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> 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
by 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 agoI 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 agoIt isn't just the executives. It's the entire culture. That includes the individuals working there.
- malvosenior 9y agoThat’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.
- mcguire 9y agoI know a fair few police officers; they're just regular people, too. But still...
- rtx 9y agoLess than Hollywood, which is considered a progressive industry.
- sidlls 9y agoCompletely irrelevant.
- lovich 9y agoIn Boston at least, when my friends are acquaintances are discussing places to work, how "tech bro-y" a place is comes up a lot. Some people like that environment and some hate it but I've definitely heard phrases like, "I interviewed there, one of the guys was alright but the rest we're tech bros"
- badrabbit 9y agoAd-hominem much? Your response is straight out of the trumpist playbook. You're attacking the news paper for telling a story instead of disputing the alleged facts in the story. People may not use "tech bros" all the time,does not mean the reported sentiment in the article is false. Sillicon valley is selling out it's own consumers,even when they pay up. This condescending attitude towards "users" and "consumers" is at the heart of it all in my opinion.
- malvosenior 9y agoMy response was about the article the topic of which is the perception of the tech industry. How is that an ad hominem? You calling me a trumpist on the other hand...
- badrabbit 9y agoI may have gone too far with the trumpist remark,I just saw a close paralell. I did not mean you were one. Anyways,you tried to make the story about the media,how this article is some sort of retribution.
- doctorsher 9y agoI have no stake in this debate, but "the trumpist playbook" remark was unnecessary. There's no need to politicize this, and Trump does not have a monopoly on ad hominem attacks or fallacies in general.
- badrabbit 9y agoYes I went too far there,I did not intend it as an insult,I only attempted to draw a parallel. Sorry.
- doctorsher 9y agoNo problem -- I appreciate your apology (hopefully others do as well). Thank you for responding reasonably.
- slivym 9y agoIt's perceived like that by me, and I work in the industry. You can take Levandowski, Kalanick, Jobs, Zuckerberg, or many others. If there's no problem with Brilliant Assholes in technology then why are there such a clear pattern of them? Paul Graham has got a no-asshole rule for a reason- and it's not because he finds it difficult to find assholes to fund.
- alexandercrohde 9y agoSure but let's differentiate jackass tech CEOs from jackass engineers. Because face it, yes many tech CEOs are pseudo-psycho jerks, but then again so are most CEOs, it's just for whatever reason the CEO of comcast doesn't get personally attacked the way Zuck does.
- Bartweiss 9y agoIt still feels like this approach runs on anecdote, and on equivocation between "techies" and "billionaire tech CEOs". People with enormous power and wealth are frequently terrible across all industries. I'm still fairly convinced Kalanick has more in common with Weinstein and Miki Agrawal than your average trenches-level programmer, simply because power corrupts. (If tech has a singular problem, it's that startup culture means some people are in power for their whole careers.) And at the trenches level: yeah, brilliant assholes are a thing in software. And classical music, and physics, and law, and... They're all specialized fields with noninterchangeable work, power-law payouts, and room to minimize human interaction in daily work. I don't disagree with you that this happens in the field, and I definitely appreciate hearing from people in the field who might agree with this article. But it still feels like there's a pattern of comparing Silicon Valley to Wallstreet, while ignoring the myriad other fields with similar dynamics. That, not the existence of assholes, is the part that feels agenda-driven to me.
- mcguire 9y agoA few points: 1. The median household income in the US is something like 1/3 to 1/2 of what I understand the starting salaries are in SV. For most outside the tech bubble, economically, there is little visible difference between "techies" and "billionaire CEOs". 2. Much of Kalanick's behavior is mirrored by lesser techies, albeit on a smaller scale. 3. Anyone have any hard numbers on the size of the "techies and billionaire CEOs" class versus the total professional classical musicians and physicists in the world? Certainly, the former seems to have more actual impact. 4. Do you really want to live on the pointy end of lawyer and wall street banker jokes? ("What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?" "One is a bottom feeding scum-sucker; the other is a fish.")
- drharby 9y agoI am very happy to see i am not the only one noting that every nyt article posted has been a neg pr piece on silicon valley. For a while i felt like i was on crazy pills
- sverige 9y agoI live in a small city in the midwest. I've never heard people complain about "tech bros" here, probably because any we might have are basically invisible, but there are a lot of people who really dislike and distrust the companies and some of the people mentioned in the article (Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Uber). The article actually does a great job of capturing what regular folks think about SV. Bill Gates (I know, not SV, but still tech) is another who is still despised by a good number of ordinary people here, though he has done a good job of aligning himself with Warren Buffett in their minds. For some reason, a lot of people around here admire Buffett. Gates' Q rating has risen accordingly, I'm sure.
- autokad 9y agomy biggest problem with big tech is they leave people not born / went to a school on the extreme coasts completely out of the hiring process. The midwest charged forward a large share of human innovation and large tech basically says: do not bother applying.
- santaclaus 9y ago> The midwest charged forward a large share of human innovation and large tech basically says: do not bother applying. UIUC, Wisconsin, Michigan are all awesome CS programs, with tons of alums in big tech companies.
- dredmorbius 9y agoIt's difficult to hate what you don't know. People in small midwestern towns don't know tech bros. They do know Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon. Uber is probably a mixed bag.
- Eridrus 9y agoI think this is a regional thing; I definitely tried to avoid talking about what I did for work in the last few years I lived in the bay area; it's less of an issue in NYC.
- rayiner 9y agoI don’t know if DC counts as “real life” but I’ve definitely encountered the sentiment among non-tech people. Most of it is due to fallout from the sexual harassment revelations. Silicon Valley is also perceived as libertarian, and with Trump there is a huge backlash right now against not just republicans, but libertarians and other third parties. The NYT writes what it does for a reason. The narrative is very much in line with what many East Coast establishment types are thinking. I’m not saying that these characterizations are fair. But if there is anything that people are, it’s tribal, and the tribal lines are being drawn.
- mindcrime 9y agoSilicon Valley is also perceived as libertarian Well, it used to be. I would argue that hasn't been the case for a few years now. People today who strongly associate libertarian thought with SV are living in a memory.
- rayiner 9y agoI agree. But I think it’s the high profile libertarians (Thiel) that create the perception.
- SauciestGNU 9y agoThis is a digression, but I think it's hard to classify Thiel as a libertarian unless you view libertarianism and feudalism as equivalent.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoThey basically are equivalent if you go by what is typically called libertarianism in the US.
- mindcrime 9y agoNo, that's pretty much completely wrong. For example, look at one of the key characteristics of feudalism, serfdom[1]: Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century. Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land. OTOH, Libertarianism is explicitly based on the idea of self-ownership and rejects the idea of that style of bondage (although certainly allowing for debt, and any kind of contractual obligation one wants to voluntarily enter into), and also supports property rights for everyone, not just "lords" and "vassals" and so forth. [2] Individuals own their bodies and have rights over them that other individuals, groups, and governments may not violate. Individuals have the freedom and responsibility to decide what they knowingly and voluntarily consume, and what risks they accept to their own health, finances, safety, or life. As respect for property rights is fundamental to maintaining a free and prosperous society, it follows that the freedom to contract to obtain, retain, profit from, manage, or dispose of one’s property must also be upheld. Libertarians would free property owners from government restrictions on their rights to control and enjoy their property, as long as their choices do not harm or infringe on the rights of others. Eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, governmental limits on profits, governmental production mandates, and governmental controls on prices of goods and services (including wages, rents, and interest) are abridgements of such fundamental rights. For voluntary dealings among private entities, parties should be free to choose with whom they trade and set whatever trade terms are mutually agreeable. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom [2]: https://www.lp.org/platform/ https://www.lp.org/platform/
- mcguire 9y ago"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." Are you blaming the messenger, or do you have an independent source of knowledge from outside the tech bubble?
- Bartweiss 9y agohttps://www.wired.com/story/what-tech-backlash-google-facebook-still-rank-high-in-polls/ https://www.wired.com/story/what-tech-backlash-google-facebo... Tech companies still have exceptionally high public favorability compared to other major businesses. They don't even show up on most-hated lists, but get much higher-profile media negativity than loathed companies like Time Warner. A particularly interesting metric from that article is watching how favorability tracks media coverage. United and Volkswagen abruptly lost significant favorability during their recent scandals, but Facebook's favorability is completely stable. That looks to me like a sign of the media pushing a view that isn't resonating publicly.