7 ms·

Stupid Simple Things SF Techies Could Do To Stop Being Hated

27 points by rmchugh 13y ago

schraual 13y ago
I don't know, I work close to the Twitter HQ and the other day I saw some Twitterites (I could tell by their badges) half assedly walking down the sidewalk while on their phones occasionally plucking up a piece of trash with one of those trash picker-uppers...it seemed like it was 100% for show and actually made me hate them a little more.
- herbig 13y ago
  "made me hate them a little more" It seems like your whole perception of the situation is skewed by your preexisting disdain for these folks.
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    Maybe that's the point. The people protesting have the same preexisting disdain.. so why would they be anymore convinced than schraual?
- woah 13y ago
  This is the exact thing that I am talking about in my comment at the top of the thread. These people simply don't care about this stuff, they won't let anything stop them from hating techies.
  - bct 13y ago
    "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room and close the door."
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  I don't care if every time they pick up trash it is 100% for show. Because that is still more trash than a lot of people pick up.
JohnTHaller 13y ago
So, the last round of gentrification is mad about this round of gentrification and thinks these new folks should make these token gestures to gain better acceptance? Sounds like a perfect plan.
arnoldwh 13y ago
I think the "backlash" is a symptom, not the cause. The cause likely has a lot more to do with an unnatural supply constraint imposed previously as well as very little in the way of a public transportation infrastructure that would better enable workers (both tech and other) to live where they would like, at a price they want to pay.
- wwweston 13y ago
  Transport infrastructure is one of the issues I'd think would be a no-brainer for support as far as public or even shared private projects go. Providing transportation to your workers isn't a core function that you want to be working on yourself as a business; it's a problem you'd prefer to externalize or share. And the better the transportation infrastructure of a city functions, the more likely the city in general will be a desirable place for workers to settle.
bksenior 13y ago
People dont change wholesale until they are forced too. The backlash hasnt affected the individuals, only the collective. Until people start to feel unsafe or targeted the only people who will organize improvements will be their employers because public opinion of big companies affect the bottom line.
- aaronem 13y ago
  > Until people start to feel unsafe or targeted The implicit threat, made explicit once again -- it amazes me how blatant some people are in HN comments on this subject!
parasitius 13y ago
This is the offensive story I've seen on HN in the past four years reading it. I hope anyone who buys into this disgusting Christian / altruist guilt trip loses everything they have, lest they be around another day with the money and influence to spread the disease
thrill 13y ago
What BS. There's no such thing as affordable housing - there's only housing you can afford. If you want to live in the Valley and can't afford it - then you can't afford it.
- ryguytilidie 13y ago
  Yeah this argument just kills me. I used to live in a $2k apartment across the street from Google SF. My rent got raised to $4300 because they knew Google employees would pay it. Did I go throw rocks at Google buses? No. Did I move to a place I could afford? Yes. The idea that me, as a startup employee making a decent wage can't afford to live there, yet thousands of people who are things like "artists and poets" are upset they can't afford it is absolute madness. The reason housing is expensive is because lots of people desire it, the idea that we should make sure to reserve places for people who can't afford to live there makes no sense at all.
  - johnjlocke 13y ago
    And where do you suggest that all the other residents of San Francisco move? The street?
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      Well... the street is a pretty drastic first move. My first suggestion would be "some place you can afford." I've known several people that left the Valley (actually, California entirely) because they were finding it hard to afford stuff.
    - ionforce 13y ago
      You're making it sound like they are entitled to stay there. Just move to somewhere within your price range. Things change. Get over it.
    - ryguytilidie 13y ago
      I moved to Richmond. An engineer I'm friends with just moved to Pleasanton. Why should this well paid people be forced to move out of SF while we're creating low cost housing for artists? How does this make any sense?
ryguytilidie 13y ago
Look, I'll be the first person to express my dismay at tech people throwing money around and essentially saying "fuck you I'm rich" to the rest of the city. However, expecting them to do charity work, give free daycare and fight for civic changes that are almost diametrically opposite to their own needs is completely insane. Why does it have to be the people who work at startups? Why not the bankers? Why not the actual CEO's of these money making startups? How on earth did we decide that the people we should target are the workers at a company that is rich, why not the stockholders or executives? I mean go throw rocks at buildings on Sand Hill Road, not at the people who are just working their first job out of college.
jseliger 13y ago
1. I'm not sure that the premise is true and that people "hate" techies. Outside of a few, small media precincts, does any of this actually exist? 2. To the extent that any of this actually is true, it seems like a failure of voters and public policies to a) allow enough housing to built (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis... or Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High) and b) to build better public transportation, which is related to a). To the extent that tech company buses mean anything, they mean that the current system works so poorly that people are routing around it.
- joyeuse6701 13y ago
  This seems to be a well known pattern no? The people of SF benefit from the technologies and wealth the companies build and give as tax, which was thought of as 'free' or at whatever market price but there was a hidden, extremely expensive cost that manifested from your number 2. I find it funny, a city known for being progressive, now chaffs at relentless progression to the cadence of a different drummer: tech. As for the article, I'd say whatever to these specific ideas, but the call to action is correct I believe. Something must be done to alleviate tension.
- Doctor_Fegg 13y ago
  The transport thing baffles me. Here in the UK, improved public transport would be funded either by levies on new development (known as Section 106, being replaced by the Community Infrastructure Levy), or by supplemental business rates (that's how London Crossrail is happening). The commuters to the new developments get the transport they need, and it benefits everyone else as well. Why doesn't that happen in SF?
  - rco8786 13y ago
    B/c politics in SF are nothing like politics in London.
vacri 13y ago
The employees who ride the buses could put up simple signs at the stops: "[X] out of the 300 people who ride this shuttle each day have pledged to volunteer once a month at a city shelter or facility... This is kind've offensive from the outset, and curiously enough, the paragraph doesn't actually suggest those shuttle riders actually volunteering, or how does an employer entice its employees to volunteer for unrelated stuff in their free time. Not to mention that it doesn't matter how many of the 300 realistically volunteer, it will always be seen as 'not enough'. 10 out of 300? Embarrassing stat to put up. 260 out of 300? What's wrong with the other 40? Also, I can't speak for SF, but here in Melbourne I had a friend rejected for volunteer work from several charities because she wasn't skilled. Volunteer work they have in spades for monkeywork. What they needed was management and organisational talents, to organise the volunteers and events, make orders etc
- dvanduzer 13y ago
  He tried to make it pretty clear that he is talking about Silicon Valley in particular. The rest of this tweet thread is worth reading: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/426365676975304704 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/426365676975304704
- billyjobob 13y ago
  In my time volunteering, I've never found a charity that would accept volunteers for any skilled, technical, interesting, managerial or decision-making tasks. Anything important is only entrusted to paid employees. Volunteers are used for unskilled work that would be minimum wage if paid. I was also surprised at the high number of my fellow volunteers who were actually 'volunteering' only because it was part of their court ordered sentence.
WalterBright 13y ago
Doesn't anyone else find it ironic that now it's rich people who ride the bus, and poor people who are forced to drive their own cars?
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  Not particularly. The saying "time is money" applies here: the argument could be made that the "rich people who ride the bus"'s time is worth more, and putting them on a bus where they can do some work instead of driving is a more efficient use of their time. Of course you could argue that the poorer people "forced" to drive their own cars could use that time, but they might not be knowledge workers, which means that time wouldn't be productive to their employers anyways. And this also is entirely dependent on how you perceive value to be created, and the model you choose to use.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    People riding the bus have always been able to do things like read, study, write, etc., whether or not they were knowledge workers.
    - dkuntz2 13y ago
      True. But is that productive for their employers? Which was my main point...
grecy 13y ago
These are all fantastic ideas, though I find it fascinating they're all about sharing the benefits of enormous wealth with the greater community, so that everyone can be happier and healthier. One wonders when America as a whole will realize the benefits of doing so and catch up to the rest of the Developed world. In my experience, Americans would rather "get mine" than share.
- octaveguin 13y ago
  Americans are ranked as one of if not the most generous nation by numerous stats [0]. Americans donate more of their money as a percentage of their total income than any other citizens on earth. Now, there's a lot one could say about why. I imagine it's a mix of the wealth and importance of religion uniquely in that developed country. There's a lot the US could do with social programs, that's for sure but the individuals are certainly more charitable than certain European countries. Greetings from Copenhagen :) The ideas presented in the blog are trite and solve nothing. [0]https://www.cafonline.org/media-office/press-releases/2013/world-giving-index-2013.aspx https://www.cafonline.org/media-office/press-releases/2013/w...
  - grecy 13y ago
    > Americans are ranked as one of if not the most generous nation by numerous stats [0]. Americans donate more of their money as a percentage of their total income than any other citizens on earth. I wonder if that's because the society they live in requires them to do so. For example, Australian's know that employed people have plenty of money from welfare to live on, so there really isn't any need to "give" money to them. Americans know that the "have nots" are in serious trouble, so they give to them.
- Domenic_S 13y ago
  In my experience, Americans would rather choose to spread their wealth (ie. donate) than be forced to.
- jcnnghm 13y ago
  The US gives about 1.85% of GDP, the highest in the world. Second is Israel at 1.34%. The US also volunteers more than all but two other nations, the Netherlands and Sweden. In 2010, the US spent almost 3 times as much on foreign aid as any other developed nation (US at $38b v. Germany at $13.5b). Don't let the facts stand in the way though.
temphn 13y ago
startups which provide deluxe on-site benefits could extend their daycare, meal and on-site walk-in health care to people who have WIC or EBT cards and can show that they live in the neighborhood. The bonus here? You can meet actual people in your neighborhood. I really, really, really want Anil Dash to try this with his own startup on Market Street in the middle of the Tenderloin. Send us the video. Show us how it's done, Anil! Practice what you preach.
woah 13y ago
None of this will work. The hatred of tech has nothing to do with techies themselves. It is a channeling of people's anger about high rent towards an easy-to-demonize group of outsiders. The political organizers fanning the flames are largely the same people who caused the situation by demonizing (real estate) developers and making it hard to build. Techies can volunteer until they are blue in the face, and it will only ever be seen as an empty, fake gesture. The real estate situation in SF is a hard reality and volunteering will not diffuse it. "Look at these techies, they make so much money and sanctimoniously act like they are saints for deigning to volunteer once a week." We're talking about people who demonize shuttle buses here. Shuttle buses unquestionably reduce congestion and help the environment. This is not about who the techies are, or what they do. It is about the xenophobic scapegoating of a group of socially awkward outsiders by political organizers whose previous shortsighted outrage campaigns have screwed up SF's real estate market for decades to come.
- justinzollars 13y ago
  I think newspapers and blogs are also fanning the flames. There were suggestions that this would happen before it did (economist), then the media began reporting rumor, then events started happening (albeit small) these were picked up by the national media and blogs. This feels more like a game the media is playing with society, rather than a true reflection of how society feels about tech workers. This isn't news.
- carsongross 13y ago
  I have a theory that some of the anger at techies is driven by the fact that they are, in many cases and in popular imagination, fairly nerdy. People are used to looking down on these people, given America's school system and typical corporate makeup. Perhaps it even has evolutionary roots. And, by and large, nerdy kinda-liberal people are inclined to take it, agree, and supplicate. Compare and contrast with the treatment of the financial industry in the Bay Area. Even on HN, taking shots at an obviously fraudulent financial system and the people in it will get you jumped all over ("they allocate capital efficiently!", etc, etc. et-tripe-cetera) while articles like this will elicit more balanced and self-aware commentary. My theory is that this dynamic is more prevalent in the press and non-tech thought leaders, etc. not in the middle and lower classes.
SwellJoe 13y ago
I'm a lifetime nerd and a tech startup founder. Some of my best friends work at Google, facebook, Apple, etc., but I'm very sympathetic to the folks who are angry about the situation in SF. The industry culture in the valley is extremely insulated from the real world, and it shows in everything. At bars and cafes, the conversation is the same old echo chamber; re-affirming the world changing nature of the next Snapchat copy. In a world with so many huge problems, so many smart people exerting so much effort and spending so much of other people's money on trivial things is the rule not the exception, and it's sad (of, if it doesn't make one sad, it makes one angry). You can't escape it. It's actually one of the reasons I bought a motorhome and hit the road...I've only been back to the valley once since I left four years ago. The valley is depressing to me, for all the reasons so many find it full of optimism. I'm not optimistic when some of the brightest minds are expending their efforts on imitation of trivialities. America is looking like a class war again for the first time in a long time. And, the folks comfortably in the middle don't realize they're siding with the folks up top, either through inaction or through conscious choice to serve those interests (even if they're only middle class by SF standards and have much more in common with poor folk than with the .1% that effectively own everything). This is why there's so much anger. San Francisco has always been expensive and most regular folk there have always been renters. But, it's becoming impossibly expensive for huge swaths of people and the hope of surviving in SF as anything other than a wealthy white (or Asian) male engineer is fading fast. This article has some good ideas. People in the valley should get out of that echo chamber regularly and do something real in their community. Come up with something else to talk about now and then. But, I don't think it will solve the underlying problem; lower and middle class people are realizing the world isn't what they thought. The odds are simply stacked against poor folks in America (and stacked against escaping being poor), and they're worst in places like San Francisco and NYC. The churn in wealth that is supposed to happen in a market economy isn't happening anymore, if it ever did. It's been locked down hard by a very few, and the rest of us are merely renters and debtors, with no real say in the system. And, the idea I see that "they should just move" is missing the point...this problem isn't a San Francisco problem. It is nationwide, and San Francisco is just the canary. It's happening in every major city in the country.
- notahacker 13y ago
joemaller1 13y ago
The "solution" will be an exodus from SF to other communities. SF has eaten itself before, and it will doubtlessly eat itself again.
rco8786 13y ago
The author came up with 5 original ideas(not even very good ones) and then accosted tech companies for having not implemented them before he/she thought of them. Wat.
danielharan 13y ago
There are two problems that need to be fixed. -Housing prices. Supporting affordable housing isn't the solution here; there needs to be more supply. Given all the money invested in tech, surely the bigger companies could invest in some real estate. Or announce that you're ready to do so, when the city finally allows it - now the city's the villain. -Fix Transportation so you don't need private shuttles. Either force the city to improve transportation or support startups that can do it instead.
calroc 13y ago
I'm from SF. People should realize that politics in this town (and Berzerkeley) are infused with an entire cottage industry of lunatics and freaks. Watch SFGOV public access to see what I mean. People sing songs, rant, dress up in weird costumes, it's a little slice of a Fellini movie. Even if tech folks suddenly got bit by the community bug they're not going to be able to dialog with people who have basically NO interest in real working politics because they are simply using the public sphere to project their hang-ups and obsessions. Crazy people who want attention make up too much of the political scene out here. Basically SF is one giant open-air insane asylum. This is where you end up if no place else in the country (or world) has a niche for you and your particular weird. Now all these fresh-faced, well-scrubbed tech workers are flooding in and displacing the nuts, who have nowhere else to go. Of course the nuts (and brother/sister/sophont I am one of the nuts) are upset. Unless the techies can somehow develop the compassion for and tolerance of, say, Mother Teresa, for weird freaky shit they just aren't going to be able to engage with the old school Bay Area culture. And I don't think it's fair to expect them to. Unfortunately, this means that the "gentrification" will proceed apace until SF has become the new, uh, Portland? Seattle? San Jose? Some other not-so-weird city anyhow.
oh_sigh 13y ago
The entire premise is flawed. Who hates techies in SF? A tiny, tiny minority of people.
crw-rw-rw 13y ago
If these idiots hadn't agitated for laws limiting development in the first place, then housing wouldn't be as unaffordable as it is now in the Bay Area. Instead of attacking tech workers earning high five-figure salaries, which is hardly makes them "rich" by Bay Area standards, why not relax laws restricting development? Much of this outrage is actually manufactured, and by Gawker no less: http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/ http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-de...
scotty79 13y ago
Simplest thing would be to build apartments and shops for all their emploees on company land.
neilk 13y ago
The entire premise of this is flawed. I posted a huge ranty comment on Anil's page, but the TL;DR: * Tech companies have no expertise providing social services. * It is a very bad idea to have public services delivered at the whim of private companies. The answer to this is taxes. You want to criticize Google? Criticize them for using offshore tax shelters. There also seems to be a longing for Google to swoop in and somehow fix politics, but really, unless money or technology solves the problem, Google is not the answer.
- jinushaun 13y ago
  The buses fix the Bay Area's bad public transportation problem. Now unless the Bay Area city and county govts and its residents are open to the idea of having tech companies use imminent domain and straight up pay for everything (like Google's municipal wifi initiative), I don't understand the hate for the buses. You don't hear this in NY.
memracom 13y ago
It says something about the level of intelligence of Silicon Valley people that it has taken this long for someone to point out that there are LOTS of things that local people could do to defuse the situation and improve the situation. In fact, given the number of people who live in SF and work down in the Valley, one wonders why on earth they started running private buses and did not go straight to the city and demand new routes on the city bus system. As for wifi, that could have been installed on the new routes for all riders, not just privileged Googlers. Great coding ability is not enough to get by in life. You need creativity as well, and some understanding of social, business and political issues. Because life does not end at the edge of the CPU chip.

27 points by rmchugh 13y ago

I don't know, I work close to the Twitter HQ and the other day I saw some Twitterites (I could tell by their badges) half assedly walking down the sidewalk while on their phones occasionally plucking up a piece of trash with one of those trash picker-uppers...it seemed like it was 100% for show and actually made me hate them a little more.

herbig 13y ago
"made me hate them a little more" It seems like your whole perception of the situation is skewed by your preexisting disdain for these folks.
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  Maybe that's the point. The people protesting have the same preexisting disdain.. so why would they be anymore convinced than schraual?
woah 13y ago
This is the exact thing that I am talking about in my comment at the top of the thread. These people simply don't care about this stuff, they won't let anything stop them from hating techies.
- bct 13y ago
  "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room and close the door."
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
I don't care if every time they pick up trash it is 100% for show. Because that is still more trash than a lot of people pick up.

JohnTHaller 13y ago

So, the last round of gentrification is mad about this round of gentrification and thinks these new folks should make these token gestures to gain better acceptance? Sounds like a perfect plan.

arnoldwh 13y ago

I think the "backlash" is a symptom, not the cause. The cause likely has a lot more to do with an unnatural supply constraint imposed previously as well as very little in the way of a public transportation infrastructure that would better enable workers (both tech and other) to live where they would like, at a price they want to pay.

wwweston 13y ago
Transport infrastructure is one of the issues I'd think would be a no-brainer for support as far as public or even shared private projects go. Providing transportation to your workers isn't a core function that you want to be working on yourself as a business; it's a problem you'd prefer to externalize or share. And the better the transportation infrastructure of a city functions, the more likely the city in general will be a desirable place for workers to settle.

bksenior 13y ago

People dont change wholesale until they are forced too. The backlash hasnt affected the individuals, only the collective. Until people start to feel unsafe or targeted the only people who will organize improvements will be their employers because public opinion of big companies affect the bottom line.

aaronem 13y ago
> Until people start to feel unsafe or targeted The implicit threat, made explicit once again -- it amazes me how blatant some people are in HN comments on this subject!

parasitius 13y ago

This is the offensive story I've seen on HN in the past four years reading it. I hope anyone who buys into this disgusting Christian / altruist guilt trip loses everything they have, lest they be around another day with the money and influence to spread the disease

thrill 13y ago

What BS. There's no such thing as affordable housing - there's only housing you can afford. If you want to live in the Valley and can't afford it - then you can't afford it.

ryguytilidie 13y ago
Yeah this argument just kills me. I used to live in a $2k apartment across the street from Google SF. My rent got raised to $4300 because they knew Google employees would pay it. Did I go throw rocks at Google buses? No. Did I move to a place I could afford? Yes. The idea that me, as a startup employee making a decent wage can't afford to live there, yet thousands of people who are things like "artists and poets" are upset they can't afford it is absolute madness. The reason housing is expensive is because lots of people desire it, the idea that we should make sure to reserve places for people who can't afford to live there makes no sense at all.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  And where do you suggest that all the other residents of San Francisco move? The street?
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    Well... the street is a pretty drastic first move. My first suggestion would be "some place you can afford." I've known several people that left the Valley (actually, California entirely) because they were finding it hard to afford stuff.
  - ionforce 13y ago
    You're making it sound like they are entitled to stay there. Just move to somewhere within your price range. Things change. Get over it.
  - ryguytilidie 13y ago
    I moved to Richmond. An engineer I'm friends with just moved to Pleasanton. Why should this well paid people be forced to move out of SF while we're creating low cost housing for artists? How does this make any sense?

ryguytilidie 13y ago

Look, I'll be the first person to express my dismay at tech people throwing money around and essentially saying "fuck you I'm rich" to the rest of the city. However, expecting them to do charity work, give free daycare and fight for civic changes that are almost diametrically opposite to their own needs is completely insane. Why does it have to be the people who work at startups? Why not the bankers? Why not the actual CEO's of these money making startups? How on earth did we decide that the people we should target are the workers at a company that is rich, why not the stockholders or executives? I mean go throw rocks at buildings on Sand Hill Road, not at the people who are just working their first job out of college.

jseliger 13y ago

1. I'm not sure that the premise is true and that people "hate" techies. Outside of a few, small media precincts, does any of this actually exist? 2. To the extent that any of this actually is true, it seems like a failure of voters and public policies to a) allow enough housing to built (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis... or Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High) and b) to build better public transportation, which is related to a). To the extent that tech company buses mean anything, they mean that the current system works so poorly that people are routing around it.

joyeuse6701 13y ago
This seems to be a well known pattern no? The people of SF benefit from the technologies and wealth the companies build and give as tax, which was thought of as 'free' or at whatever market price but there was a hidden, extremely expensive cost that manifested from your number 2. I find it funny, a city known for being progressive, now chaffs at relentless progression to the cadence of a different drummer: tech. As for the article, I'd say whatever to these specific ideas, but the call to action is correct I believe. Something must be done to alleviate tension.
Doctor_Fegg 13y ago
The transport thing baffles me. Here in the UK, improved public transport would be funded either by levies on new development (known as Section 106, being replaced by the Community Infrastructure Levy), or by supplemental business rates (that's how London Crossrail is happening). The commuters to the new developments get the transport they need, and it benefits everyone else as well. Why doesn't that happen in SF?
- rco8786 13y ago
  B/c politics in SF are nothing like politics in London.

vacri 13y ago

The employees who ride the buses could put up simple signs at the stops: "[X] out of the 300 people who ride this shuttle each day have pledged to volunteer once a month at a city shelter or facility... This is kind've offensive from the outset, and curiously enough, the paragraph doesn't actually suggest those shuttle riders actually volunteering, or how does an employer entice its employees to volunteer for unrelated stuff in their free time. Not to mention that it doesn't matter how many of the 300 realistically volunteer, it will always be seen as 'not enough'. 10 out of 300? Embarrassing stat to put up. 260 out of 300? What's wrong with the other 40? Also, I can't speak for SF, but here in Melbourne I had a friend rejected for volunteer work from several charities because she wasn't skilled. Volunteer work they have in spades for monkeywork. What they needed was management and organisational talents, to organise the volunteers and events, make orders etc

dvanduzer 13y ago
He tried to make it pretty clear that he is talking about Silicon Valley in particular. The rest of this tweet thread is worth reading: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/426365676975304704 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/426365676975304704
billyjobob 13y ago
In my time volunteering, I've never found a charity that would accept volunteers for any skilled, technical, interesting, managerial or decision-making tasks. Anything important is only entrusted to paid employees. Volunteers are used for unskilled work that would be minimum wage if paid. I was also surprised at the high number of my fellow volunteers who were actually 'volunteering' only because it was part of their court ordered sentence.

WalterBright 13y ago

Doesn't anyone else find it ironic that now it's rich people who ride the bus, and poor people who are forced to drive their own cars?

dkuntz2 13y ago
Not particularly. The saying "time is money" applies here: the argument could be made that the "rich people who ride the bus"'s time is worth more, and putting them on a bus where they can do some work instead of driving is a more efficient use of their time. Of course you could argue that the poorer people "forced" to drive their own cars could use that time, but they might not be knowledge workers, which means that time wouldn't be productive to their employers anyways. And this also is entirely dependent on how you perceive value to be created, and the model you choose to use.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  People riding the bus have always been able to do things like read, study, write, etc., whether or not they were knowledge workers.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    True. But is that productive for their employers? Which was my main point...

grecy 13y ago

These are all fantastic ideas, though I find it fascinating they're all about sharing the benefits of enormous wealth with the greater community, so that everyone can be happier and healthier. One wonders when America as a whole will realize the benefits of doing so and catch up to the rest of the Developed world. In my experience, Americans would rather "get mine" than share.

octaveguin 13y ago
Americans are ranked as one of if not the most generous nation by numerous stats [0]. Americans donate more of their money as a percentage of their total income than any other citizens on earth. Now, there's a lot one could say about why. I imagine it's a mix of the wealth and importance of religion uniquely in that developed country. There's a lot the US could do with social programs, that's for sure but the individuals are certainly more charitable than certain European countries. Greetings from Copenhagen :) The ideas presented in the blog are trite and solve nothing. [0]https://www.cafonline.org/media-office/press-releases/2013/world-giving-index-2013.aspx https://www.cafonline.org/media-office/press-releases/2013/w...
- grecy 13y ago
  > Americans are ranked as one of if not the most generous nation by numerous stats [0]. Americans donate more of their money as a percentage of their total income than any other citizens on earth. I wonder if that's because the society they live in requires them to do so. For example, Australian's know that employed people have plenty of money from welfare to live on, so there really isn't any need to "give" money to them. Americans know that the "have nots" are in serious trouble, so they give to them.
Domenic_S 13y ago
In my experience, Americans would rather choose to spread their wealth (ie. donate) than be forced to.
jcnnghm 13y ago
The US gives about 1.85% of GDP, the highest in the world. Second is Israel at 1.34%. The US also volunteers more than all but two other nations, the Netherlands and Sweden. In 2010, the US spent almost 3 times as much on foreign aid as any other developed nation (US at $38b v. Germany at $13.5b). Don't let the facts stand in the way though.

temphn 13y ago

startups which provide deluxe on-site benefits could extend their daycare, meal and on-site walk-in health care to people who have WIC or EBT cards and can show that they live in the neighborhood. The bonus here? You can meet actual people in your neighborhood. I really, really, really want Anil Dash to try this with his own startup on Market Street in the middle of the Tenderloin. Send us the video. Show us how it's done, Anil! Practice what you preach.

woah 13y ago

None of this will work. The hatred of tech has nothing to do with techies themselves. It is a channeling of people's anger about high rent towards an easy-to-demonize group of outsiders. The political organizers fanning the flames are largely the same people who caused the situation by demonizing (real estate) developers and making it hard to build. Techies can volunteer until they are blue in the face, and it will only ever be seen as an empty, fake gesture. The real estate situation in SF is a hard reality and volunteering will not diffuse it. "Look at these techies, they make so much money and sanctimoniously act like they are saints for deigning to volunteer once a week." We're talking about people who demonize shuttle buses here. Shuttle buses unquestionably reduce congestion and help the environment. This is not about who the techies are, or what they do. It is about the xenophobic scapegoating of a group of socially awkward outsiders by political organizers whose previous shortsighted outrage campaigns have screwed up SF's real estate market for decades to come.

justinzollars 13y ago
I think newspapers and blogs are also fanning the flames. There were suggestions that this would happen before it did (economist), then the media began reporting rumor, then events started happening (albeit small) these were picked up by the national media and blogs. This feels more like a game the media is playing with society, rather than a true reflection of how society feels about tech workers. This isn't news.
carsongross 13y ago
I have a theory that some of the anger at techies is driven by the fact that they are, in many cases and in popular imagination, fairly nerdy. People are used to looking down on these people, given America's school system and typical corporate makeup. Perhaps it even has evolutionary roots. And, by and large, nerdy kinda-liberal people are inclined to take it, agree, and supplicate. Compare and contrast with the treatment of the financial industry in the Bay Area. Even on HN, taking shots at an obviously fraudulent financial system and the people in it will get you jumped all over ("they allocate capital efficiently!", etc, etc. et-tripe-cetera) while articles like this will elicit more balanced and self-aware commentary. My theory is that this dynamic is more prevalent in the press and non-tech thought leaders, etc. not in the middle and lower classes.

SwellJoe 13y ago

I'm a lifetime nerd and a tech startup founder. Some of my best friends work at Google, facebook, Apple, etc., but I'm very sympathetic to the folks who are angry about the situation in SF. The industry culture in the valley is extremely insulated from the real world, and it shows in everything. At bars and cafes, the conversation is the same old echo chamber; re-affirming the world changing nature of the next Snapchat copy. In a world with so many huge problems, so many smart people exerting so much effort and spending so much of other people's money on trivial things is the rule not the exception, and it's sad (of, if it doesn't make one sad, it makes one angry). You can't escape it. It's actually one of the reasons I bought a motorhome and hit the road...I've only been back to the valley once since I left four years ago. The valley is depressing to me, for all the reasons so many find it full of optimism. I'm not optimistic when some of the brightest minds are expending their efforts on imitation of trivialities. America is looking like a class war again for the first time in a long time. And, the folks comfortably in the middle don't realize they're siding with the folks up top, either through inaction or through conscious choice to serve those interests (even if they're only middle class by SF standards and have much more in common with poor folk than with the .1% that effectively own everything). This is why there's so much anger. San Francisco has always been expensive and most regular folk there have always been renters. But, it's becoming impossibly expensive for huge swaths of people and the hope of surviving in SF as anything other than a wealthy white (or Asian) male engineer is fading fast. This article has some good ideas. People in the valley should get out of that echo chamber regularly and do something real in their community. Come up with something else to talk about now and then. But, I don't think it will solve the underlying problem; lower and middle class people are realizing the world isn't what they thought. The odds are simply stacked against poor folks in America (and stacked against escaping being poor), and they're worst in places like San Francisco and NYC. The churn in wealth that is supposed to happen in a market economy isn't happening anymore, if it ever did. It's been locked down hard by a very few, and the rest of us are merely renters and debtors, with no real say in the system. And, the idea I see that "they should just move" is missing the point...this problem isn't a San Francisco problem. It is nationwide, and San Francisco is just the canary. It's happening in every major city in the country.

notahacker 13y ago

joemaller1 13y ago

The "solution" will be an exodus from SF to other communities. SF has eaten itself before, and it will doubtlessly eat itself again.

rco8786 13y ago

The author came up with 5 original ideas(not even very good ones) and then accosted tech companies for having not implemented them before he/she thought of them. Wat.

danielharan 13y ago

There are two problems that need to be fixed. -Housing prices. Supporting affordable housing isn't the solution here; there needs to be more supply. Given all the money invested in tech, surely the bigger companies could invest in some real estate. Or announce that you're ready to do so, when the city finally allows it - now the city's the villain. -Fix Transportation so you don't need private shuttles. Either force the city to improve transportation or support startups that can do it instead.

calroc 13y ago

I'm from SF. People should realize that politics in this town (and Berzerkeley) are infused with an entire cottage industry of lunatics and freaks. Watch SFGOV public access to see what I mean. People sing songs, rant, dress up in weird costumes, it's a little slice of a Fellini movie. Even if tech folks suddenly got bit by the community bug they're not going to be able to dialog with people who have basically NO interest in real working politics because they are simply using the public sphere to project their hang-ups and obsessions. Crazy people who want attention make up too much of the political scene out here. Basically SF is one giant open-air insane asylum. This is where you end up if no place else in the country (or world) has a niche for you and your particular weird. Now all these fresh-faced, well-scrubbed tech workers are flooding in and displacing the nuts, who have nowhere else to go. Of course the nuts (and brother/sister/sophont I am one of the nuts) are upset. Unless the techies can somehow develop the compassion for and tolerance of, say, Mother Teresa, for weird freaky shit they just aren't going to be able to engage with the old school Bay Area culture. And I don't think it's fair to expect them to. Unfortunately, this means that the "gentrification" will proceed apace until SF has become the new, uh, Portland? Seattle? San Jose? Some other not-so-weird city anyhow.

oh_sigh 13y ago

The entire premise is flawed. Who hates techies in SF? A tiny, tiny minority of people.

crw-rw-rw 13y ago

If these idiots hadn't agitated for laws limiting development in the first place, then housing wouldn't be as unaffordable as it is now in the Bay Area. Instead of attacking tech workers earning high five-figure salaries, which is hardly makes them "rich" by Bay Area standards, why not relax laws restricting development? Much of this outrage is actually manufactured, and by Gawker no less: http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/ http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-de...

scotty79 13y ago

Simplest thing would be to build apartments and shops for all their emploees on company land.

neilk 13y ago

The entire premise of this is flawed. I posted a huge ranty comment on Anil's page, but the TL;DR: * Tech companies have no expertise providing social services. * It is a very bad idea to have public services delivered at the whim of private companies. The answer to this is taxes. You want to criticize Google? Criticize them for using offshore tax shelters. There also seems to be a longing for Google to swoop in and somehow fix politics, but really, unless money or technology solves the problem, Google is not the answer.

jinushaun 13y ago
The buses fix the Bay Area's bad public transportation problem. Now unless the Bay Area city and county govts and its residents are open to the idea of having tech companies use imminent domain and straight up pay for everything (like Google's municipal wifi initiative), I don't understand the hate for the buses. You don't hear this in NY.

memracom 13y ago

It says something about the level of intelligence of Silicon Valley people that it has taken this long for someone to point out that there are LOTS of things that local people could do to defuse the situation and improve the situation. In fact, given the number of people who live in SF and work down in the Valley, one wonders why on earth they started running private buses and did not go straight to the city and demand new routes on the city bus system. As for wifi, that could have been installed on the new routes for all riders, not just privileged Googlers. Great coding ability is not enough to get by in life. You need creativity as well, and some understanding of social, business and political issues. Because life does not end at the edge of the CPU chip.