6 ms·
Silicon Valley’s Inequality Machine: A Conversation with Anand Giridharadas
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoWow, this is a really, really powerful piece. I love his analogy to people in Finance - how they are unabashedly "about that life" - and they're upfront about it. After traveling across the US, I realized I prefer my wealth and power desires out in the open. Inordinate wealth is hidden so insidiously in the valley. We don't really dress in wealth signals, or even drive in wealth signals (as opposed to NYC or Miami.) - the subtler cues to social status are things like an Au Pair or private yoga lessons or an address in Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside or Palo Alto. But they dress like us, and they drive in the same luxury cars we do. And yet, they are so, so far above us.
- badfrog 8y ago> drive in wealth signals (as opposed to NYC or Miami.) People in NYC use cars to show off?
- pavlov 8y agoMaybe there’s a secret Uber tier for centimillionaires?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- khazhou 8y agoI drove alongside Larry Page on 101. He was in a Nissan sedan, maybe $30K. This was two years after IPO.
- scarejunba 8y agoIn The Big Short you read about how the guy in the baseball cap and jeans is probably a fund manager doing really well. The guy in the suit is about to go ask for more money because he's not doing so hot. It's the same principle in Silicon Valley. The status symbol is being enough of a hot shot to not have to play by the rules of status.
- jacobsimon 8y agoRelevant: https://qz.com/369338/this-is-what-makes-dressing-down-a-status-symbol/ https://qz.com/369338/this-is-what-makes-dressing-down-a-sta...
- badfrog 8y ago> Observers must believe the nonconforming individual is both aware of the norm and able to conform to it, but deliberately decides not to. A nonconforming behavior that seems unintentional or dictated by lack of a better alternative—such as ragged clothes on a homeless person—will not lead to a positive impression. This part is super interesting. You need to be able to wear the baseball cap and jeans while letting people know that you _could_ be wearing a fancy suit if you cared about their norms.
- golergka 8y agoIt's not about the absence of taste, it's about the opposite of taste – is much more pronounced and intentional Also, this send to be a great quote: https://youtu.be/FlzZhGr8G9w https://youtu.be/FlzZhGr8G9w
- badfrog 8y ago> The status symbol is being enough of a hot shot to not have to play by the rules of status. I definitely feel bad when I hear stories about black and hispanic men having to dress up at work because people feel scared of them when they wear hoodies and torn shorts like I do.
- refurb 8y ago
- Apocryphon 8y agoSteve Jobs had his famous license plate-less Mercedes. While that man is praised for too many things, perhaps he deserves credit for not pretending to not presume himself to be above you or me, unlike so many of his successors today. An honest sort of arrogance.
- skybrian 8y agoWhy would you give credit for that? It's not something to be emulated.
- badfrog 8y ago> It's not something to be emulated. Which part? Driving a Mercedes (probably $50-100k) seems much better than driving some exotic million dollar car.
- derf_ 8y agoThe part where he drove it for the maximum legal time he was not required to affix his license plates to the car (six months), and then leased a new one [1]. [1] https://www.itwire.com/it-people-news/enterprise/50649-the-truth-about-steve-jobs-number-plate https://www.itwire.com/it-people-news/enterprise/50649-the-t...
- pmoriarty 8y agoWhy are people allowed to drive without a license plate at all?
- badfrog 8y agoYou need to be able to drive before your plates are mailed to you (or you pick them up at the DMV). Usually you're required to use a temporary paper license plate... maybe California is different on that? And 6 months is a really long time, something like 14 days should be plenty of time.
- yourbandsucks 8y agoEven the rank and file are completely self-deceiving by repeating all the bullshit in between cashing their checks. Choose one: 1. Own it (finance) 2. Change it (go into teaching or something) 3. Lie about it (tech)
- randomacct3847 8y agoI feel like it’s just more of a personality thing than anything else...people who are attracted to high finance are attracted in part by the perceived lifestyle, and there’s peer pressure to live up to it. People who grew up as nerds and work in software probably never grew up obsessing over being rich enough to afford a Lambo or designer clothes, but if they did get rich they probably have a nice home and a Tesla or BMW.
- badfrog 8y agoAnybody have a legal way to read the full text without paying?
- tfang17 8y agooutline.com
- jason__ 8y agoYes. I needed this. It eliminates the strange scrolling behavior and other web mess. It does not, however, allow me to read the full article.
- RyanDagg 8y agoBlocking javascript on the site got me to the end. This is a surprisingly versatile solution for a lot of sites.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- scarejunba 8y agoThe funny thing is that he talks about how Zuckerberg probably sees himself as the emancipator. This is true for a hell of a lot of us, even those of us who haven't made it yet. It's true. But there's a slight difference. No one has faith in the government. There are only those who are see themselves as powerless in the face of this and those who see themselves as the agents of change. The Messiahs have been commoditized.
- badfrog 8y ago> No one has faith in the government. Judging by how emotional many people get about elections, that doesn't seem true.
- rexpop 8y agoI have a lot more faith in government—which has proven to be democratic, on occasion—than corporations which offer no levers of consumer control, and lie constantly.
- toasterlovin 8y agoA few words in favor of corporations: at least they can go out of business and be replaced by something else.
- gotocake 8y agoYeah, or just declare bankruptcy and rebrand. So long Cambridge Analytica! Oh hello Emeradata, gosh you seem so familiar. Oh well, I’m just going to putter off in my VW TDi and smoke a lovely Altria cigarette.
- alkibiades 8y agothis dude is the biggest pseudointellectual of our time. he basically just spouts what every other progressive is saying but somehow is labeled as a genius for that.
- thundergolfer 8y agoTo your first sentence, since when has he played the intellectual? He's a writer. Sure he does a few talks here and there, a few interviews. Nothing really deserving of your labelling. Your second sentence is spot on though. "Win-winism" is just a repackaging of age old leftist theory.
- pmoriarty 8y ago"'Win-winism' is just a repackaging of age old leftist theory." Lefist theory? It sounds solidly right-wing to me. The article's author writes: "What win-win-ism says is, the best way to help the least among us is to do what's good for the richest and most powerful." That sounds to me very much like Trickle-down economics[1], of which Reagan was the champion. Do you consider Reagan a leftist? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle_down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle_down_economics
- robdachshund 8y agoHes talking about neoliberalism. Not actual liberalism, which aligns more with libertarianism these days. I'd argue that neoliberals are just about as conservative fiscally as modern Republicans. They just appeal to different social issues. Both parties want to run the books just about the same.
- thundergolfer 8y agoThe "leftist theory" is the description of the right-wing ideology that Anand calls "Win-winism". I'm not saying that "Win-Winism" is right-wing.
- 01100011 8y agoI stopped reading when he equated reduced lifespans to the wealth gap. In my experience(my own family included), the shortened lifespans relate to poor lifestyle choices(i.e. type II diabetes and not choosing to change post-diagnosis). I'm not saying the wealth gap is good, just that, with logic like that, I can't take this piece seriously. Also, while I think it's great that folks want to level the field and reduce the wealth gap, the likely outcome will be that the ultra rich will evade taxes like they always do, while the $1-10 millionaires will be pulled down to appease the masses. I don't lose sleep over some mildly rich tech bro. They're not the problem. It's the ultra rich that are holding all the cards and controlling our destinies.
- alexandercrohde 8y agoFirstly, if you think the reduced lifespan thing is wrong and you're trying to convince us, you should probably cite a source. Secondly, your approach is bad. The "I found one thing I think is false (but never bothered to look up) so I'm dismissing the whole article" is your right of course, but I don't know if it makes for an informed member of the discussion.
- 01100011 8y ago> if you think the reduced lifespan thing is wrong I don't, and I'm not sure how you got that out of what I wrote. I have no doubt that there is a correlation. I just have personal opinions as to why that correlation exist which conflict with the idea that lower incomes caused the reduced lifespans. If you're disciplined enough to amass wealth, you're probably disciplined enough to maintain good health. Sure, there are other factors, such as access to better medical care. In many cases though, access to medical care cannot make up for poor lifestyle decisions. If I read an article and encounter flawed logic, I am less inclined to continue investing time into exploring the author's thesis.
- cryptokush 8y ago"In my experience..." - anecdotal garbage, there are many datasets on wealth and lifespan proving the authors point. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2513561 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/25135...
- jason__ 8y ago>The first third has been ungated given the importance of this subject. To read the whole interview, be sure to... This is incredibly ironic. Techcrunch's (partial) release of this article is a perfect example of what the author describes: excluding those who can't afford to pay while pretending to act in the interest of all. >And, at the heart of what I’m trying to establish with the book, is how they have then turned around, and in response to this exclusion, and the anger it generates, sought to pass themselves off as change agents who can fix the problem that they are complicit in causing, and who can fight the fire that they helped set.