"Move fast and break things."
- Zuck
"The
Valley is a little bit at risk of moving in the direction that Wall
Street went in... Losing sight of the real purpose of technology, just
as Wall Street lost sight of the real purpose of finance. And instead
looking at that little narrow way to a big payoff. But that can be very
short-term and not particularly productive."
- G Packer
When financiers say that they’re doing God’s work by providing cheap
credit, and oilmen claim to be patriots who are making the country
energy-independent, no one takes them too seriously—it’s a given that
their motivation is profit. But when technology entrepreneurs describe
their lofty goals there’s no smirk or wink. “Many see their social
responsibility fulfilled by their businesses, not by social or political
action,” one young entrepreneur said of his colleagues. “It’s
remarkably convenient that they can achieve all their goals just by
doing their start-up.” He added, “They actually think that Facebook is
going to be the panacea for many of the world’s problems. It isn’t
cynicism—it’s arrogance and ignorance.”
- G Packer, New Yorker
Joshua Cohen, a Stanford political philosopher who also edits Boston Review,
described a conversation he had with John Hennessy, the president of
Stanford, who has extensive financial and professional ties to Silicon
Valley. “He was talking about the incompetent people who are in
government,” Cohen recalled. “I said, ‘If you think they’re so
incompetent, why don’t you include in a speech you’re making some urging
of Stanford students to go into government?’ He thought this was a
ridiculous idea.”
- G Packer, New Yorker
In New
Yorker style, a very long but detailed and thoughtful presentation of
Packer's argument that the "Siliconization" of the US economy/culture is
not necessarily good for everyone. The interview on his book The Unwinding is interesting too. I was surprised that he didn't get more rebuttal call-ins, since KQED is a Bay Area station after all.
I am too tired to properly summarize the story, but
basically Packer is saying that the features that make Si. Valley great
are also leading to some negative social effects. Innovation requires
boldness, unorthodox thinking, and almost a "F it" attitude about
consequences. Si. Valley embodies that paradox of socialist-Utopian
desire to make the world more connected and better vs. the cutthroat,
libertarian pursuit of riches unfettered by any regs or CSR (VC culture,
Foxconn, avoiding taxes, FB IPO scam, you name it).
You can't be great and rise above the pack by playing it safe and by
the rules. But that's the big difference between the Great Expansion of
the '50s and '60s (blossoming of the US middle class), and the Great
Divergence of today (the widening wealth gap and shrinking middle
class). In the past, a WASP with a HS education and decent
intellect/work ethic could have a job for as long as he wanted it, and
earn enough to be middle class, provide for his nuclear family, retire
in comfort, and set his kids on a path for the upper middle class. That
hasn't happened too often in human history. But that was probably an
outlier era, as Reaganomics/globalization put an end to that.
For Gen X and the Millennials, we get the sense that only
schmucks and working stiffs believe in that old system of playing by
the rules, working hard, and making a decent living. Now it's all about
getting that mad loot ASAP, and stepping on whatever is in our path.
Packer uses the example of Jay-Z to describe this attitude: he came from
nothing and with little hope of achieving the American Dream. So he
unabashedly sold drugs to finance his music career, and he used his
music riches to build a corporate empire. Of course he needed a lot of
hard work and luck too, but Jay-Z "skipped the line" to the upper crust.
In interviews, he is surprised that more people don't hate him. But
instead, we cheer for him, because his story makes us believe that we
can be him too. He is both hero and villain, and 100% modern American.
So for the rest of us who aren't blessed with entertainment, athletic,
or drug-selling skills, basically we have to find a way to succeed in
finance, tech, or medicine... or be just another chump.
But
getting back to the Si. Valley paradox, it should be telling that Gates
didn't engage in philanthropy until he was the richest man on the
planet, and Zuck didn't either until "The Social Network" came out and
his company went public (but to his credit, Zuck has now become one of
the most socially-conscious CEOs in the Valley). For tech guys who are
obsessed with efficiency and creative problem solving, it's awful
convenient to believe that you are saving the world while you're getting
rich and helping yourself. But we know what the order of priorities
is. Though if Si. Valley was so public serving, then why are some of
the most economically depressed and violent zones in the Western US
(Richmond, Oakland, East PA) located just short drives from the Google
and Apple HQs? Their geniuses can figure out how to put the Internet on
eyeglasses and revolutionize what a mobile phone is, but they can't
reduce crime and poverty in the Bay Area?
Let's be honest, tech companies make the world better for rich
people - they are invested in solving rich people problems (and they do
it really well), because obviously there is a market for that. There is
nothing inherently wrong with that - the business of America is
business. But then don't act so superior. Remember those older Apple
commercials showing images of Gandhi and MLK with the slogan "Think
Different"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzvwkR1RYU
Despite
their marketing intentions, such a commercial is basically comparing a
for-profit company to heroes who devoted their lives to fight injustice,
and died poor. That is frankly outrageous. As Packer said, the
hypocrisy is evident in Apple's calls for immigration reform, so they
can get more visas to hire cheaper Asian engineers. They say they can't
find enough qualified candidates domestically, yet their tax-evasion
tactics have served to starve our public education. Don't complain about
the quality of workers here when you aren't investing in them. And of
course it's not just Apple.
----------
The buses—whose schedules are withheld from the public—have become a
vivid emblem of the tech boom’s stratifying effect in the Bay Area.
Rebecca Solnit, who has lived in San Francisco for thirty years,
recently wrote in The London Review of Books, “Sometimes the Google Bus
just seems like one face of Janus-headed capitalism; it contains the
people too valuable even to use public transport or drive themselves.
Right by the Google bus stop on Cesar Chavez Street immigrant men from
Latin America stand waiting for employers in the building trade to scoop
them up, or to be arrested and deported by the government.”
One question for technology boosters—maybe the crucial one—is why,
during the decades of the personal computer and the Internet, the
American economy has grown so slowly, average wages have stagnated, the
middle class has been hollowed out, and inequality, has surged. Why has a
revolution that is supposed to be as historically important as the
industrial revolution coincided with a period of broader economic
decline?
I honestly despise living [in the Valley], in many ways. I detest the "Silicon
Valley Masters of the Universe" narrative and all the fuckers in BMWs
who tailgate me on my way to the grocery store. I hate the fact that
people around here go on and on about "innovation" yet spend their lives
on yet-another-bullshit-useless-copycat-web-startup, instead of
actually working on solving real, hard problems (many of which, as you
point out, A, can't really be solved with software, or even
hardware). I hate the fact that said bullshit web startup can get
millions of dollars in funding with comparatively little effort, while
people working on actual hard problems have to beg or fight tooth &
nail for fractions of that amount from governments or foundations. I
hate the cognitive dissonance of the inequality experienced by the line
cooks, baristas, waiters, and janitors who serve all of the
self-important pricks around here; some of them have even been forced
into homelessness, as reported on Bill Moyers' show not long ago.
The Valley desperately needs this kind of takedown, repeatedly. Bring it on.
----------
This stuff is so spot-on and poignant that I have to stop thinking about
it or I'm going to start destroying work equipment in rebellion. But I think the Millennials are in
general more conscientious, so I hope enough of them will see things
for what they are and try to fix them. Of course some will become
selfish pricks like their parents, but I have hope. It's great to see
that fast riches are not a major priority for a lot of young people
(despite their possibly spoiled upbringings). They want to be happy,
better themselves, and help others - which we need very desperately
today.
The FB thread brought up a good point - since the PC/internet
revolution, why hasn't the average worker gotten richer? If anything
they have gotten poorer due to job insecurity and rising prices as you
said. The only sector that has consistently profited is the 1% and
corporations (or those who had the disposable income to invest
prudently). So the promise of tech making our lives better/easier may be
anecdotally and superficially true, but actually empty. As you also
said, tech gets co-opted by business interests anyway, so the "good
potential" is often diminished.
I wonder if the Masters of the Universe were born during a
previous era, what would they be doing? Guys like Jobs, Zuck, Gates...
would they have been as great as Edison or Ford, or at best a
middle-manager chump? Clearly Zuck and Jobs don't have what it takes to
be anything but the boss. But people change with the environment, and
maybe they would be a lot different without such great opportunities
available to them (especially as a Jew and a half-Lebanese orphan).
