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I agree with you. The First Estate (landlords, investors and executives, paid enough to own houses) has been dicking over the Second Estate (engineers, able to

I agree with you. The First Estate (landlords, investors and executives, paid enough to own houses) has been dicking over the Second Estate (engineers, able to live in SF but not save or buy houses) through no-poach agreements, collusive arrangements (note-sharing among VCs) blocking them from starting new businesses, and increasingly mean-spirited HR policies (stack ranking). The Third Estate (everyone else) is being evicted and abused by the rent-seeking First Estate. Somehow, the First Estate managed to convince the Third Estate that it's the Second Estate's fault, hence the bus attacks. It's not. I'm not so out-of-touch that I'd call $120,000 per year, in any city, "poor" because it's not; but neither is it "rich" and these tech workers are not responsible for this NIMBY nonsense.

fidotron 13y ago
A similar situation is behind the Economist existing, as about 200 years ago in the UK they had a strange setup with land owning aristocrats, free market industrialists, and proto-communist "Chartists". The aristocrats found unlikely allies in the Chartists, though it didn't help in the long run. The free market types were concerned about the Corn Laws, and formed the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corn_Law_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corn_Law_League , and their journal ended up becoming the Economist. The Corn Laws effectively subsidised the aristocracy, and prevented free labour movement, first by keeping cost of living too high (through cost of food) secondly by keeping people working on otherwise unviable farms to produce corn. The Chartists were so preoccupied with the idea that the industrialists wanted to drive wages down they missed the bigger picture.
- nostrademons 13y ago
  This seems to always be the case - people turn on neighboring socioeconomic classes, not the ones at the extreme top of the pyramid. During the Jim Crow era, the worst discrimination against blacks came not from the elite (many of whom had been abolitionists during slavery and equality-minded liberals afterwards), but from poor white sharecroppers who were one degree removed from slavery themselves. Nowadays, the conservative movement within the U.S. is composed of the ultra-wealthy plus the lower-middle-class and working-class Religious Right. The targets of the LA race riots were not rich white people, but Korean shopkeepers in minority neighborhoods. I suspect it's because it's generally impossible to "skip" social classes and jump directly from the bottom to the top. Even rags-to-riches stories usually involved a period of a few decades where the person enters and assimilates into the intervening classes. Jan Koum went from immigrant to middle-class tech worker to aspiring entrepreneur to multi-billionaire. Henry Ford went from farmer to machinist to engineer to captain of industry. Andrew Carnegie went from immigrant to bobbin boy to telegraph operator to bookkeeper & investor to steel magnate. As a result, each class views the class directly above them as their impediment to upwards mobility, and they're not wrong in that belief. In times of scarcity, resentment usually flows upwards to their immediate neighbors. The more distant causes of the socioeconomic structures that hold people down are effectively invisible to the rioting classes; all they see is people who are not very different from themselves doing better than them.
king_jester 13y ago
> Somehow, the First Estate managed to convince the Third Estate that it's the Second Estate's fault, hence the bus attacks. It's not. Tech workers most certainly share some blame. When you accept work with those companies and move out to the valley, you are contributing to the culture of evictions and hyper gentrification that affect that area. You don't get to wash your hands clean.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  You seem to think they have a choice. Most tech workers don't want to live in the Bay Area. They're forced to live there because their careers require it. VC is a feudalistic, oligarchic reputation economy, concentrated in a tiny (now congested and overpriced) geographic area. Since they're not content to be passive investors (although their portfolios would perform better than they were) but want to actively manage, they only fund companies within 30 miles of them. Tech workers don't have much of a choice. If you want to have a career in this game, you have to live where the jobs are.
  - king_jester 13y ago
    While agree about VC being feudalistic and oligarchic, that doesn't mean tech workers don't have choice in where the work to some degree. There are many kinds of software development for many different companies in different locations, not to mention remote work. If you choose to pursue an opportunity in the valley, that has very real consequences and realities and that should be fully examined, and that includes knowing that you may be contributing to displacement and gentrification. EDIT: For the record, I've been a tech worker for a while and have never lived in California (except when I was a wee child).
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      I worked for 7 years in NYC, considered the #2 tech hub. (Obviously, there's a huge gap between #1 and #2.) I'd almost certainly be an angel investor by now if I spent that time in SV. People about as talented as I am (and, some, significantly less) are now EIRs and partners at reputable VC firms, or even able to found. Place matters. I'm not poor, but I'm not where I should be, and probably not where I would be if I'd started in SF. (Why I chose NYC would take too long to explain. It's not relevant.) Once you have a national reputation and can get $250+ per hour consulting rates, you can live whereever you want. It takes a while to get there. Most people have to put in their decade in a congested, expensive, and not very pleasant region of the country before getting there (and some never do). As for remote work, it has the same issues. If you have a national reputation already, you can get away with it. Most places, remote workers don't really advance their careers and are the first ones axed.
walshemj 13y ago
yeh i am loking at a well paid job in london uk and I will still end up geting paid a lot less than a tube driver does and a much worse pension. Btw I am not saying that tube divers dont deserve thier sallary just pointing out how poorly techies are treated in the UK
samstave 13y ago
All salaries should just be spoken of with respect to their purchasing power, not qty of dollars per year. A 120k salary in sf has the same purchasing power of a 50k salary in other states (according to some studies from a few years ago, and id suspect it has gotten worse) The annual income required just to afford a monthly rent in SF is insane. Assuming that many 1bed apts are ~3,000 per month, youd need to make north of 50k just to cover the rent - let alone all other living expenses...

fidotron 13y ago

A similar situation is behind the Economist existing, as about 200 years ago in the UK they had a strange setup with land owning aristocrats, free market industrialists, and proto-communist "Chartists". The aristocrats found unlikely allies in the Chartists, though it didn't help in the long run. The free market types were concerned about the Corn Laws, and formed the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corn_Law_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corn_Law_League , and their journal ended up becoming the Economist. The Corn Laws effectively subsidised the aristocracy, and prevented free labour movement, first by keeping cost of living too high (through cost of food) secondly by keeping people working on otherwise unviable farms to produce corn. The Chartists were so preoccupied with the idea that the industrialists wanted to drive wages down they missed the bigger picture.

nostrademons 13y ago
This seems to always be the case - people turn on neighboring socioeconomic classes, not the ones at the extreme top of the pyramid. During the Jim Crow era, the worst discrimination against blacks came not from the elite (many of whom had been abolitionists during slavery and equality-minded liberals afterwards), but from poor white sharecroppers who were one degree removed from slavery themselves. Nowadays, the conservative movement within the U.S. is composed of the ultra-wealthy plus the lower-middle-class and working-class Religious Right. The targets of the LA race riots were not rich white people, but Korean shopkeepers in minority neighborhoods. I suspect it's because it's generally impossible to "skip" social classes and jump directly from the bottom to the top. Even rags-to-riches stories usually involved a period of a few decades where the person enters and assimilates into the intervening classes. Jan Koum went from immigrant to middle-class tech worker to aspiring entrepreneur to multi-billionaire. Henry Ford went from farmer to machinist to engineer to captain of industry. Andrew Carnegie went from immigrant to bobbin boy to telegraph operator to bookkeeper & investor to steel magnate. As a result, each class views the class directly above them as their impediment to upwards mobility, and they're not wrong in that belief. In times of scarcity, resentment usually flows upwards to their immediate neighbors. The more distant causes of the socioeconomic structures that hold people down are effectively invisible to the rioting classes; all they see is people who are not very different from themselves doing better than them.

king_jester 13y ago

> Somehow, the First Estate managed to convince the Third Estate that it's the Second Estate's fault, hence the bus attacks. It's not. Tech workers most certainly share some blame. When you accept work with those companies and move out to the valley, you are contributing to the culture of evictions and hyper gentrification that affect that area. You don't get to wash your hands clean.

michaelochurch 13y ago
You seem to think they have a choice. Most tech workers don't want to live in the Bay Area. They're forced to live there because their careers require it. VC is a feudalistic, oligarchic reputation economy, concentrated in a tiny (now congested and overpriced) geographic area. Since they're not content to be passive investors (although their portfolios would perform better than they were) but want to actively manage, they only fund companies within 30 miles of them. Tech workers don't have much of a choice. If you want to have a career in this game, you have to live where the jobs are.
- king_jester 13y ago
  While agree about VC being feudalistic and oligarchic, that doesn't mean tech workers don't have choice in where the work to some degree. There are many kinds of software development for many different companies in different locations, not to mention remote work. If you choose to pursue an opportunity in the valley, that has very real consequences and realities and that should be fully examined, and that includes knowing that you may be contributing to displacement and gentrification. EDIT: For the record, I've been a tech worker for a while and have never lived in California (except when I was a wee child).
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    I worked for 7 years in NYC, considered the #2 tech hub. (Obviously, there's a huge gap between #1 and #2.) I'd almost certainly be an angel investor by now if I spent that time in SV. People about as talented as I am (and, some, significantly less) are now EIRs and partners at reputable VC firms, or even able to found. Place matters. I'm not poor, but I'm not where I should be, and probably not where I would be if I'd started in SF. (Why I chose NYC would take too long to explain. It's not relevant.) Once you have a national reputation and can get $250+ per hour consulting rates, you can live whereever you want. It takes a while to get there. Most people have to put in their decade in a congested, expensive, and not very pleasant region of the country before getting there (and some never do). As for remote work, it has the same issues. If you have a national reputation already, you can get away with it. Most places, remote workers don't really advance their careers and are the first ones axed.

walshemj 13y ago

yeh i am loking at a well paid job in london uk and I will still end up geting paid a lot less than a tube driver does and a much worse pension. Btw I am not saying that tube divers dont deserve thier sallary just pointing out how poorly techies are treated in the UK

samstave 13y ago

All salaries should just be spoken of with respect to their purchasing power, not qty of dollars per year. A 120k salary in sf has the same purchasing power of a 50k salary in other states (according to some studies from a few years ago, and id suspect it has gotten worse) The annual income required just to afford a monthly rent in SF is insane. Assuming that many 1bed apts are ~3,000 per month, youd need to make north of 50k just to cover the rent - let alone all other living expenses...