5 ms·

First of all, it's pretty clear that the Valley isn't "disrupting" the establishment. It is the establishment. The elephant in the room: the death of the middl

First of all, it's pretty clear that the Valley isn't "disrupting" the establishment. It is the establishment. The elephant in the room: the death of the middle class. Thirty years ago, unions were strong and average people had savings. Venture capitalists were wealthier than average, but not of a superior class... and they still hung out with people who wrote code for a living. Class distances weren't nonexistent, but they weren't nearly as sheer as they are today. And venture capital wasn't a requirement because bootstrapping was really possible, because average people actually had money. People complain about how the Valley is cranking out apps for spoiled 20-year-olds instead of regular people, and missing the much bigger point, which is that "regular people" are cash-strapped, time-poor, overworked and generally disenfranchised altogether. The people building apps for spoiled 20-year-olds are staking out the new, post-large-middle-class world. Now, to bankroll a business you either need elite connections (usually to people spending others' money) or outlandish luck, you have to have people in your pocket who'll ensure coverage, and you'll probably end up taking a back seat in your company as soon as you hire a "business co-founder" who can deliver Sequoia and A16Z. No one has a good idea what to build, and products and technology aren't really the point (the point is getting bought; "startups" are a long audition process for would-be corporate executives looking to jump the queue) but one sector that isn't being targeted is the (disintegrating) middle class. Corporate America, meanwhile, is stronger than ever. The wealth and connections are even more concentrated, giving power to the few at the expense of the many. And these Valley startups are the driving force behind all of this.

maxsilver 12y ago
Agree entirely. This is a perfect write up of the situation at hand. > but one sector that isn't being targeted is the (disintegrating) middle class. So, what (if anything) can we do to fix this? Is there anything a regular person can do or work on to help the (disintegrating) middle class?
- Consultant32452 12y ago
  I would suggest joining unions and encouraging others to join them. With all the nonsense coming out of Google, Microsoft and others regarding wage warfare against their own employees I'm shocked that developers haven't unionized.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    I'd also like to point out that unions would likely offer much greater protection for the likes of Snowden. There would be viable paths to take within the union and would likely result in not having to run off to Russia.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
    There's way too much libertarianism, if not outright objectivism, in this industry for just about any kind of organized labor to exist.
    - Consultant32452 12y ago
      Honestly, it's hard to organize people for any type of movement that are in the top 10-20% of incomes in the country. Yes, we may all be getting screwed, but we're still making bank compared to most.
  - incision 12y ago
    >'With all the nonsense coming out of Google, Microsoft and others regarding wage warfare against their own employees I'm shocked that developers haven't unionized.' I think it's a whole mess of things - outdated misconceptions about unions, overestimating their own abilities, being oblivious to the efforts of employers to commoditize the profession and/or play labor against itself. I was a member of a union which included developers for a while and it wasn't close to a bad deal for anyone short of perhaps the top 0.5-1% and even that was arguable. One of the brightest guys, who I know quite well, was endlessly dissatisfied with his not-too-shabby top-end union rate and left seeking more. Today, not only is he paid notably less (though still comfortably over 100k) has endured layoffs and of course lost the 457, 401 + matching, 5 weeks annual vacation, fast accruing sick leave, 1.5x on-call rate and health plan. In the same period he'd have seen 2 guaranteed longevity increases from the union plus across the board bumps from a revised CBA. Developers will keep thinking they're all 10xers who'll see their rates quartered by unions until a16z has its way and software development truly is a 'low-skill trade', 'decoupled from ability and experience' [1] and it's too late. 1: http://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engineer/ http://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engin...
- S4M 12y ago
  I am thinking of favoring remote work. That way employees won't have to spent the largest part of their salary in expensive rents, and for the employer it's advantageous at he can pay a bit lower than the market rate (and still make his employees happy). That's a simple measure new startups could adopt, and I keep being surprised YC companies are not looking for remote people.
  - dasmoth 12y ago
    I'm also surprised we don't see more remote work in the more computational bits of academia, but there's still a widespread view that remote work is bad for team cohesion and serendipitous collaboration. Were one cynically inclined, one might wonder if remote work is unpopular because it lets people bypass some of the status-signalling systems that tend to develop within organisations.
    - nostrademons 12y ago
      Remote work eliminates the emotional content of the communication channel between workers. That is bad for team cohesion and serendipitous collaboration. Humans have evolved a number of emotions that enable us to work together even when it's not in our immediate self-interest: guilt and shame to realize when we've hurt somebody else and discourage us from doing it again, excitement to pick up on and pile into promising ideas created by others, compassion to help out members of the group who have fallen behind, trust to suspend disbelief and commit to a direction without knowing exactly where it will take you. Teams that lack this communication channel tend to spin apart into little atoms each doing their own thing. Without feeding off each others' excitement, there's little common purpose. Without compassion, it's easy for some workers to fall behind and slow everyone down. Without trust, the team can never take on a goal where the outcome is uncertain or unknown at inception time. Status-signalling is a byproduct of this emotional communication channel. It's people gaming the system to generate the emotions that the group needs to function without actually doing the work. I'd love to see remote work become viable too, but it needs a viable way of solving the "presence problem", the need for emotions to come through remotely as well as pure factual information. Without that, you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I looked into this when I was searching for startup ideas recently, but all technologies I could think of were easily 5-10 years away from being viable.

maxsilver 12y ago

Agree entirely. This is a perfect write up of the situation at hand. > but one sector that isn't being targeted is the (disintegrating) middle class. So, what (if anything) can we do to fix this? Is there anything a regular person can do or work on to help the (disintegrating) middle class?

Consultant32452 12y ago
I would suggest joining unions and encouraging others to join them. With all the nonsense coming out of Google, Microsoft and others regarding wage warfare against their own employees I'm shocked that developers haven't unionized.
- Consultant32452 12y ago
  I'd also like to point out that unions would likely offer much greater protection for the likes of Snowden. There would be viable paths to take within the union and would likely result in not having to run off to Russia.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  There's way too much libertarianism, if not outright objectivism, in this industry for just about any kind of organized labor to exist.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    Honestly, it's hard to organize people for any type of movement that are in the top 10-20% of incomes in the country. Yes, we may all be getting screwed, but we're still making bank compared to most.
- incision 12y ago
  >'With all the nonsense coming out of Google, Microsoft and others regarding wage warfare against their own employees I'm shocked that developers haven't unionized.' I think it's a whole mess of things - outdated misconceptions about unions, overestimating their own abilities, being oblivious to the efforts of employers to commoditize the profession and/or play labor against itself. I was a member of a union which included developers for a while and it wasn't close to a bad deal for anyone short of perhaps the top 0.5-1% and even that was arguable. One of the brightest guys, who I know quite well, was endlessly dissatisfied with his not-too-shabby top-end union rate and left seeking more. Today, not only is he paid notably less (though still comfortably over 100k) has endured layoffs and of course lost the 457, 401 + matching, 5 weeks annual vacation, fast accruing sick leave, 1.5x on-call rate and health plan. In the same period he'd have seen 2 guaranteed longevity increases from the union plus across the board bumps from a revised CBA. Developers will keep thinking they're all 10xers who'll see their rates quartered by unions until a16z has its way and software development truly is a 'low-skill trade', 'decoupled from ability and experience' [1] and it's too late. 1: http://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engineer/ http://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engin...
S4M 12y ago
I am thinking of favoring remote work. That way employees won't have to spent the largest part of their salary in expensive rents, and for the employer it's advantageous at he can pay a bit lower than the market rate (and still make his employees happy). That's a simple measure new startups could adopt, and I keep being surprised YC companies are not looking for remote people.
- dasmoth 12y ago
  I'm also surprised we don't see more remote work in the more computational bits of academia, but there's still a widespread view that remote work is bad for team cohesion and serendipitous collaboration. Were one cynically inclined, one might wonder if remote work is unpopular because it lets people bypass some of the status-signalling systems that tend to develop within organisations.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    Remote work eliminates the emotional content of the communication channel between workers. That is bad for team cohesion and serendipitous collaboration. Humans have evolved a number of emotions that enable us to work together even when it's not in our immediate self-interest: guilt and shame to realize when we've hurt somebody else and discourage us from doing it again, excitement to pick up on and pile into promising ideas created by others, compassion to help out members of the group who have fallen behind, trust to suspend disbelief and commit to a direction without knowing exactly where it will take you. Teams that lack this communication channel tend to spin apart into little atoms each doing their own thing. Without feeding off each others' excitement, there's little common purpose. Without compassion, it's easy for some workers to fall behind and slow everyone down. Without trust, the team can never take on a goal where the outcome is uncertain or unknown at inception time. Status-signalling is a byproduct of this emotional communication channel. It's people gaming the system to generate the emotions that the group needs to function without actually doing the work. I'd love to see remote work become viable too, but it needs a viable way of solving the "presence problem", the need for emotions to come through remotely as well as pure factual information. Without that, you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I looked into this when I was searching for startup ideas recently, but all technologies I could think of were easily 5-10 years away from being viable.