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The pitfalls of extreme comfort. You have a place like the Bay Area with near perfect weather, obscene amounts of money, and at least until relatively recently,

The pitfalls of extreme comfort. You have a place like the Bay Area with near perfect weather, obscene amounts of money, and at least until relatively recently, a social environment that lorded you as a "rockstar." You look at your bank account and think "yeah, I AM a Rockstar! I DO deserve this! Everybody wants to be ME!" Rinse and repeat that general attitude for ten years or so and blammo (which is even more explosive considering large chunks of the millennial generation were already coddled—and yes, I'm a millennial). You get a bunch of entitled brats who view anyone who isn't doing what they're doing as _less than_ (which is ironic considering those "less-thans" keep the bubble they live in running—electricity, food delivery, sewage systems, etc). Pepper in the absolutely psychotic, cult-level diatribe these people sputter about "changing the world" and "making dents" and you have a low-level Jim Jones field jamboree brewing. It's absolutely zero surprise what's come out of SV over the last decade and change. And that doesn't even factor in the pharmaceuticals!

rjzzleep 4y ago
Maybe throw in a landmark forum, after you failed your first startup. I've actually seen people walk past hundreds of homeless people in the mission as if they don't exist, only to sit down in a flat in the middle of them to tell your tech buddy (me) that they're changing the world with the next photo sharing app. I had a little dystopia vibe, but then again I grew up in Europe so what do I know.
- kcplate 4y ago
  >a landmark forum Oh Lordy…I had a boss send me to a “management seminar that he found exceptional” that turned out to be that train wreck around 20 years ago. I think I lasted maybe an hour before I got up and left in the middle of the session with the speaker yelling at me to sit down (and some rude asshole trying to block me from leaving…unsuccessfully). I called my boss and told him I left, that I didn’t care if he got a refund, and to fire me if he wanted (he didn’t).
UncleMeat 4y ago
It isn't an entitled attitude to refuse to work over the weekend under threat of losing your job to ship a new feature that isn't actually urgent at the whims of your new CEO who has spent the last few months publicly shitting all over you.
- rglover 4y ago
  You're correct. I think that behavior is just the flip side of what I described above (instead of entitlement in favor of comfort, entitlement in favor of abusive behavior being shrugged off as "genius at work"). Both behaviors are ignorant and exist in an altered state of reality that's long-term destructive.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  If you're being paid $300,000 it is. Some overtime expectation in reasonable or unforeseen situations is not unusual in many places. For blue collar and minimum wage service workers it can just be a way of life. The idea that an employee doesn't think think they need to work overtime even though the company has just changed ownership, because they think they know better than the company owner what needs to be done, view his requests as "whims", and believe that because the owner had comments and opinions about the company that singled out no engineer or manager by name that they therefore should be allowed to disregard this direction, is one of the most entitled things I've ever heard. Doubly so if they were one of the ones who had spent the past few years personally shitting all over Musk publicly.
deleted 4y ago
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avrionov 4y ago
The weather is not perfect in the Bay Area. The perfect weather is 300 miles south in Santa Barbara.
- prepend 4y ago
  It’s really nice compared to most of the US. No blizzards. No heatwaves. Of course Santa Barbara is nicer, but the bay is nicer than most of the world. Maybe 75%.

rjzzleep 4y ago

Maybe throw in a landmark forum, after you failed your first startup. I've actually seen people walk past hundreds of homeless people in the mission as if they don't exist, only to sit down in a flat in the middle of them to tell your tech buddy (me) that they're changing the world with the next photo sharing app. I had a little dystopia vibe, but then again I grew up in Europe so what do I know.

kcplate 4y ago
>a landmark forum Oh Lordy…I had a boss send me to a “management seminar that he found exceptional” that turned out to be that train wreck around 20 years ago. I think I lasted maybe an hour before I got up and left in the middle of the session with the speaker yelling at me to sit down (and some rude asshole trying to block me from leaving…unsuccessfully). I called my boss and told him I left, that I didn’t care if he got a refund, and to fire me if he wanted (he didn’t).

UncleMeat 4y ago

It isn't an entitled attitude to refuse to work over the weekend under threat of losing your job to ship a new feature that isn't actually urgent at the whims of your new CEO who has spent the last few months publicly shitting all over you.

rglover 4y ago
You're correct. I think that behavior is just the flip side of what I described above (instead of entitlement in favor of comfort, entitlement in favor of abusive behavior being shrugged off as "genius at work"). Both behaviors are ignorant and exist in an altered state of reality that's long-term destructive.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
If you're being paid $300,000 it is. Some overtime expectation in reasonable or unforeseen situations is not unusual in many places. For blue collar and minimum wage service workers it can just be a way of life. The idea that an employee doesn't think think they need to work overtime even though the company has just changed ownership, because they think they know better than the company owner what needs to be done, view his requests as "whims", and believe that because the owner had comments and opinions about the company that singled out no engineer or manager by name that they therefore should be allowed to disregard this direction, is one of the most entitled things I've ever heard. Doubly so if they were one of the ones who had spent the past few years personally shitting all over Musk publicly.

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avrionov 4y ago

The weather is not perfect in the Bay Area. The perfect weather is 300 miles south in Santa Barbara.

prepend 4y ago
It’s really nice compared to most of the US. No blizzards. No heatwaves. Of course Santa Barbara is nicer, but the bay is nicer than most of the world. Maybe 75%.