The real story here is not the protests, which are <i>very</i> small. (Compare to the Iraq War protests, which involved <i>ten times</i> the <i>entire population of SF</i>.)<p>The real story is how a certain section of the media loves to blow up anything anti-Google, no matter how trivial or insignificant (a few dozen people staging a rally? two months ago?), into The Biggest Problem Ever. One imagines that they make big advertising dollars from spreading their ideology of hate, just as William Randolph Hearst did a few generations back. Or maybe Bill Gates ran over their puppy back in 1982 and now they've dedicated their lives to petty revenge.<p>"Look Who’s Gawking: Inside Nick Denton’s phony, hypocritical class war against tech workers": <a href="http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/" rel="nofollow">http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-de...</a>
Certainly Silicon Valley has their fair share of douchebags, but the media hype surrounding this is simply nonsense. The world hates Silicon Valley? You're telling me that somehow all these SV douchebags outweigh Hollywood or Wall Street douchebags? Come on, now.
There is a clear cognitive dissonance in articles like this and the actions of protestors. They highlight on the extreme wealth of certain founders/executives, yet direct their wrath (and stones) on the entire tech industry.<p>Regular Facebook employees aren't Mark Zuckerberg, and certainly aren't paid like it. Most tech workers make less than twice the median family income in the Bay Area—good pay, but not obscene.<p>If people have a problem with income inequality, they should be siding with tech workers—we're way closer to barista wages than being in the 1%.<p>So why are tech workers the ones getting attacked? You can bet Larry Page isn't taking the bus, but he's the one making the money.
Uh, except for a single mention of taxes in Britain, this is an article about How San Francisco came to hate Silicon Valley. I mean, seriously, Valleywag really capturing the zeitgeist of the common man? Jesus.<p>(I thought the plural "bricks through the window" in the subheadline was particularly indicative, when as far as I know that was brick <i>singular</i>)<p>The <i>world</i>, meanwhile, follows a bit of news about tech companies, they have opinions about some of the bigger ones, and they like taking sides over their favorite phone brand, but they continue to steadfastly not care about Silicon Valley. Seriously. Go on vacation, get out of the bubble, talk to people. They don't even have an opinion on the place.
Seriously, employees who ride buses to their 10-hour jobs who are probably scrabbling to get some work done on the commute (those buses have wi-fi for a reason) are causing "heightened anxiety about the widening income gap between tech workers and "ordinary" citizens"?<p>These protesters are either misinformed or being deliberately malicious if they are targeting the ordinary tech employee. At $39000 average spending per year ($3250/month according to the article), how much do they exactly think SV engineers get paid? At say, 100k, which would be considered pretty decent by an SV engineer, the 28% tax bracket, leaves 72k actual income. Minus the $39000 housing expenses mentioned, that's $33000/year, or $2750/month for food, clothing, paying for your kids' education. etc. If your spouse doesn't work, you will be living a pretty Spartan life. Hardly the kind of money you imagine rich assholes throwing around, is it?
Why does every single one of these stories always leave out the most responsible counterparty in these matters... the landlords.<p>The tech workers are just showing up with buying power. The decision of whether or not to pursue ellis act evictions is not carried out by tech workers, but the San Francisco landlords who are trying to free up their rent controlled units to be able to jack up the price.<p>Many of these landlords are either San Franciscans who still live in the city or those that grew up here, but moved out to the supports and now just manage rentals in the city. So at the end of the day its fellow San Franciscans to whom these protestors should direct their anger.
It should be noted that San Francisco isn't the only area blighted. Cho's in Palo Alto is being pushed out by the landlord.<p><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_25015784/chos-close-palo-alto" rel="nofollow">http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_25015784/chos-close-palo-alto</a>
This reminds me of a tweet from Alexia Tsotsis saying that everyone will either work for Google or Walmart in the future. It looks like San Francisco is giving us a preview of that future.
I was wondering if this was serving as some kind of rebuttal to the occupy wallstreet stuff. As in - "don't pay attention to the actual wealth inequality that is choking the economy in many places, these recent grads who work in the Valley but live in SF are the bad guys"<p>Sure conjecture and conspiracy-theoryish but why the fuck else would any part of the media be paying attention to 10 protesters and a staged, crass fake "nerd" pretending to be a Google employee?
You mean installing reclaimed log cabins in your cafeteria, sorry casual dining area, isn't endearing? [1]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25251868/lib-at-large-novato-contractor-supplies-century-old" rel="nofollow">http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_25251868/lib-at-large-novat...</a>
Right, I read about it all the time on Facebook and Blogspot.<p>Many people have concerns, but a) even most of them don't all the time, and b) as a proportion of world adult population, not many.
I would have thought having an extra $10 million in the local economy (from the wedding) would be a good thing. Isn't that the whole concept of a trickle down economy?
Australians despise the U.S. and The Age is simply airing the rank and fetid feelings of the people that read their newspaper.<p>Trust me, I know - I was born and raised in Australia, and because of the country's heavy Socialist/British background and identity, we were taught to hate everything about America. My wife and I lived in Melbourne from 2009-2012, and she suffered horrible discrimination for being from the US.<p>Silicon Valley is one of the great monuments to American individualism and entrepreneurial spirit, and it sickens most Aussies to see the success and fortune that has come of it.<p>The Age is ensuring that the anti-American sentiment is kept at a poisonous and noxious level.
<i>Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, spent a reported $US10 million on his wedding</i><p>Wow, how unbelievably arrogant. Spending his money however the fuck he wants? Paying people to render him services of their own free will? What an asshole. He must've forgot signing that social contract with angry poor radicals that once you hit $(whatever today's immoral amount of money is) you no longer have the right to spend it... oh wait.<p>Whatever. Give me a break. This article is really about the worst side of SF - not the successful businessmen, but the unsuccessful, jealous, negative, unproductive "radicals" whose politics boils down to "I hate everything that I don't understand, and I'm not going to bother to try and understand it because I hate it."<p><i>an arrogant and often tone-deaf industry</i><p>The only arrogant people here are these fucking losers who think they deserve to live in the one of the world's most expensive and desirable cities, and think they deserve to dictate how other people can and should behave, despite providing absolutely nothing of value to anyone.<p>Perkins is right. The closest parallel to the mindless, hate-drenched opprobrium of these people is Nazi Germany turning on the Jews (a similar group of successful, largely innocuous businesspeople.)