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I Want to Blow Up Silicon Valley
RomulusNR writes: "Salon has a story and review on "I Want To Blow Up Silicon Valley", a new indie film by a pre-tech-explosion SV resident. The place was a quiet backwoods small town when he was a kid; he comes back to find his home worth $2 million, his childhood hangouts filled with uber-wired techies, and all the unique local towns becoming one big bland electronic megalopolis."
he comes back to find his home worth $2 million
..and the problem is??
-Antipop
Hey, isn't every sci-fi flick about the degraded tech involved future: bladerunner et al. Now if it was an indie sci-fi flick called "How I learned to stop worrying and love the Valley", then I'd be jumping for tickets! ;)
kick some CAD
What with the internet and all, startups and making fortunes all across the country (and world) with tech sector growth strong in just about every major urban center you can think of, and many small ones. Is silicon valley gonna turn into a "quiet" tech town much like the old mining towns of the west are today?
"... Rob has returned to his old stomping grounds to sell his childhood home -- asking price: $2.5 million -- and to search for his long-lost high school girlfriend..."
is this what CmdrTaco does in his spare time?
I kinda know the feeling [in a not-so-drastic way]...I grew up in a small town that had just gotten past the point where everyone knew everyone and outsiders were moving in. Ok, fine. I watched it turn into "model Suburbia", where the houses that were sold around '81-'86 for less than $50k now sell for almost $150K, and the newer houses are in the range of $300K to $1M. The entire area is corporatized...it's no longer the place I grew up in. So, what did I do? I took the first jump out into the country.
I know I feel a hell of a lot better now that I'm back outside of the rush.
Sometimes I wonder where all the forests went.
I'm all alone in my concrete jungle, surrounded by cat 5 and bathed in radiation from my crts.
My life is ?
There's parts of Troy and Schenectady that will go down with but a firecracker anyway ;-)
s/nerd/boss/
Welcome to the FBI profile database, sonny.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Why is it that Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees, N.C. comes to mind?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
...and let the chips fall where they may!
Pax Digitalia
There once was a day when people came to our houses and delivered our letters by hand, how neat that was. Who gives a shit. Everybody is always whining about something. I live in Seattle and I think the new economy rocks. I think being a web developer is fun. I make lots of money and that is fun. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.
Some day we will all be sitting around whining about how nice it was when the Internet was new, because you could do anything. Now there are so many regulations and rules. Capitalism ruined the Internet. We'll all be saying that in about 2 years. Or we will all be living in coutries that aren't so wacked like the U.S.
LoRider
Remember: we MADE this place a success.
Honestly, the jealousy is getting hard to bear. Just the other day I was in a boutique market, offering to buy the tres-quaint lampshade behind the counter of the seafood counter. A surly pissant engaged in cutting up fish looked at me and said "I bet you're one of those dot-commers!"
Of course I had to find the manager after that - paid $2000 to have the prick fired, too. That will teach him to open his mouth.
I loved the fact that he financed this film from the sale of some valley property. It cost him about $100k.
Is that ironic or what?
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The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
Silicon Valley is just an extreme version of what's happening all over the country. While gentrification has some good points, it also tends to drive out low and moderate-income families, which does (IMO) negatively impact the area. Problem is most elected officials are obsessed with bringing money into their areas and don't really care about their current constituents. There are some exceptions though; NYC intentionally breaks up wealthy areas with low and moderate-income housing, which I personally support.
Now for a side-rant:
I understand the director's contempt for the cappucino-swilling, Armani-wearing "New Economy" type. Personally, I'm waiting for the shakedown to hit. I could understand if most of these noveau riche were engineers or scientists or financial types (whatever else you may say about the latter, it does require some amount of skill), but a lot of them tend to be the marketing and PR hacks who have no real knowledge or skills, but still manage to eke out six figure incomes by slinging buzzwords around like confetti.
People who move to SV do so because that's where the jobs in their field are. Not jobs to get rich, just "the jobs". Most of us would much rather be elsewhere, in well planned communities, with decent public transportation, out of the way of earthquakes, and not driving along a ridiculously inconvenient peninsula.
So, here is my message to long time SV residents: I'm sorry that your neighborhood got destroyed. But that was your choice, or at least your political inaction. Be happy that you can sell your home, move to a nice little community along the coast that's like the Bay Area used to be, and never have to work another day in your life. The rest of us have to pay high mortgages and make the best we can with the mess you left us. Believe me, we'd rather be somewhere else, too.
Sometimes it seems like I'm the only local here. I'd buy a house in a second, but, well, you know. I hope I can inherit one, since my dad is one of those guys who bought a house in Atherton for $180k, one in Woodside for $100k and one in Palo Alto for $30k.
This is the movie I have been waiting for. It even has the back roads that I love and ride every day to work. I knew the place was going to go to hell when the local newscasts changed their taglines to "...from the best place on earth."
The worst thing by far, besides the traffic, is it is literally impossible to exist in public places and not overhear a conversation about real estate or stock options. Maybe in a spanish speaking neighborhood you can pull it off.
How do I deal with it? I live in the mountains, ride a motorcycle, use FreeBSD and work for M$.
;-)
ha ha, only serious...
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#!/usr/bin/perl
use asbestos;
I don't mind the long-time, pre-Internet "Revolution" people complaining about the changing landscape of the Bay Area ... but I can't tolerate the so-called "noveau riche" who benefitted immensely from the Revolution (when IPOs still POPPED) and are now opponents of development projects that are necessary to sustain the economic growth in the Valley.
Case in point: Stanford University owns quite a bit of the land at the heart of Silicon Valley and was proposing to use some of it to develop new graduate student (and young faculty) housing. Presently, the university does not have enough on-campus housing spots (graduate students routinely get 'booted' off-campus) and off-campus housing is prohibitively expensive. Ironically, the biggest opposition for this new development came from people owning houses in the nearby area ... a huge chunk of whom are either Stanford faculty or recently enriched Internet tycoons. Their biggest complaint? Development may harm the aesthetic and/or comercial value of their homes.
Give me a break, haven't they figured out that it was Stanford (and grudgingly give a nod to Berkeley) graduate students who helped fuel their recent gains? If they want to maintain the local boom, they had better make sure Stanford/Berkeley can keep attracting the best and brightest. Don't want to give MIT/Route 128 a chance to catch up and regain their early lead ...
If you don't believe me about this disturbing trend, go to any of the trendy Silicon Valley hang-outs and eavesdrop on the conversation of many of these VC/IPO types. At one point in the evening, you'll most likely hear something like "God, the Valley is getting so tacky. We really need to constrain development ..."
(This is sort of like the phenomenon observed by many sociologist of how many of the strongest proponent of strict immigration laws are the newer citizens)
Dead on. Granted, it might take more than 2 years, but it won't be long before we will be looking back on it.
Heck, there will probably be movies about the "early 'net days" back when you could host whatever you wanted on your own website.
I think I'd put the number at about 6 years total, with some horrid precedent-setting item happening at year 3.
www.sheepdot.org
is the story of a native american living in the 19th century - who becomes really pissed off when he finds out that his beloved californian home has been mined the fuck out of by cash hungry settlers.
The people that live anywhere now got no right to bitch...at least Steve Jobs didn't force the natives to convert to "Macism" - Just a little perspective.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Now when's it going to be screened in, say, Silicon Valley?
You made this place breeding ground for fraudulent fly-by-night companies (A.K.A. the Dot-Coms). I lived here when personal computers were unheard of. Before Jobs and Wozniak started Apple. You "dot-commers" have nothing that the engineers of the past had. I like the engineers of the past became successful by producing things no one had imagined. You dot-commers jump on band-wagons at every possible opportunity, always the followers. Never the leader.
Is he a Macintosh user?
-D
There are lots of major corporate research labs in or around SV, a bunch of excellent universities, most of the venture capital, and a culture where technical people move around freely and talk to each other. And all within a convenient drive (if you manage to avoid traffic). No other place even comes close, although a few other places (Boston, NYC, maybe Seattle) may get honorable mentions.
There's a phrase to describe things like this: Cultural Necrophila. Cultural Necrophila is committed by espousing how much better life was before X, where X is some arbitrary event (ie. "before the Internet was big", "before Clinton was president", "before the Vikings found North America"). It is slightly less productive than actual Necrophilia, and almost as tasteless. But, it must be part of human nature, because I'd bet that if decipher most Neanderthal cave paintings, they probably say "Things were better before the Cro-Magnons showed up. Now the land is expensive, they're making trails all over the place, and they're killing all the mammoths."
If we credit Apple with realy starting silicon valley, (they were around before Sun) then its because Steve and Steve were from silicon valley to begin with! Ok, maby it wasent silicon valley, but aerospace valley (or prehaps Place-where-nasa-spent-a-lot-of-moon-money valley), but the writing was on the wall. IBM has had plants there for decades, as did (the startup) Intel - ship jumpers from Shockley.
It was always big, now its just bigger.
Grew up in the east bay. Hung out all around the
Bay Area. Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Jose, Oakland, you name it. Lived in San Francisco up until 1997. Moved to Chicago, just for a change, a little diversity in life. I come back and visit every couple of months. And every couple of months I realize more and more what a gentrified dot-com
shit hole it has all turned into. San Francisco,
a once interesting place, is now the land of
uber-hip urban condos and working-class
displacement. It's my home, but I don't think I'll
ever live there again. Maybe the California
countryside. Maybe.
When allt he clubs close, because the yuppie MBA
dot-commer who bought the gut-rehab loft next
door complains about the noise... when the people
who work in service industries can no longer
afford to live in the city they work in, let alone
any of the suburbs, something is wrong.
I don't want to blow up Silicon Valley, but I do
wish most of the people would go home. Just so
when I go home it won't be so... lame. Hang up
your cell phone, and just go away.
What's worse than all the malls now being filled with wannabee dotcommers, is that San Jose, and it's burbs, have grown past the charming cherry orchard towns they were. Now the corner stores, where I remember getting ice cream with my family, are now dumps, with vacant store fronts and gang graffiti.
SJ has always been envious of San Francisco, but now it's larger, just as powerful, and gaining recgonition. However, with all that comes the drawbacks of being a larger city.
I'm looking forward to getting out of school, hopefully finding a job I can telecommute to, and, sadly, moving away from the only home I know. Even if housing prices weren't what they are, I would still move.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I live in Sunnyvale, Right between San Jose and Mountain View. I dont have a problem with anything that is goin on around here. When I go on a trip I can hardly find any decent computer shops around, and here there are at least 5-10 withing a 10 minute drive. Yes, the traffic sometimes sucks, and prices are sky high but that is why people in the Valley make so much money. If you arent getting paid 70-100K a year, you can hardly afford to live here. Ive heard people say the only reason to move to Silicon Valley is to get rich. Well sure, you will get alot of money, but you will also be spending alot more money to live here. Gas prices have been higher than most of the country for a long time, nobody made much of a stink about it, but as soon as the gas prices went up in washington its all over the news about the gas crisis and gets debated in congress.
Here is the low-down on Silicon Valley for those of you who have never been there, who may be dreaming of a career there, who may be dreaming of getting rich there.
.com. People coming in, seeking only to get rich quick off of .com. People who do not even understand what the net truly is (well, was, lately what the net is is exactly what they're ugly vision and venture capital turned it into).
.com's go under? I dunno. Feel free to flambe me. I'm going to end my rant. Don't get me wrong, I really do _love_ the Valley!!!
First things first, read the review of the movie, the movie sounds like it gives an accurate, albeit fictitious view of the Valley.
How did I get here? Well, I sent out resumes to companies I was interested in. I'm from the midwest and I never thought they'd pick me out of the crowd. For me, this is the ultimate job at the coolest company (IMO) in the Valley.
This may be the best and worst place you'll ever live.
From a working standpoint, you'll be in heaven. Some of the most talented people in the world are here. You'll love your job. Outside of work is a different story.
SV is a melting pot of cultures from all over the world. I work with people from every continent (except Antarctica, duh). It is wonderful learning about life in other parts of the world. That is one of the best aspects of the Valley. It is also one of the worst. There are endless opportunities for computer scientists and engineers here. The problem is that increasingly those are the only people who have opportunites here. People in other fields, even those highly respected in other parts of the nation, have a hard time making a living. Almost every person I meet is not a native of the area. The area is losing its links to its past. It has no soul. The worst thing are the people here only to make money, not those who are here for the love of engineering and innovation. Don't get me wrong, we all like to make money and live well, myself included, but the love of money is making the valley an ugly place.
Well, it's hard to give an accurate description. I'm not so sure if it's people like myself (engineers moving to the valley) that are contributing so much to this problem as it is one ugly beast that moved in a few years ago ---
Is it wrong that I enjoy seeing
Oh, and another thing. Don't come to they valley expecting to find those "California Girls." They're not here. You will, however, find many lonely young men driving BMWs and Porsche Boxters (way too many, actually, they think the car makes up for social ineptitude).
My normal login is "warrior"
mdreesen@ "flame-away" cse.unl.edu
Mike
Moderators: this will be a very personal account. It may be offensive, provoke flames, and such, but, by goodness, it is fucking sincere. There is no (-1, Rant) option in the mod system, so please leave it as it is.
The Silicon Valley is a disgusting place. Believe me, I live in the very heart of it, as a grad student. I could care less about money; I just came here because I want to study what I like (Linguistics) with a bunch of amazingly talented people. I don't want to get rich quick, stock options, or a million dollar house, or to write software for search engines. I just want a postdoc somewhere after I'm done with my Ph.D., and a job as a prof. My perspective on SV is that of a grad student from another country, living in the Valley on $15k a year.
Here there's no sense of community, no care for the well-being of the local society, nothing. Just a bunch of money grubbing yuppies that like to boast about their success, and a bunch of poor mexicans, asians and blacks that keep it all together. I know this. I've worked a bit with the recent campaign to support the janitors' wage negotiations. I've met these people first hand. I've spoken with Mexican janitors, and they've told me in their own words, in Spanish, the language in which they dream and feel, how they live, how they are treated.
This society makes the janitors, who are truly *essential* to any society, invisible members. This is one of the most shocking things about SV for me. I mean, where I studied before (UPR), you knew the janitors, they worked the same hours you did, you'd talk to them, they'd have lunch with the secretaries and professors, and so on. Here in Stanford, the profs and secretaries don't speak the same language as the janitors; and more importantly, they don't work the same hours. The janitors work late shifts, starting around 8-9 PM, ending 2-3 AM. The people who work regular hours only see buildings that, seemingly by magic, clean themselves every night. They are totally disconnected from what keeps their workspaces functional.
Here's another story. Last time I went to SF (my easiest way of temporary escape), on the way back, I had the absolute misery of having to sit behind an asshole who bragged to a buddy about his work the whole fucking hour. He looked about my age (I'm 23), and did nothing but talk and talk (quite loudly) about how much of a fucking genius he was at doing Flash animations, how he wanted his boss' job, about how much better he was than the girl that was interning at his job, how much he was making, and how much of a success he was.
That very last bit was not my interpretation; I vividly remember the fucker uttering the words to his buddy: "You know what? I really feel like I'm a success." Here was a guy that, as far as his account showed, had done nothing in his life but stupid Flash animations. If he'd done something else in his life, he sure didn't mention it.
This idiot symbolizes for me what's wrong with the Valley: people making fortunes for what, when you come down to it, are just menial, unimportant jobs, people totally disconnected from the realities of social and communal life, and think themselves above everybody else. People who get easy money, and then just expect that just money will get them everything they want, with no idea about context (the building does not clean itself; the janitors clean it). They live their lives in front of a computer screen and lose contact with the very real world to which that computer is plugged.
I'll stop here because this is becoming less and less coherent.
Yea who doesn't want to blow up a bunch of psych-babbling bozo's that think they are techinically superior to the rest of the world. All that the silcon coast is is a bunch of suits and wanna-be's armed with a surf board and bad attitudes. This guys really need to get a grip on reality and figure out that they don't mean squat to the technology world. If they disappeared by earthquake, tidal wave, metor, China bombing them, or turned to pillars of salt. I could truely say that I don't think I would even notice them gone. Last time i visited the bay i found that the population consisted of one engineer type to every 50 VP management type or managment plastic enhanced spawning whore type. Let me be the one to light the fuse!!!!
Yes actually I do.
Used to be you never heard of cities/towns like Lewisville, Flower Mound, Highland Village, Denton, Plano or Frisco on the evening news (hell, even Lake Dallas [no relation] and Hickory Creek, two of the smallest ones around), now it's all about "new development [here]", "new shopping center [there]," etc. The first four cities on that list are in severe danger of being built out in the next 3 years. True, Silicon Valley already is, but this is news in North Texas, since there's just always happened to be land.
In Lewisville, some of the fields I would ride bikes through when younger are now huge parking lots with shopping centers (shockingly enough, all looking the same) on them. There are 2-3 gas stations on every major street corner, and even on some minor ones.
Expansion has occured so rapidly that street infrastructure cannot keep up, and local mass-transit is far worse than a joke. To give an idea: The main road linking Flower Mound to Lewisville and Interstate 35E is a two-lane blacktop road. Forget using it during rush hour at all ... hell, we used to not even have a rush hour.
*sigh* Wish my grandmother hadn't sold her house in East Texas (Berryville/Frankston/Lake Palestine area) ... I'd buy it and move out there.
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What are you paying/gal? Here in Michigan it's gone up as high as $2.10/gal, $230-ish in Detroit, and the roads suck.
--Josh
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
I grew up in Campbell, a small town part of San Jose, next to Stevens Creek. Not the boulevard, but the Creek itself. I used to catch frogs, salamanders and hell from my Mom in that creek. They paved it over with the San Thomas Expressway. My back yard overlooked about 3 acres of tall grass and Walnut trees. Around the 4th of July the walnuts were soft and green - you could hollow them out and, with a firecracker, make a fragmentation grenade. We played a lot of 'Army' in that field. They took it out and put in a large apartment complex. I guess it's to be expected, but I also miss the old San Jose.
While there have been a few original independant films in the past, this sounds like a complete retread. Boy moves away, comes back years later to find out that his fondly remembered home has changed, and not in the good way. He makes a movie about it.
And he's probably doing it for the money too. After having realized that he may have gotten the girl and gotten rich had he stuck around.
Another indie film I will not be seeing. Oh yeah, and coming soon to a theatre near you: Blair Witch 2.
love the gratituous "The Tick" reference ... : )
.sig as well
great
-- Went home. Had to feed the kids.
I haven't been back there in years. A coworker brought back a map from his business trip to Sunnyvale. I couldn't believe it. All of the wide open spaces were gone. It was sad to see how everything had changed. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't afford to live in my old neighborhood.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
OK, disclaimer: I live in Mountain View, right next to Palo Alto. I used to live in Boston, but I grew up in Amish country in PA.
One of my close friend's (hi Dana!) parents live 2 miles from me in Los Altos. She grew up in Palo Alto before it hit big, and she has most of the same complaints that the guy in the article did. Many are observant.
Unfortunately, they're irrellevant. What they're complaining about is the change of a 30,000 person "small college town" into a real city. The old residential towns of the Peninsula (Sunnyvale to Burlingame) had about 200,000 people in them in 1980. They now run a million or more total. No matter what type of people the influx was, it would have seriously changed the character of the area, and it has. Essentially what's happened is that suburbia has turned into "urbia".
The real crime here is that the old and the monied refuse to recognize that the Peninsula is now a city. They want to try to keep it some sort of low-density suburb. That makes as much sense as restricting Manhattan to 3-story buildings. They can't understand (or won't) that the only way to improve things around here is to start putting up high-density housing.
ohhh, but that would hurt property values. Yeah, like that makes any sense. A 2000sq ft 1-story ranch house in poor shape runs $500,000 in Palo Alto. And Prop 13 sucks. Talk about lining the pockets of the old with the sweat of the new.
The story author has at least one thing right: I'm outta here after I save my nestegg. I'll buy a $500,000 condo on Beacon Street in Boston and get something for my money, thank you.
The unfortunate thing still is this: like Manhattan for the financial market, SV is the place to cut your teeth in tech, and really means you can write your ticket after surviving here for 5-10 years. Kinda like Darwin for the geek set.
-Erik (who hopes that Dana doesn't kill me for this...)
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
I'm going to address your rant about Janitors first.
Yes, I've seen the recent spat between the Janitor's Union and the various local janitorial companies. It wasn't pretty. Guess what, though: several big high-tech companies came out on the side of the janitors. 3Com sticks in my mind as one. These companies were in favor of the janitors, even though this would probably hurt their bottom line. Gasp!
I hate to say this, but nowhere but academia do custodial staff work day shift. You need to get out a bit more. Janitors in all companies work the late shift.
Actually, since I tended to work 80-hour weeks the past years, I've gotten to know the people who clean my buildings. I'm not fluent in Spanish, and they aren't great in English (but not half-bad, either). They're nice, efficient, and decent people. I see nothing wrong with the arrangement where I expect them to do their job, and I do mine. My building should be "magically cleaned" in the morning, because that's what we're paying them for. I don't have lunch with them (but then again, I don't with the Marketing people, either), and I wouldn't expect them to invite me to one, either.
We live in a Meritocracy, folks. Or at least something that aspires to be. I shouldn't (and don't) look down at the janitors, as they do an essential job, and are good at it. But that doesn't mean I have to either (A) aspire to become a janitor or (B) feel guilty about what I do for a living. I'm sorry, but you don't get to make me feel guilty about being a white-collar worker, instead of a blue-collar one. I don't get to devalue his worth as a human being, but I do get to value my profession more.
One other thing I find highly offensive:
Just a bunch of money grubbing yuppies that like to boast about their success, and a bunch of poor mexicans, asians and blacks that keep it all together.
I guess I get to be a yuppie here. Yup, I'm money grubbing. So are my janitors - they're up here for the better pay and chance to get a better life than they might in other places (alot of the people that clean my building are illegals). Please don't pretend that they're here for the "atmosphere".
As for the racial remark, talk about being a bigot. Asians make up at least 30% of the yuppies, with foreigners another 20% or so. And which segment makes up the vast majority of public servants? (Postal workers, teachers, firemen, policemen)? Oops, that would be, ah, whites? Actually, I can't tell what half the population is out here, so trying to categories by look is foolhardy. Yes, many of the lower rungs of jobs are dominated by certain minorities. We don't live in a utopia. However, there are alot of people out here (of all races) that have gotten ahead through a combination of drive, hard work, and luck.
I guess I shouldn't be so hard on you. It was, after all, a rant, and rants tend not to be either coherent or well-reasoned.
Sorry for spending everyone's time.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
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Linux is only Free if your time is worth Nothing
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Be in Your Senses
Armani-wearing "New Economy" type
Cool cats know that Armani is passe: it peaked in the meglamaniacal powerhungry statusdriven 80s, and is only now worn by people who know nothing about clothing and style, but know that the name 'armani' puts them into a social niche. Giorgio is a great designer, but the 80s were the peak for his 'style', and unfortunately his stuff now comes to represent 'clothing for the aspiring class - who quite often do not know anything about clothing asethetics', the same goes for Hugo Boss.
The 'real' next generation wears something funkier that reflects a creative, easy going, relaxed, but yet still stylish attitude. As yet this gap has not been filled: cargo pants, pantalones, and new plastique style the likes of trussadi are approaching the ideal look, but have not got there yet. I don't know of a designer that really has 'the look' at the moment, they're all trying to find it.
The 'real' new economy types are into taste and quality - they're web designers that care about what they create, know about structuralism and theory behind their work, and are thoughtful about what they do.
I'll remove my 'trend evangelist' hat.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
The review/editorial on "I Want To Blow Up Silicon Valley" is ridiculously short-sighted. Tech has ruled and people have been making ludicrous amounts of money in Silicon Valley since the mid-eighties and before. It's nothing new. Long before there were any "dot-coms", Silicon Valley was flush with money. The dot-com backlash as of late is largely a creation of the media including Salon.com. Yes, there are problems with the extreme influx of money that the net economy has brought to Silicon Valley and the surrounding areas. I would say that the gentrification of certain San Francisco neighborhoods is far more substantial than homes in Silicon Valley going from "very expensive" to "extremely expensive". It's time to stop the blind demonization of all that is "dot-com", start looking at the real problems, and start looking for real solutions.
D.C. mayor on crack: re-election!
:)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Deo
Things change. People don't.
People complain. Things still change.
Too bad what's happened to the Valley. It's just as bad up here in SF. If you hate it so much, go somewhere else. The past is past, it won't come back.
I'm doing what I can to find fun in the new SF. It's harder than it used to be. Is that the City's fault, or am I different now that I'm older? (*shrug) What's the difference?
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hey, for once that you guys feel like using one of our french expressions might as well use correct spelling, or you're risking to 'look' a bit nouveau riche yourself using this snobish french expression... Being french, I say without irony, that I find it quite appropriate that you picked up an expression that reflects our depressing awareness of social backgrounds and our contempt toward monetary success. So, after me, one NOUVEAU RICHE some NOUVEAUX RICHES.
My understanding of fashion is nonexistent. I like it that way.
....in this crazy upside down society of ours, that it seems that ones income is inversally proportional to ones real worth in society. Ie, the people who provide all the needs (food, clothing, housing), such as Mexican fruit pickers, bankrupt farmers (who get less for their produce than what it cost them to produce it) & 'out workers' in the rag trade (families of immigrants who spend 14 hours a day sewing shirts together, & only get 20c a shirt), have the lowest incomes in society. While the people on the highest incomes mostly do nothing of any intrinsic value (would there being any negative effects if all millionaires went on strike?) - does anyone remember in 'Hitchhikers guide to the Universe', where all the useless people like accountants, lawyers, advertising executives, management consultents (we had one at our work that was earning $1400 a hour, & was employed here for about 7 months - he made all sorts of suggestions & changed everything arround & then scarped before everthing fucked up, & went off to ruin someone elses business), marketing staff, sales excutives, stockbrokers, etc, colonised a planet (the spaceships with all the useful people crashed) & this planet ended up being called Earth later on, by their descendents.
Heh, Bill Gates would become my hero if he could convince the MS board to just close Microsoft. Imagine the shit that would hit the fan worldwide. :) Oh sure, Windows 95, 98, 2000, etc would still be around, but just imagine the sheer chaos that would ensue as the stock market went completely apeshit, investors went nuts in the aftermath, the users who would be left blowing in the breeze. Apple would make out like friggin bandits; sorry OSS advocates, while some increased interest would be generated, *BSD, Linux, whatever wouldn't take over the desktops, but at least we'd still have it to use. :)
Deo
Have you ever read American Psycho? Could you identify, or were you too busy analysing Phil Collins?
Like how great it was before electricity, paved roads and plumbing. All of it is just a veiled complaint against people from somewhere else who happen to live here. It's not fashionable to say you hate Northerners so you make a dull joke about all the Yankees moving in. Yeah growth is a problem, the roads are overloaded, the school system has problems - - blah blah blah.
1) Inheritance Tax 2) Property Tax
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's also spelt ueber (if you must) or über (if you can), but never, ever, as *uber.
So, what's really bad about this Silicon Valley? The thing is, now that Silicon Valley is no more a nice and green californian town with ranches and farms... CAN A DECENT ENGINEER LEAD A HAPPY LIFE IN SILICON VALLEY? From what I've read in Slashdot, it seems that rents are fatal, there are no girls around, and almost everything else seems to suck in the Valley.
Is then the proper choice to forget about the valley, and leave it to "web" people?
--exa--
Hasn't Silicon Valley been heavily dominated by the tech industry since the late 70s to early 80s? I mean, aren't there a bunch of EPA Superfund sites in the area caused by pollution from hardware manufacture, and weren't most of them created during the 80s? I mean, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has been around since 1982, and was formed in reaction to groundwater pollution by Fairchild Semiconductor. Doesn't that mean the "high-tech" industry has been there for a looong time?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Who would have ever guessed?
If we froze time, he could complain about the Mexicans dying in poverty in Mexico, instead of the US where their wives deliver children at Stanford
I live in SV. Neat place. Lots of community, if you have time for it. Ranter needs a kid in a school
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
You are incoherent. You haven't read his post and, in fact, appear to be in agreement with the statement you labelled as "bullshit."
Postal workers and teachers are not paid well, which you seem to have overlooked. You're closing statements are particularly in difficult to comprehend. Are you saying that 80% of the US population is white, and then complaining that the whites hold the majority of jobs? If so, do you realise that this is mathematically stupid of you? If not, I apologise, and ask, what is your point, exactly?
Gentleman, please allow me to reply.
>My understanding of fashion is nonexistent. I like it that way.
Good for you.
>Have you ever read American Psycho? Could you >identify, or were you too busy analysing Phil >Collins?
Have you seen the film American Psycho, it's great. As for Phil Collins, well, I really found his first collection
>At first I thought you were kidding, but now it >seems you are serious.
>My only question, then, is how did you get to be >such a colossal fag?
My only reply, then, is how did you get to be able to ask such silly questions ?
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
I've been here for about 7 months now, working for a major internet company and loving most of it. However, most of what people say here is fairly accurate. It's a very cramped and fast-paced area to live in. And it's getting worse -- San Tomas Expressway, my main route to work, has gotten significantly more packed in the short time I've been here.
Property values are through the roof, and rentals are just as bad. To make matters worse, it seems that a majority of the companies here are recruiting like mad. All of this makes me wonder -- this is the place where technology happens, right? This is the epicenter of the Internet revolution. Aren't these companies trying to create an inter-connected world, where the Internet enables people across the country to work together across company lines, or even within them?
I personally find the idea of a traditional city environment a wholly outdated concept for most of the modern world. Why is the technology epicenter falling into the same trap?
Josh Woodward
Ohh, it sounds like I hit a raw nerve, feeling a bit sensitive are we? You seem to be reacting like someone who's discovered what they do for a living is no more useful to society, than someone who makes Coca Cola adds, for a living. Actually I am in business for myself. BTW, we don't need sales executives or marketing personel. Why? Because the products we develope & distribute are actually needed, so they sell themselves. We also don't have to worry about lawsuits so much here in Australia, as we don't have so many useless lawyers in Australia going arround trying to get rich, plus the laws here are enforced with a little more common sense. BTW if anyone did try to & sue us, I would make it quiote plain that one of their relatives would have an accident unless they changed there mind, but really we arnt worth sueing & if that bluff didn't work I would just declare bankruptcy & reopen under another name somewhere else. One day maybe the tax regime may be simplified here too, so there'd be no virtually no need for tax accountants, & most of the tax accountants could retrain & do something intrinsically useful like land regeneration & de-salination (ie, go out & plant trees). BTW, there's an easy way to make sure farmers get a descent price for their products, just by having govt regulated co-op purchasing boards. For example here in New South Wales dairy farms sell all their milk to the Milk board at a regulated A52c per litre, while in the deregulated state of Victoria farmers only get about A30c for every litre of milk, which means the're lucky to cover costs - & guess what? In the supermarkets of both New South Wales & Victoria milk is virtually the same price. So whats happening in NSW the actuall producers are getting a fairer cut of the pie, while in Victoria the not so productive middlemen gets less of a cut - the way it should be, while the consumer is still ok.
does anyone remember in 'Hitchhikers guide to the Universe', where all the useless people [] colonised a planet (the spaceships with all the useful people crashed) & this planet ended up being called Earth later on, by their descendents.
Well, no.
But I remember how, in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the GALAXY" how the "A" ship had all the "useful" people and they deliberately crashed the "B" ship with all the "useless" people like the telephone sanitisers.
The B passengers ended up colonizing earth while the A passengers' new utopia was wiped out by a plague picked up from an unsanitised telephone.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Existing homeowners will always oppose new home construction, since it would lower the price of their homes. Of course, they'll claim some more politically feasible excuse, but that's really the bottom line.
That is understandable, and to be expected.
It is a measure of how much government and society is geared towards the public good if they can ignore such selfish pleas from the well to do.
This can be seen as a natural disaster- human overpopulation or even corporate overpopulation causing an unhealthy situation and eventual die-off of even the things that clustered in Silicon Valley and caused the problem (long after all indigenous 'organisms' be they people, parks, or art galleries are destroyed).
The question that comes to my mind is, if not San Francisco, where? If there was a powerful and world-famous cultural center populated by artists, writers etc. in San Fran, and if those people are absolutely unable to live in California anymore post-dotcom, where do they go? They must surely scatter and go _somewhere_. Where will be the next great collection, not of power (which shows up on the news quite easily) but of art and culture?
Meanwhile, I have to admit it amuses me that I live in a smallish Vermont town (Brattleboro) in which mailmen (+ mailwomen) still go around on foot delivering letters and smiling at people (at least some of the time :) ), in which there are art galleries and a few bookshops (we lost one recently, which was distressing, but I can count five others off the top of my head which might explain some of why the sixth couldn't make rent) etc etc etc. Sure, everything's dead by 10 in the evening, if not sooner, but so what? The point is, in this dumb little Vermont town, it turns out that I get more of the special charm and cachet of I Left My Heart In San Francisco... than San Francisco itself.
Definitely food for thought :) maybe the next San Francisco will be a virtual cultural center, existing only on the Internet, with its members scattered across all the cozy small towns of the world?
I think the original point was the absurd misplacement of money and it's effects. Is flash coding that much more difficult than scrubbing toilets? Some people make the mistake of thinking that they earned their wild scucess. Few people do, the rest of us are just in the right place at the right time. Sure, what you did to prepare for a living might not have been easy but is it really worth what you get out of it? Is your house really worth two million dollars? None of this is any reason to treat people badly.
Janitors in Louisianna work durring the day at least at every place I've worked. Here, you come to appreciate people who do any kind of work for a living. Humility is a great skill. Those that don't work are engaged in the much easier life of pillage and drugs.
My cousin worked his way through UC Davis as a Janitor. His hard work and good pre med grades earned him a spot at LSU Medical School. He has finished that and is on his way to intern in San Fransisco. I never asked him about his hours, but I don't think it was 8PM to 2AM and I hope he was treated with respect.
They author is not suggesting you be ashamed of your accomplishments. He is praying that people will keep things in perspective and act decent.
So Silicon Valley has gotten so bad? It seems to me that it saved this place. Downtown Mountain View used to nearly abandonded in the 70's... now it's one of the nicest places in the Valley. There's much better restuarants, mass transit and the highway system is improving. According to some old-timers talking on ba.transportation, in the old days even though there were less people, it was a lot harder to get around due to the lack of infrastructure.
People complain about San Francisco too - how the "dot-commers" are taking over. Heaven forbid, they are actually building high-density residences in the boring, dingy, near-abandonded South of Market area. I guess it's better just to have parking lots.
Silicon Valley is somewhere special now. It's not hard to find a small-town rural area to live in, although I can't imagine why anyone would choose to. Why would you want to live in a small-town with nothing to do except socialize with farmers when you could be in a place with educated people, tons of interesting jobs, great universities, great restuarants and a huge selection of things to do?
Things are much better now.
Heck, though this isn't the same issue, look at this year's presidential election. I wanted it to come down to ANYONE other than Bush and Gore. Now I'm stuck with no choice but to vote for one or to not vote.
The HELL you are.
Even if you've never participated in your local party machine, contributed to or volunteered for a candidate more to your likeing, or voted in the primary, there are more than two presidential candidates on the ballot.
Try voting your concience for a change.
A minor party candidate CAN win a big office. (Look at Jessie Ventura, the governor of Minnesota!) All it takes is voters who don't fall for the self-fulfilling prophecy that only a Republican or a Democrat can win.
The mathematical psychologists have a term for people who ignore the candidate closest to their opinion and vote for only for their best choice among those they perceive as "electable". They call such people "dishonest voters". And such behavior plays HELL with the mathematical models.
As long as you vote for the lesser of two evils, you support evil. By voting for a minor party candidate - even when he DOESN'T get elected, you say to the politicians "Here is a vote that you didn't get, that you COULD have gotten, if your position had been more like THAT guy's."
The only vote that DOESN'T count is the one that isn't cast.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Whites may be 80% of the US population, but they're a bit under 50% in Silicon Valley.
In the High Tech world, the engineering departments tend to be 25% Indian, 25% Chinese, 25% European, and 25% US Citizens (all races). Really! Marketing and salespeople are far more american, since those jobs require native social skills, but to clam that white's are on top is ludocrous. If any "group" is ahead, it's asians, narrowly.
You don't see many mexicans in the high tech world though, that's true.
Secondly, the public servants here may be well paid by outside-world-standards, but in SV $50k is on the edge of poverty. It is a publicly debates issue here how to make it possible to have government workers survive, so the services they provide can be delivered. Apparently the obvious solution of paying them more is not possible in the world of government. But that's a different rant...
I kind of like Technopolis better...
I've never been to SV, so I have no idea what it's like in that area, beyond what I've read here on /. and other geek-sites. However, I've always been curious about one thing:
Why does everyone seem to believe that Dot-Com companies must exist in the Valley? It seems to me that the overwhelming opinion is that if your particular DC doesn't exist in SV, then it's not a true DC, and therefore sucks, etc., etc., etc.
I work for a DC. We have two major offices (one in San Francisco, the other in Charlotte NC), and a few smaller offices elsewhere. We don't sit dead-center of the Valley, and a large portion of our software engineers are in Charlotte. Does that mean we automatically suck, and are doomed to failure?
My brother works for another DC that's based in Raleigh, NC. They're about as far away from the Valley as you can get in the continental US. Does that mean they're wasting their time, and won't be around in two weeks?
It seems to me that far too many people are obsessed with locating in the Silicon Valley, with all the baggage that includes: high cost of living, annoying neighbors, little chance for success with the opposite sex. Why?
The real irony is that a DC company can exist anywhere, provided you have a good connection to the Internet. Yet everyone seems consumed by the idea that DCs must be located in SV.
Why?
---
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
Wow. So I'm to understand that big plastic pants have nothing to do with aspiring to "class," and that in reality it's, finally, a genuine and sincere reflection of asthetics among our generation?
Riiiight. I think "Urban Outfitters" has that in its mission statement.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
here's a guy in San Francisco that has been doing more than just making movies about it.
Interview with Nestor Makhno and also an article about the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project
HTTP header ad space for rent! Advertise to thousands of server log readers - only $50 a week per header! 1-800-SURFALOT
The incentive to enable telecommuting as a real business practice would be so great -- and in the very place empowered to realize that potential -- that people would be moving back to Des Moines and Bombay before you could say "virtual corporation".
Seastead this.
You found scrappy people from dirty third-world countries who could program you into the next ice-age. Sour grapes.
I am trying to get rich on stock options but at least I am well-rounded and not self-riteous and arrogant.
Do I even need to respond to this?
You don't get my point. I don't look at the lifestyle of these people in isolation; I look at it in the context of how everybody lives in the Valley.
If there weren't people living in poverty in one of the richest places in the world, I might judge the whole thing differently. But the fact remains that the wealth in SV is enough to give everybody there a comfortable life.
You are probably nothing but a elitist grad student who dreams of tenure and comfy job security, who thinks he is smarter and cultured than the rest of us. You're not in the dot com workforce because its just too fast pace and difficult for you. You probably wouldn't be able to last one day at a startup, or a McDonalds for that matter, because we all work too hard and fast for you.
And where did all this nonsense come from?
Judges are not idiots. A threat of violence is a threat of violence, and will be taken as one. Your excuse that it would be an "accident" would not get you anywhere. You would be clearly making a threat, and would probably receive a more severe than usual sentence, as the threat would be made to avoid legal proceedings.
I don't know where the five T gang enters into it. I suppose it was that you were up late, and not very coherent. I certainly didn't bring them up, the same way I never mentioned dairy farming, but that dominated your previous post.
As for by my reckoning, no. This is by your reckoning. You were the one that said it was OK to run around issuing threats, as I recall. It is most certainly not just considered "advice" under the law, to threaten a person's business and their life. The reason the five T's are able to do this with impunity is that they threaten shopkeepers who are scared to go to the police, or who believe that the police will not help them.
Productivity is not immaterial. It just isn't measured on the scales you have chosen.It would be nice if the whole world were so simple, but it isn't, nor could it ever be. Don't put words in my mouth.
For those of you who flunked Oregon geography, Washington Co. is to the West of Portland. 25 years ago it was part-rural, part-suburban. Then Intel came in, built a half-dozen campuses, invited their suppliers to also build there, & now it looks like SV North.
Lots of suburban sprawl, Hwy 26 is a parking lot of the day, & unless you have a blue badge & are vested in lots of stock, you have to put up with dweebs who happened to be lucky & have too much attitude. And every few years Intel (or Nike) complains that they need more tax subsidies, or else they're gonna take their new construction elsewhere.
Meanwhile, they bulldoze more & more of the native oak & pine -- & I mean real pine, not Douglas Fir -- so that they can build another office sprawl, plant it plane trees, & water the hell out of the grass so that you won't want to sit on it. It looks more like California every day.
Okay, this is probably nothing more than an articulate rant, but I feel better for having said it. And I look forward to seeing the movie.
Geoff
Sorry for the rant. But people like that make me sick that I like computers.
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
While you're correct, of course, this battle has been lost; the word has been assimilated into American English, and it's been mutated/mutilated along the way. This isn't the first word for which this is the case, and I assure you it won't be the last.
I can still remember that day very clearly. It was April 1999, and I was giving a talk at the Chicago Comdex show on the Linux community. While I was there, I stopped by the trade show floor, and wandered by the VA Linux booth. There, I was stopped by Larry Augustine, CEO of VA Linux.
"Ted! You want to move to Sunnyvale, right?"
" No..... but we can talk."
So I spent some time chatting with Chris DiBona, and the rest was history.
So I still live in the Boston area, with a 416k DSL line, and I telecommute. About every 6-8 weeks or so, I pay a trip to Sunnyvale to catch up with what's going on in the home office, and to sync up with the rest of the team there. I am very glad not to be living in Silly Valley. As I tell all my friends, the Bay Area is a wonderful place to visit, but I'd hate to have to live there.
Boston is really nice in that there are plenty of geeks if that's who you like to socialize with, but it's also possible to find folks who aren't geeks as well to socialize with, and that's a definite feature. And while the inner suburbs of Boston are pretty built-up, it's not far at all to get to some really nice parts of Massachusetts. I live 10 minutes from downtown Boston, but I'm also a 5 minute drive or a 20 minute walk from a very large nature reservation with lots of hiking trails in the forest. (And get this! I was able to buy my own house at this location while still living on an academic's salary at MIT --- a salary which would have caused me to be homeless in the Bay Area.)
Every time I visit Sunnyvale, it's clear that companies are desperate for engineers. I was amused by the fact that just about every single slide at the Sunnyvale AMC movie theater were recruiting ads. In the long run, companies are going to have to accept more telecommuters, or open offices outside of Silly Valley. It's only a matter of time.
I pay about 2.11/gal right now, its been hovering around 1.90-2.10 for months now
To that I would like to add. Is that all ? The US holds a special place in the psyche of every citizen of this earth . And it is very sad for those of us who want our own laws and regulations to use the US template (is that OK ?), to hear that all is not well in paradise . Perhaps it is because fiqures are readily available , and elsewhere they are not . Or is it because the system is closer to the ideal than others and hence the flaws stand out . Of course it is a very dynamic culture . And when you go fast things go wrong.
Anil Bhattacharji , anilbhx@sancharnet.in, Meerut Cantt. INDIA 91-121-642166
>Here's a helpful metaphor, should you ever find >yourself in a fashion emergency. >Fashion is a line of sheep running in single >file. Each sheep is desperately trying to cram >its nose up the ass of the sheep in front. >Often, a sheep will stumble out of line, trip, >and end up inspecting its own colon at close >range. >Moral: Don't move too fast or too slow. Watch >where you put your feet. And for heaven's sake, >don't run with scissors. That's a good one. Some of us watch from the outside, and don't line up on the inside. >My, you are full of yourself, aren't you? Have you ever met me in person ? >You know what I hate about people who follow the >overpriced, overrated and overbearing trends of >so-called "Fashion"? It's that (A) they expect >everyone else to do the same, (B) they look down >on those who don't care that they're not wearing >this season's color and (C) they expect others >to treat them specially because the clothes >they're wearing cost more than their janitor's >monthly wage. Hopefully you are not implying that this is my mentality - because it isn't. AFAIK clothes are a personal expression. Some people don't care, but some do. Real fashion isn't about following trends, but about being stylish with 'things' even if they are not expensive. Go visit Holland or Italy, and watch the people that are not rich, nor fashion victims - but know how to dress well. >My opinion? You suck. My opinion? You make judgements without knowing anything about me. >Wow. So I'm to understand that big plastic pants >have nothing to do with aspiring to "class," and >that in reality it's, finally, a genuine and >sincere reflection of asthetics among our >generation? >Riiiight. I think "Urban Outfitters" has that in >its mission statement. Did I say that? Of course outfits are a bit part of aspiring to class, but at the same time they are a reflection other social trends as well. I'm no expert, and even an expert would probably need to write pages to describe the complexity of the situation.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
>Here's a helpful metaphor, should you ever find >yourself in a fashion emergency.
>Fashion is a line of sheep running in single >file. Each sheep is desperately trying to cram >its nose up the ass of the sheep in front. >Often, a sheep will stumble out of line, trip, >and end up inspecting its own colon at close >range.
>Moral: Don't move too fast or too slow. Watch >where you put your feet. And for heaven's sake, >don't run with scissors.
That's a good one. Some of us watch from the outside, and don't line up on the inside.
>My, you are full of yourself, aren't you?
Have you ever met me in person ? Yes, I am a little full of myself. Do you have a problem with that ?
>You know what I hate about people who follow the >overpriced, overrated and overbearing trends of >so-called "Fashion"? It's that (A) they expect >everyone else to do the same, (B) they look down >on those who don't care that they're not wearing >this season's color and (C) they expect others >to treat them specially because the clothes >they're wearing cost more than their janitor's >monthly wage.
Hopefully you are not implying that this is my mentality - because it isn't. AFAIK clothes are a personal expression. Some people don't care, but some do. Real fashion isn't about following trends, but about being stylish with 'things' even if they are not expensive. Go visit Holland or Italy, and watch the people that are not rich, nor fashion victims - but know how to dress well.
>My opinion? You suck.
My opinion? You make judgements without knowing anything about me.
>Wow. So I'm to understand that big plastic pants >have nothing to do with aspiring to "class," and >that in reality it's, finally, a genuine and >sincere reflection of asthetics among our >generation?
>Riiiight. I think "Urban Outfitters" has that in >its mission statement.
Did I say that? Of course outfits are a bit part of aspiring to class, but at the same time they are a reflection other social trends as well. I'm no expert, and even an expert would probably need to write pages to describe the complexity of the situation.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
I started using computers around 1980. It was my dream to become an engineer and move to SV; I even made what for me was almost a Haj to the valley in the mid-80s to visit some of the companies; in particular Broderbund and Atari.
Well, I am an engineer. But I don't even like to visit SV anymore, let alone live there. Gone are the days of friendly--if geeky--guys hanging out at the local computer swap meets where you could meet everyone from CEOs to pre-high school kids. Now it is about money and power. SV used to be ruled by the latest transistor design or MPU release. Now it is all stock options.
It has gotten totally out of hand.
Regarding the author's janitorial comments, while I admit he has a point about the disconnection, I strongly disagree that it is a race issue. Last time I was in SV, whites were a minority, as were Americans. Companies found it cheaper to bring in foreign grad students and pay them lower salaries. And while I am always friendly and greet the Spanish-speaking cleaning crew in my building (when I am here in the middle of the night), I cannot feel sorry for them because they don't speak English. They knew that the US was an English-speaking nation before they left home, and I don't think I am being cruel by not learning their language. The reason English-speaking people (of any ethnic background) have other jobs is their language skills.
I think the high-tech industry is a great equalizer. One company that is courting me has the following technical staff, as I see them: two "white" Americans, one hispanic American, one naturalized Asian-American female CEO, three additional Chinese (one female) and one Indian. That does not sound too race-oriented to me. The nice thing is that they decided not to relocate in SV.
When people base their success in life only on the $$$ they make, they have lost sight of the reasons for living.
I want to see if my signature looks right. :-)
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop