
The Graver Threat of the Growing Tech Backlash - krohrbaugh
http://recode.net/2014/01/03/the-graver-threat-of-the-growing-tech-backlash/
======
apsec112
If tech companies pay their workers generously, then it's their fault for
rising rents. But if they are misers and pay little, then it's their fault for
mistreating working people (see: Apple and Foxconn).

If the tech companies all move to San Francisco, then it's their fault for
changing the fabric of local communities. But if they leave San Francisco,
why, it's their fault for crashing the local economy.

If the tech companies try to establish a libertarian utopia, this shows they
don't care about average people. But if they stay in SF and try to work within
the current system, well, that's the nefarious influence of money in politics.

If the tech companies send buses to pick up their workers, this is terrible
because it drives up housing costs. But if they don't send buses, why, traffic
would be so bad that 280 and 101 would grind to a halt, and clearly that's the
tech companies' fault.

"Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, a priest who heard the confessions of
condemned witches, wrote in 1631 the Cautio Criminalis ('prudence in criminal
cases') in which he bitingly described the decision tree for condemning
accused witches: If the witch had led an evil and improper life, she was
guilty; if she had led a good and proper life, this too was a proof, for
witches dissemble and try to appear especially virtuous. After the woman was
put in prison: if she was afraid, this proved her guilt; if she was not
afraid, this proved her guilt, for witches characteristically pretend
innocence and wear a bold front. Or on hearing of a denunciation of witchcraft
against her, she might seek flight or remain; if she ran, that proved her
guilt; if she remained, the devil had detained her so she could not get away."
\-
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ii/conservation_of_expected_evidence...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ii/conservation_of_expected_evidence/)

~~~
memracom
There is another way.

In London a group of businesses got together and lobbied government for better
bus service among other things: [http://www.londonriversidebid.co.uk/our-
achievements/](http://www.londonriversidebid.co.uk/our-achievements/)

For that matter England has
[http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/about_us](http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/about_us)
which lobbies for improved transport all over the country.

You want to disrupt the old way of doing things? Setting up a private bus
service is not disruption. The initiatives linked above are true disruption.
They are all about doing government differently.

~~~
apsec112
If, tomorrow, Google bought Caltrain and started running it competently
(unlike the current clowns), I'd throw a party to celebrate. But I'm sure the
anti-Google-bus crowd would condemn that too. It would be 'corporatizing our
cherished community institutions' or something.

~~~
kevingadd
I don't think anyone could decry better management of Caltrain with a straight
face. _everyone_ hates how Caltrain is run.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Define "better".

Everyone hates how Caltrain is run. But if you change anything - any one thing
- to make it better, you'll get a particular noisy group screaming "You can't
change _that_!"

That's why Caltrain is so badly run. It has too many competing interests
pulling at it, and it listens too much to too many of them. Fixing it is going
to involve making people mad.

Disclaimer: I don't live in California. I don't actually know anything about
Caltrain. I just have an idea of how government works, and why it goes bad.

------
quanticle
Everything in this article comes back to housing. That's not the tech.
industry's fault. The tech. industry would _love_ to have more housing in San
Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area. Housing prices have increased so
quickly, and are currently at such a high level that even highly paid tech.
workers are thinking twice about moving to SF. We see it often enough in the
comment threads right here.

The problem is that the existing residents of San Francisco would like to
preserve their relatively low density city, and _simultaneously_ cram several
million more people into it. In every other growing city, swathes of older,
low-density housing are torn down and replaced with higher density apartment
and condominium blocks. These high-density urban high-rises relieve the
pressure on the remaining, cheaper, low density residential properties, while
simultaneously adding additional economic growth and neighborhood vitality. It
just seems that the residents of San Francisco have made a collective choice
that they'd rather have the "charm" of their "historic" (like you can call
anything less than 200 years old historic) city, rather having a city that
people can move into and live in on less than programmer wages.

~~~
api
I turned down a really great salary offer in the Bay Area recently because it
was not that great given the housing prices. Basically you'd have to offer me
over $175k to even _consider_ coming there... and even then I'd be concerned
about continued real estate inflation pricing me out of any chance of getting
desirable housing and paying it off in a decent amount of time.

The other thing is that in Silicon Valley you're paying for RE like it's New
York but you don't live in New York. You live in a boring and IMHO rather ugly
suburb. I was _shocked_ at how bad it was... I was driving around and thinking
"I cannot think of anywhere else in the USA where so much gets you so little."

~~~
SheepSlapper
I found that out the hard way. Six months ago I got a job in SF that paid me
50% more, and moved to the East Bay where I pay almost 3x the rent (for the
same square footage, in a much crappier neighborhood). I could buy a _nice_
house where I'm from (WA) for what I'm paying in rent now, and that stings a
bit.

It's definitely been a fun experience (there're TONS of cool things to do
here), but had I known 6 months ago what I know now... I'm not sure that I
would have made the transition.

------
charleslmunger
"Ellis Act evictions, used to eject all tenants from a building to clear the
way for a sale, soared 170 percent in the last three years."

This statistic is incredibly misleading - the absolute increase was only 73
evictions. [1]

“From Google buses invading the neighborhoods, to the evictions of elders, to
the very real effects of speculator-fueled evictions, the tech industry’s
reaction has been shameful,” said Tony Robles, an organizer with Senior and
Disability Action who joined the Oakland demonstration, in an email.

This can also be read as "Large companies pay employees too much money and
provide too many benefits."

[1] [http://www.chicagonow.com/getting-real/2014/01/san-
francisco...](http://www.chicagonow.com/getting-real/2014/01/san-franciscos-
google-bus-protests-and-the-affordable-housing-mythology/)

~~~
theorique
_This can also be read as "Large companies pay employees too much money and
provide too many benefits."_

Shame!

San Francisco should kick the techies out. Then it can aspire to be Detroit.
It's not pretty when a formerly vibrant industry fades away over time.

------
bowlofpetunias
If there is a tech backlash, it's not about Bay Area gentrification, which is
a local issue and happens in urban areas around the world. The fact that in SF
the money comes from tech is irrelevant.

(The cognitive dissonance of the fortunate techies on HN who refuse to
acknowledge that they are no different from self-centered 80's finance yuppies
is amusing, but nothing new is happening here.)

The more universal backlash is about the industries arrogant disregard for
existing values, regulations, social conventions and traditions. As if
anything done by non-techies is inherently inferior, disruption has become an
ideology.

Similar to "greed is good", tech promotes the ideology "disruption is good".
Millions who see their society mutilated, their rights trampled and their
livelihoods disappearing do not agree.

We like to see ourselves as the good guys, and things like the NSA spying or
the British censorship filter as the work of the bad guys. As far as the
general public is concerned however, they are two sides of the same coin:
technology as a means for the elite to take away what once was theirs.

That is the backlash we may soon be facing. And that backlash may not
distinguish between the NSA, the mighty Google empire and your plucky little
start up.

~~~
gaius
Disruption is the polite word for a business model of making money by skirting
regulations, e.g. AirBnB vs hotels. To borrow a phrase, it's not scalable.

------
memracom
This is yet another reason why startups should avoid Silicon Valley. Years
ago, the investment climate in SV really was different than elsewhere but that
has now changed. Not only are there tech VCs and Angels in other US cities,
but they are found throughout the world. You might still have concentrations
in particular places, for instance in Canada most action is in Vancouver,
Waterloo and Toronto, but that is a far cry from the days when SV was the only
place.

Best place to start a new company is where you are right now. That is what
Atlassian did and when it made sense for them to be in a different place, they
just moved. Second best place is any city where there is a concentration of
tech industry but that could be in Vancouver, Berlin, Moscow (Skolkovo) or
London (Old Street). You have a choice.

And if your business is growing and beginning to have a local impact, and you
are senior management there, then you really should start thinking about how
you can improve the local area for everyone, which is a traditional activity
of larger successful companies. Spend money on civic projects. If you need
better bus service, lobby for it rather than sidestepping the competition.
Politics is a different game from business and if you fail to recognize that
and act appropriately, then you deserve the brickbats that will be thrown at
you.

I'm reminded of when IBM was the big bad boy, and Microsoft was the cool new
upstart. Then Microsoft became the bad boy and Google was the cool new
upstart. From the sound of things, Google is now sliding into bad boy
territory.

------
api
On a side note... I find it kind of amazing how pollyanna many techies' view
is of their own industry. The fact is that the tech industry is often
surprisingly sleazy and includes quite a few very shady characters. Some of
the sketchiest people I've _ever_ met have been businesspeople involved in
tech, and when I was in college I had friends who were into drug trafficking
and thus had a little bit of indirect contact with that scene. Let me put it
this way... I met people heavily involved in drugs who I'd trust with my kids
before I'd trust many of the tech businesspeople I've met. We're talking major
fucking sleaze here, hard-core reptilian sociopaths.

~~~
michaelochurch
Many tech businessmen aren't nerds. They're in the game to take advantage of
nerds' poor social skills, inability to organize or negotiate for their own
interests, and willingness to overwork themselves due to a lack of long-term,
strategic thinking.

Also, tech has the Damaso Effect. The best of our world answer to the worst of
theirs, because we've been _colonized_ by the MBA culture, and most colonial
soldiers and officers are people who failed in their own countries. The good
businessmen stay in New York and start hedge funds. The leftovers in their set
are the ones who end up in VC or as VC-funded founders-- and they're bitter
about it, too.

Much of the tension in tech comes from the fact that tech's best end up, due
to the extreme power of the VCs and moneymen, answering to the rejects of the
business world-- the ones who weren't able to get themselves into hedge funds.

~~~
api
"The best of our world answer to the worst of theirs, because we've been
colonized by the MBA culture, and most colonial soldiers and officers are
people who failed in their own countries."

Thank you. This is why I love Hacker News. :) That is remarkably clear and
concise and from my experience absolutely true. In one of my _worst_ examples
of a total sleazenugget from high-tech, it is literally true. I know for a
fact that the guy tried and failed to become a high-finance type and was
indeed incredibly bitter about it, so he entered high-tech and tried to hustle
nerds (like me) out of technologies he could (fail to) flip.

------
rodrodrod
> Ellis Act evictions, used to eject all tenants from a building to clear the
> way for a sale, soared 170 percent in the last three years.

For some context, that's an increase of 73 evictions per year (from 43 in 2010
to 116 in 2013[0]). Of course, 73 in the absolute doesn't have the same ring
to it as 170%, so it's clear to see why the data is presented the way it is. I
think it's rather disingenuous and makes that particular problem seem much
dire than it might really be.

[0]
[http://www.sfbos.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=47...](http://www.sfbos.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=47040)

~~~
kevingadd
what is the math that leads you to say 116 entire-building evictions impacts
0.014% of the population? are numbers provided that describe the total number
of tenants affected? A large apartment building/complex can be home to
hundreds of tenants, many of them families.

~~~
rodrodrod
Ah, good catch! I mistakenly assumed there was a 1:1 eviction to tenant
correlation. I can't seem to find any data indicating the total number of
tenants evicted (or, at least, an average count of tenants evicted per
eviction on average), so I can't really estimate the % of population impacted
anymore, so I've edited that bit out.

------
ojbyrne
From someone living in Mountain View, this seems stupid on the part of San
Francisco based protesters. There's been many, many examples of cities being
hollowed out and losing their entire tax base because of the need for
"equality." Push too far, and all those tech workers might decide that living
in the suburbs isn't too bad.

------
rayiner
Every article like this is yet another reason not to start a business in bat-
shit crazy San Francisco. Its advertising for Seattle, New York, Austin,
Chicago, etc.

~~~
erbo
I'll put in a good word for the Denver-Boulder area. :-)

Seriously, I read things like this:

 _" Cohen said one concrete way the tech industry could ease the affordability
crisis would be to cut big checks. He notes that San Francisco’s hotel tax
produces about $5 million a year that goes into subsidized housing, and said
it’s appropriate to call on the tech sector for similar contributions since
their workforce is primarily responsible for driving up housing costs."_

And then I read the "suggestions" in an article[1] linked to this one
immediately following that quote, and one word comes to mind: _shakedown._

Instead of cooperating with the moral equivalent of a mugging, perhaps
companies should move to places where they're _appreciated,_ rather than
reviled.

[1] -
[http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4999](http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4999)

------
bananacurve
Starting off by citing the thoroughly debunked Google bus incident is not
going to help your credibility but no one probably even read the article
anyway.

~~~
smtddr
I know there was a fake[1] one beforehand, but this[2] one happened for real.
Or are you say this is fake too?

1\. [http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57615006-93/fake-google-
emp...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57615006-93/fake-google-employees-
fight-with-protesters-we-wish-was-true/)

2\. [http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/12/09/protesters-block-
goog...](http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/12/09/protesters-block-google-bus-
in-s-f-mission/)

------
alexakarpov
Instead of the article, better read Vonnegut:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29)

A much better, if also significantly longer, exposition.

------
ForHackernews
> Using tech services isn’t like using a toaster. It’s often an act of faith.
> Logging into Apple, Facebook, Google or Square products requires confidence
> that those companies will treat intimate information in an aboveboard
> manner, including your contacts, communications, location, medical history,
> shopping preferences, surfing habits and more.

Time and again that faith has been demonstrated to be severely misplaced. If a
"backlash" against the tech sector leads to fewer people thoughtlessly handing
over their most private lives to giant, amoral entities, then so much the
better.

------
smtddr
Well, the more articles highlighting the problem the more discussion can
happen and maybe a solution can be found. On the other hand, looking at all
the HN comments coming up with so many different excuses make me less hopeful.
I bet this is how the rich elite started; using the same thought process to
excuse & dismiss their impact on those around them. Eventually reaching the
point of just, "Meh, screw them."

------
ianbicking
Is this anything more than a concern about gentrification in the Bay Area?
"Tech" isn't causing gentrification anywhere else, and none of the other
offenses (worker safety, taxes, privacy) seem to engender any strong emotional
response towards the tech industry.

The Bay Area has pretty intense class issues, that is true, but the relation
of those class issues to the tech industry is purely local.

------
csense
You would think the tech industry would be more open to people working
remotely. This problem is caused by insisting that everybody you hire be
local, no matter how much it inflates salary requirements due to the SF
housing market.

------
SubZero
Does this article remind anyone else of the culture in Atlas Shrugged?

~~~
Iftheshoefits
To which culture in Atlas Shrugged do you refer: the Galt types or everybody
else? And to which subject of the article would you draw the analogy?

------
nikoio
Is it the browser I am using, or is recode not thinking about smaller sized
screens?

opera 12.16 on Linux

[http://imgur.com/dK0et3M](http://imgur.com/dK0et3M)

------
gaius
If person A calls person B a "reactionary", then that only really tells you
something about person A.

~~~
elwin
The label stood out to me too. I can't remember seeing it seriously applied to
anyone in any writing more recent than the 1950's.

------
gum_ina_package
Everyone sees the success, but no one sees what it took to get there. They
don't see the intense, competitive interviews tech workers go through. They
don't see the grueling comp sci/engineering coursework they do leading up to
said interviews. And they definitely don't see the thousands of hours
programmers put into teaching themselves new skills and technologies.

~~~
swalsh
Don't overwhelm your ego here, the guy who prepared my lunch today is working
harder than me. And since that job doesn't pay enough to survive, he has two
of them.

You get paid more, not because you "worked hard" or "studied harder"... its
because you have a line of work that both creates a shit ton of value, and the
supply and demand for people with our skill sets works out in our favor.

~~~
gum_ina_package
You're correct in that how hard someone works doesn't result in how much they
earn. However, I got into the industry I'm in through hard work. Going back to
my main point, people don't want to see that - they just want to see the
success which fits into their narrative where anyone with any success got it
because they exploited someone else.

~~~
gaius
People who succeed tend to assume the credit, and people who fail tend to
blame others. Both are wrong.

------
andyl
The tech industry isn't perfect - not by a long shot.

But tech companies aren't putting the climate at risk. Tech companies didn't
crash the economy. Over the past decades there isn't another industry that has
delivered more growth and value.

The grave threat is to non-credible Media who deal in link-bait and
manufactured controversy.

~~~
drhayes9
I think an important distinction here is that the greatest value the tech
industry creates is monetary value. There are others measures of value that it
doesn't exceed at.

I'm not one to say that all tech innovation has ceased, but I would love to
see more startups addressing the rest of the world's real problems:
starvation, poverty, water, oppressive governments. Otherwise we are playing
our part in ensuring a grim meathook future: [http://zenarchery.com/full-text-
of-the-grim-meathook-future-...](http://zenarchery.com/full-text-of-the-grim-
meathook-future-thing/)

Besides, the tech industry didn't crash the economy -- but we sure had a lot
of fun benefiting from large-scale economic speculation that came from it the
first time.

