There is a feeling outside Silicon Valley that those inside the tech business are living in a tone-deaf bubble of arrogance. . . .
Here is the evidence that Silicon Valley is living in a bubble of its own arrogance.
Startup founders feel entitled to hate the poor.
The author seems to be based in the UK, which is outside Silicon Valley, so he writes “There is a feeling outside Silicon Valley that . . .” and inserts his own opinion. It’s a “feeling,” you see, and it exists outside Silicon Valley. Very clever.
If it’s okay to hate the rich (which it seems to be), why is it not okay to hate the poor? If it’s okay to hate people without knowing anything about them other than their economic standing, why is it okay to hate the rich, but not okay to hate the poor?
Why not hate the rich and the poor? I.e., I hate everyone who’s economic standing is significantly different from my own. No, it’s always I hate everyone who has more money and stuff than I do.
A study of the the brief history of Silicon Valley and the founding fathers thereof reveals an arrogance rivaling late 19th century Robber Barons Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, or J.P. Morgan. Bill Gates is a notorious asshole. So was Steve Jobs. These days, successful entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Evan Spiegel follow in their footsteps.
The problem with Silicon Valley may be summed up as a variation of the Dunning-Kruger effect model. Having been successful in a narrow specialty within a relatively small geographic region, the gods of Silicon Valley see themselves as capable of ruling the world. It’s not going to happen any more than Michael Jordan was able to rise beyond being a mediocre professional baseball player once his hang time didn’t count for much.
In many ways, the luminaries of Silicon Valley are as much an accident of time and place as anything. In the end, the poor will still be around to laugh at the eventual collapse of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Snapchat. They always are.