Fortune asks 'Why does America hate Silicon Valley?'

http://www.zdnet.com/fortune-asks-why-does-america-hate-silicon-valley-7000021591/

by matan_a • 13 years ago

25 15 13 years ago

dankesha• 13 years ago

I can say that, in Australia, we simply have 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' which Wikipedia defines to be "... a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers."

Wouldn't go so far as to say we 'hate' Silicon Valley.

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

I think that there is something similar in Scandinavia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

peterjancelis• 13 years ago

There's also the phenomenon that every industry thinks it is special. There are very few people who think "I wish I was a programmer but I'm just not talented enough".

colmvp• 13 years ago

So then why do we love beautiful people? At least with talent/achievement, you earned something. Beauty is mostly genetic.

001sky• 13 years ago

People hate hippocrites everywhere. Silicon Valley puts out a lot of lemons, and makes all its money from the exceptions. Yet then it seems everywhere the "average" tend to think they are "tall poppy". The question about SV should be rephrased, is the premise true?

mwilcox• 13 years ago

Even more widespread here in NZ too.

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

"They hate us for our success/freedom/money/beauty" is also a typical defensive narcissistic reaction to avoid having to acknowledge any actual criticism.

magicalist• 13 years ago

Jesus, speaking of narcissism...

America likes tech, but really doesn't care that much about Silicon Valley. Does anyone leave this place and not immediately see that?

(even the original article is flawed, somehow thinking that distance between the New York financial sector and the press lets them fare better. The meme these days is that the tech sector is after your private data to advertise at you, but Americans by and large put the financial sector at about the same level as they put Congress. The idea that Americans even care enough about Silicon Valley to be able to loathe the place is a joke)

potatolicious• 13 years ago

Ehh, sort of kind of agree.

America in general doesn't hate tech. Here in NYC tech is not really a controversial topic, and I certainly don't feel a stigma telling people I work in tech.

That said, the Bay Area really hates tech, for much of the same reasons outlined in the article. Despite the fact that techies are everywhere, there is certainly a stigma and a very palpable tension between tech and everyone else in the area.

And I have to agree with the article on that front. We talk a lot of shit about changing the world, we project the image (and the ballot boxes confirm) of bleeding heart, socially-aware liberals but yet it seems that belief applies anywhere except our own back yards. It's a quixotic place where we rant about Big Pharma abusing governments for tax breaks, and then do it ourselves.

It's the sort of place where you'd talk a lot of shit about doing good, alleviating poverty, establishing microloans in distant faraway lands, but do nothing for the open-air crack den you live next to. Nothing about the tens of thousands of homeless people. Nothing about the second-world warzone of a ghetto smack in the heart of the city (the article mentions East Palo Alto, but the Mission and SOMA deserve a mention too). In fact we seem to go out of our way to obstruct any progress in this regard.

We evangelize the dream of this techno-utopia when we can't even realize it in our own back yards. Worse, we're not even trying.

I for one got sick of this shit and moved out. I don't want the future that the Bay Area is building, because it involves a lot of wealthy people deeply absorbed into techno-gadgetry while the world burns down around them.

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

Why mediocrities hate cleverness? Because of inevitable cognitive dissonance they must experience in order to fool themselves back to the delusion of their own cleverness.)

Why common people hate hipsters is another question worth asking.) This is because everyone could see, except hipsters themselves, that their playacting of being smart/sophisticated instead of actually being smart is an offence even to that very basic intelligence common folks have.

True smartness doesn't require any special behavior or a dressing style, the same way that wearing a robe is optional for a true seer and flawlessness of a posture is of second importance to the goal of so-called meditation.)

aphelion• 13 years ago

People who hate Silicon Valley do so because they think it's full of narcissistic social climbers who just want to get rich quick but talk like they've joined up with the Peace Corps or are working on a cure for cancer. Wall Streeters, by comparison, are more honest about their rapacity.

It's a stereotype, and one that I'd argue is mostly unfair but at least occasionally accurate.

ChrisNorstrom• 13 years ago

On one hand:

It's not Google or Facebook's responsibility to fix a broken government. Stop being so entitled. Twitter cannot fix a ghetto. Twitter cannot hand out jobs to gangsters and murderers. Twitter cannot build a police station. Twitter cannot set up surveillance for the neighborhood. Twitter cannot open up it's campus to random strangers. Twitter is a company, not a charity. It's working in the best interest of its employees.

On the other hand:

You are judged by your attitude. "Change the World"ers remind me of Christians. They worship Jesus yet act nothing like him nor do they follow any of this rules or philosophies. Googlers & Twatters talking about changing the world with WiFi Blimps in Africa and bringing democracy to the middle east while isolating themselves from their own local community is like Christians talking about how much they love Jesus, read the bible, donate millions to televangelists, build million dollar church stadiums yet completely ignore helping the children, poor, & sick.

Then again:

Should "Change the World"ers be more corporate so we don't judge them based on the expectations they set themselves up to? How is that better?

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

It's interesting that most of the comments here are about the point that non-tech people hate silicon valley people. The most interesting part of this article for me was the fact that these companies are changing the world but not helping or contributing to their own local areas. As businesses are more easily able to reach a global market, rather than having to build from a small area and grow, they seem to be caring less about social responsibility. It would be interesting to see how something as simple as shutting down Twitter's free employee meals/snacks etc. and instead subsidising purchases at local businesses would affect the local area.

toddh• 13 years ago

They hate us for our freedoms.

yason• 13 years ago

Not living there, what's the Silicon Valley crime like in reality?

Fortune asks 'Why does America hate Silicon Valley?'

Related Stories