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Underwhelming article. There is some value in it. The focus of the current crop of VC darlings is competitive. Instead of "let's build something new", it's "le

Underwhelming article. There is some value in it. The focus of the current crop of VC darlings is competitive. Instead of "let's build something new", it's "let's use VC rocket fuel to blow up something old, and get rich amid the chaos". That culture exists because of the VCs' emotional need to feel superior; it's not the fault of the engineers. The overarching theme of betrayal and decline in Silicon Valley is worth noting. California used to represent a Middle Path between the historical extremes of class warfare (culminating in violent revolt) and acceptance of subordination (culminating in persistent, generational slavery). You could Go West, find clean air and cheap land, build something awesome, and win just by outperforming. You didn't have to fight or cower, you could walk away and do your own thing and be really good at it. You weren't trying to destroy or humiliate or "disrupt" incumbents. You just went to a place where they were irrelevant and (to borrow from Havel) lived in truth. That living in truth probably ended around 1990. Now, Valley startups are the new face of status quo assholes, except with several times the arrogance and hubris. Let's make one comparison based on how departing employees are treated. Banks (and law firms) give severance when they fire people, and consider those who leave to be alumni. VC darlings ruin the reputations of those who part them. Banks have honest layoffs when business is bad. VC startups have bullshit PIPs. That's just one example. On external and internal matters, whether your focus is on customers or employees or the environment, Wall Street is far more ethical than any of these VC darlings are. It's not even close. And unless you end up as an architect or data scientist or in R&D, the work in tech proper isn't actually any more interesting than what's in finance (and the latter is compensated much better). Most software engineers end up as drones churning tickets they don't care about, which is far worse than being a quant at a hedge fund. (The work in finance isn't inspiring in the "I'm changing the world" sense, but it's tolerable and often fun.) Wall Street also is not afraid to reward excellence, while Valley companies form no-poach pacts that put a ceiling on engineer compensation and force the best ones either into management or into hedge funds once they have kids. What is Silicon Valley now? It's a finishing school for the spoiled, snot-nosed, spawn of the old establishment, whose parents pull connections to make it look like their mediocre progeny actually built something while all the work was done by H1-B indentured servants and clueless 22-year-olds getting 0.01% equity while working 90 hours per week. Silicon Valley deserves to be Public Enemy #1 (although, in fact, I don't think it is; it's not nearly as hated as we in the HN bubble believe) but the reasons are far more numerous and much deeper than what the OP describes.

nostrademons 13y ago
There's a lot of historical revisionism here. Silicon Valley was built on the defense industry. Lockheed Martin established a factory here to build Polaris nuclear missiles to literally "blow something up" (specifically, Russians). Fairchild Semiconductor got its funding from Fairchild Camera and Instrument, which got its start making bombsights and gunsights for the U.S. military. Going back farther, manifest destiny was all about stealing land from the indigenous people who weren't as technologically advanced and gifting it to settlers to spread our cultural values. If you look at the large-scale history of the world, it basically consists of "blowing up something old", usually literally. On a micro-level there's a lot of good that goes on in the world, but if you want to be big enough to get into the history books it usually consists of crushing your opposition enough that they don't get to write the history. Usually if someone spins a narrative of idealism that involves doing good for the world, they're trying to manipulate you. We can be good to each other, but when it comes to the whole world as a closed system, it will remain the world, which is the sum total of all the good and bad and jockeying for power that goes on in it.

nostrademons 13y ago

There's a lot of historical revisionism here. Silicon Valley was built on the defense industry. Lockheed Martin established a factory here to build Polaris nuclear missiles to literally "blow something up" (specifically, Russians). Fairchild Semiconductor got its funding from Fairchild Camera and Instrument, which got its start making bombsights and gunsights for the U.S. military. Going back farther, manifest destiny was all about stealing land from the indigenous people who weren't as technologically advanced and gifting it to settlers to spread our cultural values. If you look at the large-scale history of the world, it basically consists of "blowing up something old", usually literally. On a micro-level there's a lot of good that goes on in the world, but if you want to be big enough to get into the history books it usually consists of crushing your opposition enough that they don't get to write the history. Usually if someone spins a narrative of idealism that involves doing good for the world, they're trying to manipulate you. We can be good to each other, but when it comes to the whole world as a closed system, it will remain the world, which is the sum total of all the good and bad and jockeying for power that goes on in it.