Why the Occupy Movement Skipped Silicon Valley

An anonymous reader writes "Eric Schmidt says what we all suspected: Silicon Valley has largely been immune to the Great Recession. He said, 'Occupy Wall Street isn’t really something that comes up in daily discussion, because their issues are not our daily reality. We live in a bubble, and I don’t mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world.... Companies can’t hire people fast enough. Young people can work hard and make a fortune. Homes hold their value.'"

Comments

Valued by Results

[djl4570]

Silicon Valley and other islands of technology define their economic model by success in the marketplace, not by the manipulations of ivy league finance wizards.

Re:Valued by Results

[bmo]

Silicon Valley and other islands of technology define their economic model by success in the marketplace, not by the manipulations of ivy league finance wizards.

That is until the so-called finance wizards cast their jaundiced eye at your little cozy world.

The bean counters will come, eventually and a price will be put on everything and the value stripped.

Ignore them at your peril.

--
BMO

Re:Valued by Results

[eldavojohn]

Agreed. Companies that don't need political protection to survive, don't need favors from politicians, nor seek value by political manipulation of the marketplace don't need to be Occupied.

I couldn't disagree more. Political manipulation of the marketplace? How about political manipulation to shift the burden of paying taxes onto the individual instead of the corporation? Like lobbying congress to keep tax loopholes in place? And if Google doesn't need to lobby politicians then why give them money?

Now can someone tell me about the Occupy movement's actual goals and desired outcomes? It seems to me that without an end in mind, this movement could be corrupted and taken over by celebs just like the Tea Party.

Well, as I've posted before, I'd imagine economic justice. To specifically address my point above about tax dodging, I feel that our taxpaying dollars present these companies with one of the best and safest environments in the world to run a business. From police forces to firefighters to the highway infrastructure to educating your customers in the public schools. The reason you might think that all those things are going to shit is -- as I see it -- companies reap the benefits from them and then shift revenue through Ireland or The Netherlands to avoid paying for them! There's something specific you can fix. Right now it's you and me picking up the slack in income and sales tax!

Re:Valued by Results

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the bean counting starts before the company, even in tech. There's nothing so holy and high-minded about tech that makes it immune to reality.

Re:Valued by Results

[Attila Dimedici]

You know the best way to get the money out of politics? Get the politics out of money.

Re:Valued by Results

[joocemann]

Youve got to be pretty naive, even in said bubble, to think the problems OWS addresses dont impact the lives of every single one of us.

Re:Valued by Results

[Alomex]

The bean counters will come, eventually and a price will be put on everything and the value stripped.

It's called an MBA degree. The focus used to be in how to bring efficiencies to an ongoing concern, it has slowly and subtly switched to stripping valuation from brands. It goes like this:

1) buy or get hired by a company that has a hard won reputation of quality
2) work huge financial incentives into your contract if profits double
3) cut quality by 50%, prices by 20%.
4) initially sales skyrocket due to lower prices
5) collect handsome bonus
6) work golden parachute into contract
7) brand collapses as people realize quality is no longer there
8) get fired, collect additional $50 million severance package

Welcome to XXI century American capitalism. This will appear in her epitaph.

Re:Valued by Results

[Attila Dimedici]

It may be a simple way to put it, but is "get the money out of politics" any more insightful of an actual course of action? My point was that if the government would stop regulating every aspect of our lives, corporations would face more competition from small businesses and would find less value in spending money on politicians than in some other use for that money. Government regulation always increases the disadvantage small companies (especially one or two person operations) have when it comes to competing with large companies, yet large companies are almost always the ones guilty of the action that causes people to call for government regulation. So, here is the pattern, large company does something unethical/dangerous, people call for government regulations on that industry, small companies face greater obstacles to compete with large company, large company makes even more money, rinse and repeat.

Re:Valued by Results

[Oswald]

This is so true and so rarely discussed. Adam Smith--so beloved of talking-head capitalists--thought publicly held corporations were a terrible idea, but somehow that part of the message never comes up on CNBC when they're discussing the invisible hand. P.J.O'Rourke wrote a book about Smith's Wealth of Nations and even called the old man out for his error--too early. Turns out, the raping of great companies through the blindness of their absentee owners is just one of those disasters that takes a while to play out, like democracies voting themselves into bankruptcy. I'd say we're making good progress toward collapse on both fronts now, though.

Re:Valued by Results

[houstonbofh]

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process.

No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act â" the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

The funny thing is that most Tea Party people are also for all of that. It is in the politicians interest to keep us divided, however. If the public ever wakes up and realizes that the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street want the same thing, the party in Washington is OVER.

Re:Valued by Results

[Penguinisto]

Question: Who gets to determine who "deserves" what? I can just as easily say that no one needs or deserves to have more than two children, or to marry once in their lifetimes, or to own one car at a time, or to own one computer at a time in any personal household... IMHO, maybe you ought to shy away from the subjective when making demands of government. It's bad enough that they've been taxing tobacco and alcohol to push specific moral agendas (most of which hits the poor harder than anyone) - let's not start pushing more of it, mm'kay?

IMHO, if they'd simply ditch all tax loopholes, tax all human and corporate entities with incomes above $75k/yr a flat 30%? You'd have perfect tax 'fairness'. 'course, no one wants to do that - and I do mean no one. The middle class wants their mortgage and EIC credits, the rich want their loopholes, corporations want theirs, etc...

Re:Valued by Results

[larkost]

It may well be that many of those who call themselves Tea Part members may believe that. It might even be that oranizers at the local level belive that. But it is quite clear that the organizors at the state and national levels, and the elected politicians who are beholden to those people, have no interest in that sort of thing at all. In fact they have consistently rejected anything like those ideas in legislation.

Of course part of this disconect is that there is so much marketing going on by people paid by large groups (the Koch bothers come imedialy to mind, but they are far from the only ones) who can afford to buy saturation advertising with carefully crafted emotional messages that stop any rational debate and obscure/obliterate any real thinking. The-powers-that-be in the (large scale) Tea Party are absolutely against at least part of the message you feel is comming from the Tea Party rank-and-file. And I really do fear that in order to have any real chance as a orgainzation the Occupy movement will wind up in the same situation.

Precisely.

[unity100]

That's what i have been telling my colleagues (all of them are in i.t., or i.t. companies) whenever the issues occupy wall street is raising came up. Almost all of them have been saying 'i have worked "hard" and made myself. everyone can' - because they are living in a bubble. Their skill set and aptitude, matches the time period they are living in. We are living in an era where skills/inclinations that i.t. requires are in high demand, and therefore we are in luck. Had we lived in an earlier era, we would be hard pressed to make a living.

And no - dont ever fall into the pit of thinking that 'because i am smart, i could make it' -> it does not work that way. Talent/inclination works differently than 'smart'. Cognitive powers does not have direct relevance to the inclinations you have - there are a lot of smart people, scientists too, who find i.t. work quite stressing, irritating and unbearable. and vice versa.

So we are lucky. if we had been born back in 15th century, we would be shining a feudal lord's shoes maybe. with all our smarts, but without anything on that time and age to support our particular talents.

Same the situation with majority of people - things that were in huge demand 50 years ago, are not in demand today. Things were inconceivable 50 years ago, are in demand today. But, dont err in thinking that 'adaptation is necessary' -> it is always this way - in a society with ills of capitalism, there is always huge demand for a very little percentage of talents, and the demand for the rest is never enough to feed the population.

And in this environment, those who 'made it' because they were lucky tend to think that they made it because of their 'talents'. Nay. you were lucky to hit your mother's womb in the perfect time.

It is utterly stupid to live in bubbles, devoid of perception of reality, and then to apply one's own bubble to reality, and be content with it. middle class today (which is a pathetic 10% in usa as of this moment btw) does that. and they are no different in position than the clerks, guards who did the feudal lord's bidding back in middle ages, for slightly elevated comforts.

It IS a bubble

[GeneralTurgidson]

These people don't understand that their cushy lives and jobs depend on a strong US economy. Even if you aren't seeing the effects of it yet, it will still impact you eventually through soaring costs. We're all in it together.

Simple answer...

[pla]

Silicon Valley has done well through the recession for three obvious reasons:

1) They actually produce something that the rest of the world wants. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, that someone has to actually make things; a service economy only works if you have someone to serve... Which leads into:

2) The bankers, the realtors, the assorted "middle men" of Silicon Valley provide actual services to those bringing in the money. They haven't (yet) replaced the doers as Silicon Valley's raison d'etre. The world needs bankers - The bankers just need to remember that real people need them to provide real money so they can buy real things, rather than bundling together unicorn farts and leprechaun gold and hoping to get-rich-quick selling it as an "investment" to morons who only see dollar signs.

3) No slackers allowed - The usual parasites in any community get about as much sympathy from geeks as they would from Hitler. 'Nuff said.

Waaaaaa!

[Anonymous Coward]

You people are unfucking believable.

Everything is the fault of someone else. No one is fair to you. They were just lucky.

Your endless excuses why your life ended up being a sorry excuse for existence is fascinating.

I can only assume you are some stupid, fucking college student still living at home because you selected a degree in Philosophy or Women's studies and are bitter now that you can't find a job.

Fuck your whining. Fuck you pessimism. Fuck you.

Re:oh, not true!

[TheLink]

you've seen the downsizing in front of your own eyes. you can't deny that, can you? are *all* those guys really poor performers? do you believe that?

I often see companies announce a global X% trimming in headcount. And they don't appear to care who gets the chop. This happens in all sectors, and seems ridiculous to me.

For example: someone I know works in a multinational corp, when Global HQ said "cut X%" his department was affected, even though his department was profitable, and surpassed targets. And so it was either him or his colleague that was to go. In the end his colleague got the chop. But what's most ridiculous is there was still a lot of work for the profitable department! So he ended up overworked. I told him he should have volunteered to take the severance package (since he was single, his colleague was married with commitments, there was more than enough work, he needed a break, he was supposedly better at the job, so I figured maybe he would be asked to come back later ;) ).

Analogy: to me this is like sacking one of two chefs in a very busy profitable restaurant, just because HQ isn't doing well. And the busy profitable restaurant suffers as a result, customers get poorer service. Isn't this a stupid thing to do? What motivation is there for people to do well then? You get sacked because HQ or someone else screws up. Not your team or even your branch.

I can understand sacking the chef if the chef sucks (he may not have been the best but he didn't suck), the restaurant is losing money (it wasn't), the business is going to nosedive (nobody there thought that was going to happen, and it didn't).

I can understand it if HQ says: trim X% of all the departments/branches that aren't profitable or didn't meet the targets or "service levels", those that are profitable can maintain headcount and those who are doing very well can increase headcount. This sort of beancounter logic I can understand. It motivates people to meet the requirements. Whereas if I were a manager in a "trim X%, no matter what" organization, I'd be tempted to hire cheap extras just to use as "cannonfodder" whenever cuts are required.

Re:yes

[deKernel]

Actually I think you are wrong. I as well as my friends have all worked hard and we are very happy. We are happy because we don't define our lives by our jobs and how much money we have, but by our families and friends. I find it funny that you seem to define happiness by the very people you hate. You define happiness by money for which is the sole apparent motivation of the people you think cause all of your problems in life.

Here is a suggestion, don't give those "evil" people the power of "happiness" in your life. I would explain more, but I wanna go have a nice snow ball fight with my kids....see how that works.

Re:yes

[next_ghost]

and furthermore, 'getting rich' by 'hard work' is the biggest piece of fraud that is perpetrated by current system. can you think that someone who is owning majority or even noticeable share on a megacorporation, got rich through 'hard work' ?

Sure they did. The only catch is that all of that hard work was done by lots of other people.

Re:Define the problem

[IANAAC]

... because their issues are not our daily reality.

Whatever their issues were. Engineers are good at defining and solving problems. "Occupy" failed to define a problem.

I just wasted mod points to simply reply:

Maybe Engineers aren't such good listeners, then. The problem has CLEARLY been defined, and by many people.

The beancounters are there. Facebook is 50 billion

[Colin Smith]

Goldman Sachs have already made their money selling Facebook funds. Then comes the IPO with shooting star valuations for the upper management & VCs. Then the plunge to earth for the bag holders.

More typically known as pump & dump. This is what Silicon Valley is all about.

Re:And then there was truth

[Surt]

Homes over a million? That's almost all of them around here.
Offshoring? So oughts. All the modern tech companies in the valley have realized that to build competitive apps you do it with manpower here.
Young people making money? Well, you do have to be lucky or smart in your startup choice, but facebook is about to mint another batch of over a thousand young millionaires to help keep those house prices propped up.
   

Re:A Minor Alteration

[JerkBoB]

Google (and the rest of the tech giants) have been dodging taxes and I hope that when those Oakland OWS demonstrations spill over into Mountain View that the police don't have enough tax money to keep drenching the protesters.

I won't argue that there isn't something wrong with the fact that those businesses paid so little in taxes, but I do wonder why your ire seems to be directed at the businesses themselves, rather than the dysfunctional government which allows the loopholes. If what they did is legal, then why wouldn't they take advantage of the loopholes to preserve value for themselves and their shareholders? When you do your taxes, do you take all of the deductions available to you, or do you take some sort of moral high road out of patriotic duty? I'm annoyed that my net worth isn't enough to let me play the same games. Hoping that the US tax system will become fair is useless. What most folks don't recognize is that making adjustments to the tax code is a powerful tool for Congress-critters to reward or punish friends and foes. Probably more powerful than earmarks, because it's subtle.

Re:yes

[Anonymous Coward]

As a married father of 2 and software dev who's been through 3 jobs in the last 3 years (never fired or laid off, just looking for the right fit...) I say to you grow a pair! Sure getting married and having kids changed my life, and not everything for the better. But I will tell you watching my 4 year old draw pictures or make up stories or sing songs is WAY more rewarding than even fixing that niggling bug no one has been able to track down, or performing coups to overthrow crappy bosses (I've played that game successfully twice). In the end it's just a job, and there are lots of those if you're any good. Postponing your life to wait for a better political climate is the most insane idea I've ever heard. Unless of course you like letting others dictate your happiness which it seems you're hell bent to allow.

Re:yes

[artor3]

That is so much bullshit. Only people like you, who have money, can afford to claim that you don't need money to be happy.

Enjoy that snowball fight with your kids. And tonight, once they're in bed, think about what would happen if you were one of the long-term unemployed masses. If you had to leave your home for someplace cheaper, where your kids might get caught up in gang violence. If you couldn't reliably put food on the table, so sometimes they have to go to bed hungry. If, God forbid, you couldn't afford necessary healthcare for them, and lost one.

Rest assured, your CEO doesn't care about any of that. You're just a cog, to be used up and replaced as soon as someone cheaper (more desperate) comes along. If you don't fight for your family and their futures, who will?

What's sad

[publiclurker]

is that you might actually be naive enough to believe that load of crap. The regulations are there because morally bankrupt people and the companies who are run by them have no qualms about poisoning and even killing you if it helps their bottom line. your impotent little small businesses don't even enter into the equation. Assuming tat they aren't also interested in lining their own pockets at your expense in order to some day be one of the big guys.