4 ms·
Microsoft ended up, organically, surrounded by Microsoft employee residences. All you ever see in your life are Microsoft buildings on campus, fellow Microsoft
by DenisM 9y ago
Microsoft ended up, organically, surrounded by Microsoft employee residences. All you ever see in your life are Microsoft buildings on campus, fellow Microsoft employees driving on all nearby roads (you can tell from parking permits), living next door, sitting next table in the bar, standing the queue at the store, riding the company shuttle, being your friends.
What it did is create an awful monoculture. You don't get to have a beer with a buddy works at a competing or related company and realize how utterly, unbelievably stupid and immature your position is on this or another issue. Ideological inbreeding is what it is. My biggest regrets lie where I wasted time on something that I could have been talked out of by someone with a different perspective.
I think cross-pollination of ideas is the major advantage of Silicon Valley. Seattle is also getting better recently, with big companies opening more jobs.
- burger_moon 9y ago>I think cross-pollination of ideas is the major advantage of Silicon Valley. Seattle is also getting better recently, with big companies opening more jobs. Tech workers hanging out with other tech workers is still a huge circle jerk of ideas. If all you've known is graduate university with a CS degree and working at tech companies and living in upper middle class and wealthy livelihoods you are still part of the same monoculture. Not much changes between Google and MS in the larger picture.
- khalilravanna 9y agoRight SF is better than what the parent comment describes but it very oftentimes is still devoid of true diversity. I worked at a company based in SF and made the conscious decision not to live there. It felt like every time I would go out to a bar or coffee shop all I would hear is tech workers and business investors having the same types of conversations everywhere. More than being crummy for expanding one's perspective on a whole host of issues, it was just plain depressing to be around.
- DenisM 9y agoI agree. Still monoculture within one company is worse than monoculture within an industry.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wdr1 9y agoThis is one of the things I really liked about moving from Mountain View to Los Angeles. Not only breaking out of your company's bubble, but the tech bubble all together.