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>One thing I've noticed over my career is that over the past 20 years the cultural gap between typical SV "tech employee" and typical SV "tech leader/founder" h

>One thing I've noticed over my career is that over the past 20 years the cultural gap between typical SV "tech employee" and typical SV "tech leader/founder" has widened dramatically. The gap between the average white collar worker and the average blue collar worker seems to have grown as fast if not faster, especially after 08.

ryandrake 4y ago
No way it's grown faster. A "spoiled" tech worker who makes even as much as $300K has a lot more in common with a blue collar worker making $30K than he has with an executive making $300M. We're talking 3 orders of magnitude vs. 1. That executive has accumulated generational wealth after working one month. Their lifestyle is outrageously bananas-different than even the highest-paid software developer. We're talking dozens of homes, private jets, chauffeurs, staff that do everything, megawealth that grows in perpetuity without them even doing anything. They can travel anywhere they want on earth on a whim and have anyone in government (sometimes up to and including heads of state) on the phone in minutes. Their children, grandchildren, and grandchildren's grandchildren will never have to work a day in their lives. Meanwhile, the difference between a tech worker and a struggling teacher is that one is 50 missed paychecks away from insolvency, and the other is 2 missed paychecks away from insolvency. It's not even comparable.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  We're talking about the cultural gap here. Not the money gap.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    I'm a spoiled tech worker, and I feel I have much more in common culturally with a less well-off guy who works on their own car, shops for their own groceries, and carefully budgets every dollar they earn so their checks don't bounce (which I do, too). More culturally than I have in common with someone who has three nannies for their kids, summers in the Hamptons, takes Luge lessons in the Alps, and is currently deciding whether to buy a fifth home in New Zealand or bankroll their own B-movie.

ryandrake 4y ago

No way it's grown faster. A "spoiled" tech worker who makes even as much as $300K has a lot more in common with a blue collar worker making $30K than he has with an executive making $300M. We're talking 3 orders of magnitude vs. 1. That executive has accumulated generational wealth after working one month. Their lifestyle is outrageously bananas-different than even the highest-paid software developer. We're talking dozens of homes, private jets, chauffeurs, staff that do everything, megawealth that grows in perpetuity without them even doing anything. They can travel anywhere they want on earth on a whim and have anyone in government (sometimes up to and including heads of state) on the phone in minutes. Their children, grandchildren, and grandchildren's grandchildren will never have to work a day in their lives. Meanwhile, the difference between a tech worker and a struggling teacher is that one is 50 missed paychecks away from insolvency, and the other is 2 missed paychecks away from insolvency. It's not even comparable.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
We're talking about the cultural gap here. Not the money gap.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  I'm a spoiled tech worker, and I feel I have much more in common culturally with a less well-off guy who works on their own car, shops for their own groceries, and carefully budgets every dollar they earn so their checks don't bounce (which I do, too). More culturally than I have in common with someone who has three nannies for their kids, summers in the Hamptons, takes Luge lessons in the Alps, and is currently deciding whether to buy a fifth home in New Zealand or bankroll their own B-movie.