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

[DeadlyBattleRobot]

This is a quote out of
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/25-7

The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

        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.

        When I saw this list â" and especially the last agenda item â" the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

Re:Valued by Results

[Yvanhoe]

Ignore them at your peril.

We don(t ignore them, but the tech world and the bean-counting world have been in a state of cold war for decades. They won't manage to stealthily come into our ranks, we prefer to create software to replace them rather than hire their kin.

Re:Valued by Results

[Anonymous Coward]

When will self-absorbed jackasses like yourself stop "signing" your name at the end of your statement when everyone can PLAINLY see the same user name, which is at the top of your statement?

Re:Valued by Results

[Anonymous Coward]

You're doing it wrong.

--
AC

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

[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.

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.

oh, not true!

[TheGratefulNet]

I'm one of the unemployed (older and seasoned, yet not able to find interviews or jobs in my field). to folks like me, we are *very* much in tune with the occupy movement. we're not at work being flooded with 'work harder, harder; longer, longer!' messages. we're not caught up IN the bubble, we're outside the bubble. we see what its like on both sides.

you don't.

that's what makes all the difference. I've been employed for about 3 decades (in the software field) and I've paid more dues than eric, in my time. he's attained a more powerful position but he knows far less about life than me - of that, I'm very sure. I can tell. anyone my age and with just my simple travels, can.

I'm currently 'over there' in the not-working group (or should I say, not-employed; I'm actually working quite a lot, in fact). I don't think it will stay that way for a long time, but I've been here longer than I thought. its a bit scary and I can see the corporate greed that is caustic to employees. everyone is there 'at the pleasure of the king', pretty much. I see that. the occupy guys see that.

maybe he really does get it but he also realizes that people at his level have to sing the same song. its possible. hard to tell if he believes his own bullshit or not. some do, some don't.

at any rate, many of the folks I know (techies who are also out of work and mostly of middle age or higher) are *strongly* aware and in support of the occupy movement. I'm right smack in the middle of silicon valley, not even very far from the google campus. I remember when it was the SGI campus, too (and I worked at SGI back in those days; before there was a google). I feel I have a good handle on the bay area and silicon valley. and I can say, he's full of shit.

"occupy" *should* really hit home with bay area workers. especially the knowledge-based workers; ones that can so easily be replaced and outsourced. the fact that we are not unionized and that we are a 'commodity' puts us at extreme risk of being fired for any reason and at any time. 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?

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.

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: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.

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:And then there was truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Homes in the bay area are holding their value for one simple reason at this point...a coordinated effort on the part of the Chinese government to purchase real estate in San Francisco. Anyone who's tried buying a house in SF in the past 2-3 years is likely familiar with the situation of having a bid rejected because an all-cash offer for over asking was made by an overseas buyer. The real estate agent I spoke with indicated that every one of these bids that she's seen has come from a single, state-owned, Chinese bank. This alone has propped up housing demand and forced other buyers to look elsewhere in the area.

The conspiracy nut in me would be very wary of hiring Chinese nationals who've just purchased homes in the area. We're all painfully aware of the wages that developers make over there (thus the outsourcing problem), so when they start outbidding locals for expensive homes and the money is coming from the Chinese government, you have to wonder whether they're part of their already-well-covered industrial espionage efforts.