
The hype about an incoming wave of tech IPOs has underscored SF's tensions - mindgam3
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/in-san-francisco-tech-money-doesnt-buy-happiness
======
Balgair
Good snapshot!

SF, in the post IPO-3.0 glow is sure a short place. It's in transition.

The big battles to IPO and get paid for all that delayed gratification, are
over.

These unicorns are made real in all their off-white reality, trailing glitter
scintillae as they trot in fresh mud. Of course, not all the IPOs are
mainfest, but all can see them coming.

It's like waiting outside the classroom for your friends after your last final
of the year, in that early evening light of May, but before they are out of
theirs'. The party is coming, but you are very tired from cramming, and your
friends are still crunching away. So you sit, watch others plop out of the
test, have a cigarette to pass time, enjoy the sun-warm concrete seep into
your feet and thighs, and take a nip out of the flask.

That's the feeling I get out of SF now, out of this article. The exhausted
biding of time.

------
ageek123
Most of the problems described in the article are the direct result of the
city's refusal to allow adequate housing construction to keep up with demand.

~~~
MagicPropmaker
Right! And she laments old obsolete buildings being torn down to make way for
apartment projects.

------
_bxg1
"The store displayed high-end kitchen and grill tools, sets of cheese knives,
truffle-flavored potato chips, wine, small-batch chocolate, Wagyu beef jerky,
buckets of flowers, and a variety of small, high-design jars containing the
sorts of transactional condiments and ephemera that often circulate as hostess
gifts: preserved lemon paste; pork lard; red-pepper jam; hand-poured candles.
Chunks of pink Himalayan salt were packaged with miniature graters near a
Scandinavian-looking guacamole press."

San Francisco has become a parody of civilization. This paragraph reads like a
description of an Earth-themed tourist stop. A collection of shallow
signifiers of what it's like to be a human, that you can take home and show
your friends and family to prove you visited.

~~~
pradn
These are from a brand of "human & open luxury". In Silicon Valley, you're not
supposed to be driving around a Ferrari or going on cruises like a rich
boomer. Instead, you're supposed to have friends on every continent, cooking
ingredients (not kitschy souvenirs) from your world-wide travels, a marathon-
ready body, and an everything-is-okay smile, deriving from your material self-
contentedness and awareness of your luck. It's about becoming a vessel for
temporal and social experiences, not someone leashed to a big TV. It's about
signifying that you're open to the "best" of what every culture has to offer
without sharing any of the pain or trying to make it better, aside from minor
improvements to buttons or trying your hand at a hair-brained get-rich-quick
scheme couched under a messiah complex. The idea is that these experiences and
contact with other cultures are "human", but they're also a shallow way to
both show off material status.

~~~
aeternus
I'd wager a simpler explanation: People in SF especially are increasingly
purchasing every-day items online.

This means retail shops need to capitalize on discovery and unique items.
Especially items that are unique enough that people can't just snap a pic and
order/price-compare it online.

~~~
askafriend
Bingo. This is it.

OP's hatred of San Francisco blinded him to the simple truth.

~~~
shstalwart
Not really. Normal people have basically no interest Himalayan salt.

~~~
askafriend
Himalayan salt is sold in Costco. It's not just an SF thing.

------
robbrit
I think the title is a little misleading, I was expecting an article
demonstrating that there is little correlation between top salaries or stock
payouts and happiness; seems more just a nostalgia rant for the way SF used to
be.

~~~
Loughla
Nostalgia is a powerful driving force. I'm convinced Nostalgia, more than fear
or hope is what got Trump elected, and why he'll win again. People seem to be
desperate to always want to return to 'how things were'. It's fascinating.

~~~
njepa
And sometimes things were actually better. Of course it is surprising that
people want to go back to something like coal. But it isn't surprising that
people want to go back to a time when their communities had a purpose and a
future.

------
chrisdhoover
Ooh she spoke with a 15 year resident, at the pie shop, the twee pie shop that
took over the flower shop that had been there for 50 years. I got mine, now
everyone else leave.

And in passing she name checks Philz as part of her listing all that is gone
is replaced by start up millions spiel. I’m not a fan of Phil personally, but
thats between me and him. Whats interesting is the story of Philz. He had a
corner store on a corner with 2 other corner stores. His wasn’t doing any
business. Phil, I assume he’s an immigrant, rolled up his sleeves and went to
work. He experimented with coffee and figured out the whole pour over deal. He
got a good mention in the SF Weekly back when weekly papers were still
vibrant. Word spread. I went to Philz to see what the fuss was. He had one
pour over station. The store still had metro racks with canned goods and a
cooler with soda pop. Phil made my first drink at Philz. The interesting part
is how Phil turned a dying corner store into a growing business with backing.
In the passing example of Philz by the author, she shows how shallow and
superficial her article really is. She knows nothing really about Philz. She
only knows he’s backed by millions. Philz is a classic american success story.
And so are many of the tech businesses.

------
acconrad
This felt like a dispassionate ramble on San Francisco's roots in 60s
counterculture while also ironically offering no help to the problem of big
money flowing into the Valley (and in a way, being part of the problem she
identifies from the technocrats). I found it difficult to get through.

~~~
jkuria
Agreed. I read about half way through and the op still hadn't made his/her
point. Too much set up for too small a conclusion.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It's The New Yorker. They believe in "It's not the destination, it's the
journey" as a writing style.

------
jerzzhang
A fair amount of my friends are on a way to become IPO-millionaires this year.
All of them live in SF, obviously. I'm curious to see how this flood of new-
made riches will affect the city and its socio-economic and political issues.

------
nerpderp82
IT doesn't buy happiness in Seattle either. Prevents abject sadness at best.

------
Apocryphon
For what does it profit a city to gain tech tax revenue, yet forfeit its own
society?

------
rxhernandez
I've never understood the line: money doesn't buy happiness.

Yes, money sitting in my bank account doesn't make me happy.

However, my Porsche makes me quite happy. The townhouse I lived in brought me
peace on the weekends. Buying plane tickets to wherever on a whim makes me
happy. Buying nice clothes and wearing them makes me happy. Spending money to
further my knowledge just because makes me happy.

~~~
ionforce
You don't understand it because the mental model as presented by the statement
is too simple.

Money can make LOTS of people VERY happy, up to a certain point. Supposedly
after 80k$, after you've been relieved of basic stresses like rent and finding
food, more money will make you less happy per increment.

If you are an unhappy person with a minimum of 80k$, then the bottleneck to
your happiness is not money.

Merely more money doesn't make ALL people happy ALL the time.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The cutoff is definitely much higher than $80k in the Bay Area. You would
basically be homeless at that level of household income.

~~~
brundolf
I make 80k in Austin - a city that's still relatively high in terms of living
costs, compared to the rest of the country.

On that I can afford to live in a very comfortable apartment without
roommates, eat out at decent (non-fast-food) restaurants for basically every
meal if I want to, have an active social life and hobbies, and still put about
10% into savings each month. I can easily say that making more money would not
have an impact on my happiness.

The Bay Area is so non-representative of the U.S. that it's not even funny.

~~~
jjtheblunt
well said

