> "lending a hand to pull up those around them. The mentality of modesty and collaboration greatly detracts from the sort of dystopian and polarized picture this article paints."
"Those around them" = those like themselves, who 99 times out of 100 aren't actually from around the Bay Area.
Hell, even the businesses supported by the Bay Area elite are not at all similar to those that already existed before. The wealthy exited entrepreneurs aren't lending a hand to pull up the taco stand or the nail salon, they are evicting them in favor of businesses they like better.
Which may simply be the natural order of things, but it's a far cry from this populist "floating all boats" story you're weaving.
More importantly, wealthy exited entrepreneurs are funding new generations of startups - but that's a far, far cry from "pulling up those around them". One of the things that really, really bothered me when living in the Bay Area was how the tech industry literally does not give one iota of mind to anyone who isn't in the tech industry.
The tech industry helps itself and lets the world go to shit around them. The tech industry builds gated garages instead of helping solve crime in their neighborhoods. They invest in bigger and fancier buses in which to transport their own kind, instead of helping solve transportation in their cities. Even innovations like Uber are priced in such a way that there may as well be a "techno-elites only, kthx" sign on the door.
It's only non-dystopian and non-polarized if you already have membership to the ol' boys club that is Silicon Valley, in which case the entrepreneurial community is indeed supportive and has each others' backs. If you aren't lucky enough to belong to this club though, you're shit out of luck, even if you live just down the street.
Which, now that I think of it, isn't that different from how East Coast Old Money works. Funny how we keep making fun of them.
"Those around them" = those like themselves, who 99 times out of 100 aren't actually from around the Bay Area.
Hell, even the businesses supported by the Bay Area elite are not at all similar to those that already existed before. The wealthy exited entrepreneurs aren't lending a hand to pull up the taco stand or the nail salon, they are evicting them in favor of businesses they like better.
Which may simply be the natural order of things, but it's a far cry from this populist "floating all boats" story you're weaving.
More importantly, wealthy exited entrepreneurs are funding new generations of startups - but that's a far, far cry from "pulling up those around them". One of the things that really, really bothered me when living in the Bay Area was how the tech industry literally does not give one iota of mind to anyone who isn't in the tech industry.
The tech industry helps itself and lets the world go to shit around them. The tech industry builds gated garages instead of helping solve crime in their neighborhoods. They invest in bigger and fancier buses in which to transport their own kind, instead of helping solve transportation in their cities. Even innovations like Uber are priced in such a way that there may as well be a "techno-elites only, kthx" sign on the door.
It's only non-dystopian and non-polarized if you already have membership to the ol' boys club that is Silicon Valley, in which case the entrepreneurial community is indeed supportive and has each others' backs. If you aren't lucky enough to belong to this club though, you're shit out of luck, even if you live just down the street.
Which, now that I think of it, isn't that different from how East Coast Old Money works. Funny how we keep making fun of them.