, but it sounds like it’s the shittiest application of the law.)
  - JBlue42 9y ago
SirensOfTitan 9y ago
I don't understand, why wouldn't the Dropbox employees be entitled to a field they reserved fairly in advance? If anything the Parks and Recs department is at fault for not making rules clearer. Using money to push others out is poor behavior, but so is using the tired 'how long you've lived in SF' (like one of the people mentioned in that video). Once again 'techie' hate is misguided and most of the scorn should be focused on city hall for poor policy.
- gerbilly 9y ago
  > Using money to push others out is poor behavior, but so is using the tired 'how long you've lived in SF' IMHO $27 gives the the tech workers a lot less claim to that field than the entire lives that the kids have lived there, regardless of the piece of paper. If they didn't want to play pickup, then the right thing to do is to go and play on the dropbox campus. It's not fair or logical, but it's the right to do. I'm sure with the billions of dollars the company has it can build it's workers their own football pitch.
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    > IMHO $27 gives the the tech workers a lot less claim to that field than the entire lives that the kids have lived there, regardless of the piece of paper. WTF? Either you have a system with rules and law (which can prioritize kids, or not), or you have some random mess where, based on current emotions stemming from some articles, rules can be bypassed, skipped and avoided because... something. Would you like to be treated unfairly when filling for taxes compared to some 'local'? I presume no. You know, treating every human being as equal and whatnot... some old school notions I see
  - quotemstr 9y ago
    Living somewhere for a while gives you no special claim to that location.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      Humanity seems to disagree, almost universally.
wolco 9y ago
In fairness they had a permit the other group didn't and the city put in place a permit system to deal with these issues. If that happened in a less high profile city the other party would be the one who was assigned blame. There are only so many soccer fields here if people started to ignore the permit system it would make it more unfair to the more disadvanged groups.
mbrameld 9y ago
How should they have handled it? Called the police? What if it had been the Dropbox folks playing pickup and a family had rented the field for a birthday party and the Dropbox folks refused to leave? My guess is you wouldn't be criticising the family even though the only difference is the identity of the players. That speaks loudly to your biases.
- gerbilly 9y ago
  Sometimes bias is justified. These people lived there their whole lives. They grew there, we flew there. Localism isn't good either, but a bit of respect and give and take for people who, let's face it, will soon be pushed out of their neibourhoods to make way for tech workers, would be nice.
- sverige 9y ago
  I think they should have played a pickup game with the kids. They could have had some glorious "team-building" experience and built up the community at the same time. Like, get to know the neighbors before they are displaced because rents are going up. And it's funny, I really was waiting for the cops to show up because one of the Dropboxers had called them. Their desire to avoid having any real interaction with these kids is so painfully obvious that it makes me embarrassed for them. As far as your hypothetical, it's just that: hypothetical, as is your perception of my hypothetical biases. It's actually hilarious, because in the hypothetical my mind conjures up, I'm sure if we met in some real-life context you would end up calling me a nazi. FWIW, when I was younger, I knew and hung around with people who are just like the Dropboxers, and was probably like them in many ways. I've gotten to know and work with a lot of different kinds of people since then, so now I would intuitively know a better way to handle this situation than these guys did. Step 1 is to recognize that they are valuable human beings and neighbors. That's where this exchange broke down, so no need to go on to subsequent steps till we get that part right.
  - quotemstr 9y ago
    These people reserved a field using correct, official channels. Why should they have to change their plans because some other people squatted on the field? Why should the Dropbox people have any moral obligation whatsoever to play a game with people they didn't choose?
guiomie 9y ago
If you read the video description, the blame should really be on the city for having an obscure system where you can rent the field that no one actually uses.

NiklasMort 9y ago

Let's be honest here, lot of people should be, there are too many jobs in tech that are morally questionable and people just do it because they get a 6+ figure salary. I had a personal experience with that in a new company and within the first hour some upper head stated "we don't like opensource, opensource is a problem" (silicon valley company). Lot of other related issues, see the threads on the homelessness issue that was posted today. Silicon Valley is living in a bubble

thisisit 9y ago
I don't get it. How is stating "we don't like opensource, opensource is a problem" considered morally questionable or bad? There are lot of companies out there, outside SV, which don't really care for open source for various reasons. Whether they are correct or not, is a separate matter.
- NiklasMort 9y ago
  I should have separated that better. Those were 2 different points, although I really didn't like what they told me there and that's the reason why I did not take their offer (very generous) and left. My point was that many don't do that because the money is too good.
- spacelizard 9y ago
  You can tell a lot about a company by their attitude on this. The fact that "you should let your users have freedom" is still a controversial statement in those type of companies should tip you off as to how they treat their customers. Also, the fact that we still often have to use "open source" as a euphemism for "free software" in these type of situations illustrates the point even further. Freedom or liberty does not matter to these companies. It's not even about money or greed to them as they often give away their software/services without charging. All they care about is establishing complete control and dominance of the market.
  - thisisit 9y ago
    I think you are conflating two different things here. I am not debating the first paragraph on how companies treat users but I really doubt the 2nd para. Not using "open source" doesn't mean what you are implying. There are a lot of considerations companies go through on selecting to work on OSS or not. That said, the quoted example is confusing at best. Companies are made of people and people have biases. You never know what kind of bias or consideration the hiring manager had in mind. Normally, for me if someone makes a statement which I don't agree with - I do make an effort to ask "Why?". I don't simply walk off because someone has a different opinion. But maybe, that is my idea of getting hired - understanding what and why of things I might end up doing.

mcgarnagle 9y ago

From one poison to the other.

alphonsegaston 9y ago

It didn’t have to be this way and it still isn’t the only path we have. It’s possible to build technologies that are fundamentally more socialist and redistribute wealth back to their users. Social media is disruptible in this fashion and so is gathering data for training AIs. San Francisco’s poverty and squalor is already a concrete example of where this Wall St 2.0 mentality leads. Let’s work on escaping this path.

chasd00 9y ago
you're talking cyberspace but homelessness is a meatspace problem. No technology is going to solve homelessness, it's an "assholes and elbows" problem. It takes real, hard, physical and emotional work to solve.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  Solving both meatspace and cyberspace problems requires a fundamental change to how we distribute wealth in this country. Since the economy isn’t going to become less tech-oriented any time soon, making sure that technology is more economically democratic is incredibly important. Far less people in SF would be homeless if the tech economy wasn’t so focused on pushing all its gains to the wealthy (and less so to an engineer class that enables them).
stevenwoo 9y ago
Your argument would hold more water if the homelessness issue were not a problem all across coastal cities in California. I don't know what the cause is, but it isn't the technology industry, and I'm not a huge technology induestry booster.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  Extreme wealth inequality is the source of the problem everywhere. In SF, that inequality is driven by tech.

PeekPoke 9y ago

I've been in the computer industry for 30 years now. Back when I started we were all looked down on as underachieving losers who couldn't talk to 'normal' people, couldn't get laid and would never amount to anything in 'the real world'. Look at the world now, look at programs like The Big Bang Theory - the world has change and the geeks have truly inherited the earth. How they are behaving is as clear an example as you can possibly get when the originally downtrodden get power, wealth and influence - they use it and say 'F*ck you' to those who laughed at them and are now no longer at the top of the pile. Go figure.

BeetleB 9y ago
I think your comment (albeit exaggerated) is a major part of the equation. Society never viewed such people well, and that's missing from the article. When I was younger, I tended to have roughly equal sympathies for everyone, regardless of wealth, race, career, etc. As I get older, I think I've become a bit more hardened and "preferential". I'm definitely a lot less sympathetic to people who I perceive as prejudiced - and I tend to see a lot of prejudice against tech folks - not related to the current sentiments, but the more common antisocial behavior towards "geeks", "nerds" and the like that's always existed. To me, it's the same as one who is overtly racist. Why would I want to help a jerk like that? Except when it comes to prejudice amongst "geeks" and "nerds", it is much more prevalent than overt racism. Of course, it's not as black and white as I put it, but I can understand if others in the tech industry are leaning that way. I've seen first hand wealthy tech people do a lot of good for people around them, but they're still treated poorly by them because "nerds" and "geeks". In fact, I think it's had a much bigger impact on me observing this over and over again than it has on the people involved. While the status quo may not be good, I prefer it to the world before the Internet giants. At least people have alternatives to joining a law firm or the finance industry. (Written by someone who does not live in SV, does not work for any of these SW giants, and does not make a lot of money).
gugagore 9y ago
Well, I think the people who are most harmed are those who never were near the top of the pile. Unless I don't understand what pile you mean.
9y ago

pjs_ 9y ago

This video is pretty strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYNuR1oaQts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYNuR1oaQts

fragsworth 9y ago
I don't mean to disparage him but I can't relate to the guy. Maybe I'm cold or detached, but I feel little to no attachment to the places I grew up in as a kid, so I personally don't feel like they need to be preserved. I see it not as a loss, but more like a change. Also no-fault evicting is not a terrible travesty. It sucks, but usually there's compensation to help with moving expenses. If the land owners don't have the ability to do this, renters can hold them by the balls (preventing a sale) and it would drive rent prices through the roof to compensate for this.

lin_lin 9y ago

The Guardian has a clear anti-tech/SV bias, I'll take the lot with a desert spoon of salt.

ionised 9y ago
And once upon a time it had an almost sycophantic pro-tech/SV bias. Think about what has changed instead of just dismissing an argument outright without addressing any of its points.
- lin_lin 9y ago
  I honestly don't remember that. I could easily have predicated what would come up in the article, the G have a bizarre fascination with that mini-shuttle protesting story. It comes up in pretty much every tech/SV story. Throw in a bunch of anecdotes, a few jabs at gentrification (because it's only tech people who are responsible for it, not planning etc), the hilarious implication that most techies work for the big companies listed when you and I both know that bs, a video of a few morons from Dropbox and somehow that all equates to techies being the new bankers? Really? That's got past an editor?

jstewartmobile 9y ago

Until Google joins Goldman Sachs as yet another unelected branch of the government, I think they're overstating it a bit. I'm sure Google's working hard on it though!

lovich 9y ago
Google and Facebook have already taken a good chunk of the fourth estate
- jstewartmobile 9y ago
  When they get their $1T+ bailout at a moment's notice, I'll agree with "became". For now, they're just evil Jr.--still in the process of becoming.
  - lovich 9y ago
    I get your point about government intervention, but you spoke about an unelected branch of the government. They are the new media and the media has traditionally been considered an unofficial branch of the government
    - jstewartmobile 9y ago
      Still a long climb up evil mtn. if they want to push the bankers off their spot. Most poor people I know are only poor because of finance--title loans, student loans, rent-a-center, medical debt, credit cards, etc., and it's a race to the bottom for everyone since the banking system diminishes the value of cash faster than most people can accumulate it. At least Google is providing some kind of benefit to mankind alongside their fuckery.

KKKKkkkk1 9y ago

I personally don't know anyone who works in finance, but I doubt that many of them are ashamed of what they do. And I know plenty of people in tech, and most of them are actually proud and well respected by their peers for it. So I guess it's just wishful thinking from the Guardian.

taternuts 9y ago
Anecdotal, but I actually work with someone who was in finance making 10x what the average programmer makes who gave it all up in his late 20's to code because he felt at the end of the day he was just ripping people off and morally hated it. Probably not the usual case, though (I'd like to think I'd do the same, but man, that was a lot of money to give up)

malvosenior 9y ago

> is perceived: as under-regulated, overly powerful companies filled with wealthy tech bros and “brilliant assholes” I’m not so sure the industry is “perceived” like this, it’s more like old media outlets (especially The Guardian and NYT) relentlessly push this message and this piece is no different. I get that technology has destroyed their ability to gatekeep messaging, their business model and their prestige but at some point old media attacks become too transparent and probably have the opposite effect as intended. I think technologists have reached that point. I don’t know if the general audience has yet but I’ve never heard anyone complain about “tech bros” in real life (probably because they don’t really exist).

sidlls 9y ago
> (probably because they don't really exist) Really? Uber isn't a thing? All the scandals about terrible sexually charged behavior and aggressive "bro" behavior aren't real? They really exist.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  I don’t think when people say “tech bro” they mean executive (who happens to work at a tech company). They have been known sociopaths since the term existed. Instead, “tech bro” is supposed to mean some mythical programmer-douchey guy. I’m sure there are people like that but not at the scale where it matters or implicates all developers as an occupation.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    It isn't just the executives. It's the entire culture. That includes the individuals working there.
    - malvosenior 9y ago
      That’s a lot of guilt by association and blaming people for the misdeeds of others. I know developers at Uber. They’re just regular (smart) people trying to live their lives. Unfortunately they’re regularly attacked by the media but I think most let it roll off their backs at this point.

VicVee 9y ago

"“You wake up, get the shuttle bus, go to the bubble of campus and order food via an app when you get home. You are not a citizen, just a bizarre leach who makes money,” he explained." I'm not sure I understand. The whole article is just describing literally anyone in any industry. What people can't seem to grasp is that tech in SF/SV simply created a massive insular culture that doesn't contribute to the culture that was previously there. It just took over ruthlessly. All previous artistic beauty that was in SF is just gone now and replaced with tech kids that get paid a ton and would rather spend it on cryptocurrencies and music festivals than participating in the city's artistic scene. Its no wonder at all why people don't like tech people. Its not because they get paid a ton. Its just because they get paid a ton and have no care for anything that was previously there. But I mean, its a tiny city and the city's building regulations don't do much in the way in helping with gentrification at all. Not sure what else could have possibly happened.

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neilk 9y ago
> I'm not sure I understand. > The whole article is just describing literally anyone in any industry. Teachers. Surgeons. Physiotherapists. Soldiers. Artists. Grocers. Cleaners. Miners. Forestry. Farmers. Elder care. The people who drive your shuttle bus. Most industries require contact with other humans, and implicate you in their happiness. In techland, we are already a step removed from our customers (because we create autonomous artifacts.) But beyond that, now we’re powered by overwhelming amounts of capital. And the whole point of that capital is to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. In a previous decade, computer programmers could have counted themselves as citizens. Connecting and empowering people. Maybe a lot us still are. But lately, a lot of what we’re doing is finding new ways to yank Jenga pieces out of society, in hopes that all the pieces will fall into our bosses’ laps.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  > Most industries require contact with other humans, and don’t rely on overwhelming amounts of capital to try to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. I agree with the statement, but I'm not sure it squares with your list? Tech and banking aren't unique in offering the chance to sit alone in an office and turn early advantages into ludicrous excess. Broadly, we're talking about jobs that have power-law payouts among their practitioners, require highly skilled (and hard to interchange) labor, and don't intrinsically punish jerks (meaning limited interaction with coworkers or customers). Not all of them make billions, but they get something exponential that encourages them to compete - fame or professional power or job security. That's a lot of careers. Orchestral musicians fit, lawyers fit, surgeons fit in spades, artists and mathematicians and philosophers all fit. Obviously tech and banking are not equivalent to those things - heart surgeons have never destroyed the economy. But I think it's a catastrophic mistake to try and understand why tech and banking cause these problems by acting like the professional demeanor is unique. That is at best a starting point, a way of acknowledging that if yanking pieces out of society is easy and rewarding it will happen. The question from there is "how do we stop that from happening?" (I'm not sure how much we honestly disagree, I just think the distinction is important. That Jenga metaphor is fantastic.)

guiomie 9y ago

"Some of these folks aren’t the most socially gifted people and therefore suddenly having a culture encouraging this experience for them bleeds into everything, giving them a sense of self importance and entitlement." ... ahah, there are socially awkward people in every industry, this is just blatant generalization. But yah, Silicon Valley is becoming the next Wall Street, I can't count the number of MBA's at work anymore. I doubt things will get better with tech and cypto potentially getting bigger.

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mnm1 9y ago

'“Being in tech puts a badge on you. Things are going bad for a large section of the economy in this area and here’s a shiny beacon of people getting paid far too much for what they do."' While I agree that the execs are paid way too much, this isn't exclusive to tech. And if they're talking about your run of the mill software engineer (like me) then I disagree completely. There are multiple logical reasons why tech salaries are "high" (though really they're not that much higher than many other engineering disciplines' salaries). Another way to see it is that all other salaries are too low, but that's beside the point. As someone with tech skills, I can leave tomorrow and start my own business. If the salaries weren't high enough, I would either do that or work in a completely different career. Why would I do software if I could work an easier, less-stressful job for the same amount of money? And finally, let's face it, most people cannot write software and will never be able to write software no matter how many coding camps or classes they attend. Writing software isn't like making coffee, a process anyone can learn. So people who have never written software, and probably don't have the capacity to do so if they wanted to, complaining that run of the mill tech engineers like me are making too much money have no idea what they're talking about. I challenge them to learn tech, get into the industry, do real-world work, and then do that for 1/2 or 1/3 of your typical salary, if that's what they think the jobs are worth. Either that or shut up and stop being jealous, judgmental children.

brad0 9y ago

> referencing his time at Dropbox when people would “fly around the office on these stupid scooters and skateboards” Why are techies being shamed because they’ve worked hard and spent it on something they like? This is why tech has a diversity problem. It’s not the inner culture. It’s the outer culture and the shame attached to it. EDIT I don’t own one of those skateboards/scooters but I do appreciate working in a culture where people similar to me finally feel comfortable to be themselves without judgement. I feel that the people quoted in this article are a bit too manipulated by other’s opinions. In the end you have to ask yourself: are you happy doing the work here? If not, then change. But if you yourself are happy and you leave because of the media’s opinion then you’re setting yourself up for a miserable life.

tomjen3 9y ago
Why are techies being shamed because they’ve worked hard and spent it on something they like? Cause the powers that used to be (newspapers, the established parties) are scared. More and more power is in the hands of the tech industry and it is reasonably popular (last numbers I read was that google had 88% approval, whereas the approval of congress compared disfavourably with AIDS). Tech was the wunderkind and underdog in the 90ies, mostly harmless and a producer of shiny toys. Tech now has some amount of power, but because we are still outsiders we get stupid articles like that. My hope is that google figures out how to run an AI newspaper (so the articles can be made free) and use it to remove the rest of the power from the incumbents because they do too much damage to us.