
Eric Schmidt: We Don't Talk About Occupy Wall Street In The Valley - evo_9
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/23/businessinsidereric-schmidt-we-dont.DTL&tsp=1
======
alabut
Walt Disney had the same attitude during the 30's. I'm reading his bio (it's
_crazy_ how similar he was to Steve Jobs) and he's been quoted as saying the
Depression was the best thing that ever happened to their studio because not
only did the revenues of their cartoons keep going up (unlike the rest of the
industry) but also they were able to scoop up tons of talent that hit rough
times at other studios.

Disney's studio did great work during this time and even made a hit song that
became an anthem for the Depression, " _Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf_ ".

~~~
gcb
So we should see lots of brains from goldsachs going to google?

~~~
forensic
GS is doing better than ever.

~~~
Shenglong
That's a bit of an overstatement. Their stock price, at least, has taken a big
hit.

~~~
maaku
Goldsachs success is not measured by their stock price.

~~~
Shenglong
I don't know how to respond. Tell me how they're doing better than ever.

[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:GS&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:GS&fstype=ii)

------
amcintyre
_I recently talked to an IT engineer at a mid-size financial services company
downtown, and he complained that his budget is being slashed every year, as
he's expected to do more with less. He's over 40 and sees no chance of getting
hired at one of these sexy startups run by 20-somethings and funded by VCs who
are younger than him._

That seems like an odd "complaint," since, if you go work for one of those
startups, you're going to be expected to do even more with even less. And that
will probably be the case whether it's a sexy or boring startup, run by
20-somethings or 40-somethings.

~~~
Jach
Besides the weird age comment, I also thought it odd how an "IT engineer" (is
that what guys in the IT support business are calling themselves these days?)
is trotted out as a member of the "tech industry" whose life isn't joy and
might identify with the OWS people. (Personally I consider the "tech industry"
to be tech companies and their most important employees, aka smart CEOs,
programmers, good designers, engineers, and inventors (sure I'm leaving some
out). (Sometimes all being one person.)) The startup I'm at doesn't need "IT
engineers", it needs "designgineers" just like almost everyone else.

Cisco laid off some thousands of people, but who were those people? Turns out
mostly management. And according to the linked article about a third of them
still got an early retirement.

So in general I agree with the article's main point that it's a profession
bubble, not a geographical bubble, but I thought the attempts at saying "but
you don't even really have a bubble from these complaints, because of layoff
counts and this guy I talked to!" pretty weak.

------
jdthomas
> You can get a five bedroom, three-bathroom house in the southernmost part of
> San Jose for less than $500,000 -- about one-third the price it would cost
> in Mountain View.

Seems like by considering a 500k house inexpensive reinforces the point that
we are in a 'bubble' in Silicon Valley.

~~~
paganel
As a guy who lives in a 7x5m studio somewhere in Eastern Europ, in a building
like this one
[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3152/3082829290_9653703b1e_b.j...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3152/3082829290_9653703b1e_b.jpg),
I try and try again to find out why would you need three bathrooms and five
bedrooms, but I really cannot think of any reasons.

~~~
xyzzyz
You may have wife and kids, for one thing. Or wife, kids, _and_ parents you
take care of.

My parents have 5 children, and while now their house is way too big for their
needs, it was not the case when me and all my siblings lived with them.

------
timjahn
A prime example of the bubble the Valley is and how disconnected that can
cause people living there to get from the reality of those that don't.

Writing a post on this idea soon coincidentally.

~~~
sigzero
Or they realize that "Occupy" is ineffective and has lost their "focus".
Nobody where I work talks about it either.

~~~
_delirium
Schmidt's comment doesn't seem to be attacking their effectiveness, though; he
seems to instead be arguing that there's no problem in the first place,
because the economy is doing great, everyone is hiring, etc. Which, as the
article notes, is only true in a very specific segment of the economy. Schmidt
presumably just doesn't talk to anyone outside of that bubble.

~~~
marshallp
There's a also a hidden message - why don't the legions of
unemployed/underpaid go into tech? Or why don't occupy wall street people join
the 1 percent, ie. get trained in finance/tech and compete in that sphere,
take some of the rich folks money from them.

~~~
_delirium
I don't think people are equally good at all things. I mean, I'm good at tech,
but I'm not that good at music. If suddenly violinists were the hot commodity,
I'm not sure I could transition. I'd probably just keep doing tech for lower
pay. Similarly, if writing well became a big thing in 10 years, I'm not sure
what percentage of Google engineers could successfully transition. Not sure
why we'd expect the other direction to be more doable. Google in particular I
think goes out of their way to only hire people who are _really_ techies
through-and-through.

As for the latter point, I think the perception is that the 1% overall is
about old-boys' networks, scamming, crony capitalism, corporate/government
entanglement, and general under-the-table sort of business. Nobody _wants_ to
go into that; they want it gone.

~~~
marshallp
I keep hearing that - most people won't have the intelligence to do
tech/finance etc. However, a recent datapoint, the stanford ai class had over
1000 brilliant students, but only a handful in class at stanford itself. Watch
the recent video chat sebastian thrun, peter norvig, and salman khan had on
this topic.

Also, you could go back in history and say the same thing. 200 years ago most
be people were "unintelligent" illiterate farmers, and yet today there
descendents are literate, many doing highly intelligent work. The implied
"genetic potential" arguments on intelligence are all wrong i believe, though
i have no data to back it up.

Relative differences matter of course - there can only be one chess world
champion - but most of tech or even finance is not in that winner-take-all
space yet.

~~~
xiaoma
_200 years ago most be people were "unintelligent" illiterate farmers, and yet
today there descendents are literate, many doing highly intelligent work._

The parent commenter was speaking about making a transition in one's own
career. Like him, I have doubts about my ability to become a top-notch
violinist, especially since you have to find the tone centers by ear for that
instrument. I don't know of anybody ever developing perfect pitch as an adult.
Similarly, I doubt my grandmother, who even now is an extremely talented
cellist with perfect pitch, could ever become a good programmer.

However, her son _did_ become an excellent programmer, I am confident that my
own children could become excellent programmers, musicians, visual artists or
speakers of any language... _if they start as children or adolescents_. Yes
people can change an learn... but drastic changes rarely happen after a
certain age.

------
SeoxyS

        The rate is even higher in Contra Costa County, where Oakland is.
    

So Oakland is in Contra Costa County now? I expected better better from __SF
__Gate. It's Alameda County, fwiw.

    
    
        And speaking of Oakland -- what about those Occupy riots in Oakland anyway? Those were a mere 45 minutes from Google's Mountain View campus.
    

Even on the freeway with no traffic, it takes at least 90min to do
Oakland–Silicon Valley.

This article is a prime example of really bad reporting.

~~~
rdl
I do downtown Oakland to Mountain View in 45-70 minutes, depending on traffic.
It's bad, especially at rush hour (or during any unpredictable traffic delay),
and moving to MV is one of my goals for 2012. However, if you don't have to go
to the office every day, and if you sometimes go to SF instead, it's possible
to _buy_ a 1BR/1BA condo in downtown Oakland for about $100k. Just don't count
on using any city services (schools, Oakland PD, hospitals), or going anywhere
worthwhile (other than whole foods) without driving to SF or Mountain View, or
maybe Berkeley or Emeryville.

------
qdog
When he says they live in a 'bubble', he literally means they(or we) live in a
bubble isolated from issues. I'm sympathetic to OWS, but on the other hand, I
come here and worry if my salary (which is X% greater than the average
American's) is too low, because people on HN are making Y% more than me(or at
least claiming to).

However, I'm not in the 1%. It's a little hard to fathom, but there are a
handful of people at GOOG in the 1%, but we tend to act more like we(tech
people, I don't work at GOOG) are the 1% than the 99%. I don't know if Schmidt
is point out the divide, or oblivious. I'm hoping for the former.

~~~
Jach
Even if some of us aren't in the 1%, there's nevertheless this desire to get
there and instead of just wishing for millions of dollars people here are
actively working on _earning_ those millions. Some of us aren't in the 1%, but
a lot of us are soon-to-be or trying-to-be there. As Schmidt put it, "Young
people can work hard and make a fortune." (And the 1% cutoff point is only
around $300k per year; the critical issues affecting the 99% are mostly
affecting the 85% below $100k.)

------
majorgreys
Does Silicon Valley not have janitors, cooks, maids, postal workers, garbage
collectors, fire fighters, teachers, or any number of other jobs which are
either already low wage or increasingly insecure during an economic recession?
My guess is that the only bubble is the one inside Eric Schmidt's head that
makes it impossible for him to acknowledge those who share common cause with
Occupy Wall Street: jobs that don't pay poverty wages, housing as a right,
protection from a banking system that tax payers (yes, even those making
poverty wages) had to bail out while their schools get sold out, and a
government that is actually responsible to the majority rather than the
minority which increasingly controls the wealth of this world. The growth of
Silicon Valley, or any city for that matter, should not be taken as meaning
that we have escaped poverty or unemployment. Far more likely is that the
cities that boom have been attractive to business specifically because they
have a surplus of low wage workers (again it takes more than engineers to make
Silicon Valley run), government subsidized land, adequate transportation built
with tax payer money, etc. The high unemployment rate in Santa Clara quoted in
the article should give Eric pause but he'd likely just consider that of minor
concern because of the fraction of residents that are not hurting (who he
wants to continue attracting to the area).

------
sathishmanohar
Because he is one in 1%

------
yanw
"We don't talk about OWS in the valley " != "OWS isn't really something that
comes up in daily discussion (in the valley)"

Spare yourselves SF Gate's pontifications and read the source:
[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/its-always-sunny-in-
sil...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/its-always-sunny-in-silicon-
valley-12222011.html)

Quoted in 3rd paragraph:

 _In Silicon Valley, all the Sturm und Drang of 2011 seemed as relevant as the
Cricket World Cup. High unemployment? Crippling debt? Not in Silicon Valley,
where the fog burns off by noon and it’s an article of faith that talented,
hard-working techies can change the world and reap unimaginable wealth in the
process. “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,” says Google Chairman Eric
Schmidt. “And what a world it is: Companies can’t hire people fast enough.
Young people can work hard and make a fortune. Homes hold their value. Occupy
Wall Street isn’t really something that comes up in daily discussion, because
their issues are not our daily reality.”_

~~~
zem
I do not see how the extended source quote in any way contradicts the point
sfgate was making, which is that the valley schmidt is talking about has no
connection with the valley they see around them.

~~~
maaku
Which, I might add, is a very true point. The tech startup scene is very small
and incestuous subculture of the SF bay area--and I say this as a 3rd
generation resident (my grandparents settled here after WW2 when the land
between Cupertino and Santa Clara was mostly orchards). Growing up in _Santa
Clara Valley_ , back when it had that name, my friends parents all worked for
the government, in manufacturing, education, (non-tech) sales, etc. There were
a few engineers of course, but they mostly worked for large firms founded a
generation prior.

Tech startups are back in fashion and the business is good--but only for a
small, tiny little segment of this valley's population. He's right to call it
a (reality-distorting) bubble, but he's wrong to generalize it to the greater
geographic region.

------
justin_vanw
I find this comment to be more or less true. Where I work we cannot find
enough qualified people to hire, and we are hiring as fast as we can. These
are very highly paying jobs.

Also, to hell with occupy wall-street. Banks may not be looking out for 'the
little guy', but since when are we surprised by that? What do these protestors
want exactly? For bigwigs to go to jail for causing all their personal
problems? I can't help but think that these same people weren't exactly great
success stories before the financial meltdown, and would be barely scraping by
if things were great. To be supplied with an income to reward them for years
spent putting no effort into gaining useful skills? Bah, I say let them eat
cake. If they can't be bothered to learn how to do anything that is worth
paying them to do (despite years of free educational opportunities, heavily
subsidized community colleges, etc), and they can't be bothered to take their
future into their own hands and start a business, then I simply cannot be
bothered with them.

~~~
forensic
Does your opinion apply to children born into poverty?

Kids whose parents can't afford healthy food for them so their brains don't
develop?

Kids who are unable to get educated because their schools are corrupt and 90%
of the high school students graduate illiterate?

People who were abused as kids and so have mental illnesses and live on the
street because they can't hold a job?

People who had their health insurance scam them and had to go $100,000 into
debt to pay doctors?

Kids who were brainwashed from birth by parents, teachers, media that they no
matter what the expense they must go to university, and now find themselves 22
years old and $100,000 in debt with nothing to show for it?

You live in an extremely exploitative society where the powerful coast while
the vulnerable drown.

The majority of the sufferers are people who were born into their situation.
They are chronically ill from lack of access to healthcare and quality food.
They are mentally ill from being abused and discarded and having nowhere to
turn. They are in financial ruin by following the mainstream, standard advice
regarding mortgages, investing, and education.

If you were King of America, what would you do with all the destitute? You're
right - there were already tons of miserable pre-2008. I just want to know
what your plan for the unwashed, stupid, suffering masses is. Because it
sounds like you're saying we should just let them wallow in their misery and
watch as more cities crumble like Detroit.

When you tell mentally ill homeless addicts to "use their bootstraps" you're
really just advocating for the growth of the vast American ghettos that are
already the shame of the nation.

~~~
justin_vanw
No, this has nothing to do with poverty. This has to do with people who
believe they are entitled to the 'american dream' but refuse to sacrifice or
work hard, or compromise in any way to achieve that dream.

I was raised on government cheese. I am alive because of foodstamps. You are
arguing with strawman. I'm all for helping the poor. We need a safety net,
specifically to help children. However, that doesn't mean that every hippy who
hasn't succeeded is the victim of some grand conspiracy where the rich tilt
the system in their own favor.

Who wants to fix schools? Schools are corrupt in bad neighborhoods not because
they are being sabotaged (they often have very high levels of funding), but
because bad neighborhoods have bad parents and a poor PTA, so there is nobody
with any incentive to fix the schools that also have the ability and
experience to do anything about it. A poor inner city parent has never seen a
school that works, and has never recieved any education to speak of, so they
have no idea how to 'fix' their child's school, and most of the time they
don't even know that is something they should be concerned about. Their
priorities are all fucked. How is that the fault of me or anyone else in the
1%? How is protesting wallstreet in any way related to this? Your points are
all entirely off topic.

Health insurance scam them? What does that have to do with wallstreet?
Seriously, though, if your biggest problem is long term debt, you are pretty
fucking rich in absolute terms. There are people in Africa who's #1 problem is
starving to death. After all, our western legal system is completely friendly
to debtors these days, they can have all debts removed (other than student
loans) by declaring bankruptcy.

It's not my fault people are too stupid to major in a field that will let them
pay back their student loans. The humanities do not lead to jobs, everyone
knowns this. Hell, it's repeated so much it's a cliche! Blaming other people
because you wanted to do an easy major and fuck girls in college while going
into debt is an insult to those of us that worked our asses off so that we
could make money later. This is just 'the ant and the grasshopper', don't
blame the ant.

Actually, I was born into and lived in poverty almost my entire life before
the age of 18. I attended many bad schools, and had no support. I don't feel
exploited at all, in fact I think I'm lucky to live in an age where even the
poorest people, who's parents make the worst decisions (drug use, alcohol
abuse, child abuse) are able to attend school, and in fact are compelled to.
If you can afford a big screen TV, and you have 500 channels of television,
you are not being exploited. Turn off the TV and do something before you start
bitching about how unfair life is.

Everyone has access to quality food. If you are too poor to afford quality
food, foodstamps are provided for you and your family. If you choose to buy
McDonalds and cheetos anyway, what then? Are we supposed to force feed people
carrots? Because that is the only way you'll get many poor people to eat
healthy food, by forcing them to. Is that what you advocate?

I think if you turned the anger down, you would see that there isn't a class
of evil conspirators at the top. The solutions to our problems are not clear
cut, and you don't have any answers to any of the problems you think you see.
There is no silver bullet to the problems of society, and it takes a lot of
time and a lot of lessons to move forward a little bit every generation.

~~~
forensic
The generations aren't moving forward, they're moving backward. The middle
class has shrunken by 10% since 1970 and poverty has gone up, both worldwide
and in America.

TVs are not good things to have, they're brainwashing machines that make
people stupid.

Wall street moguls run the government and own the media. They are more
powerful than presidents.

We barely have a social safety net anymore.

It's sad that the people who came from poverty often have the least sympathy.
What you are missing is that not everyone can be born with above average IQs
and work their way out. You got lucky and the social safety net is quickly
crumbling behind you.

What you miss about ghetto schools is the school board corruption. The school
boards eat all the funding in salaries and perks and corporate pork projects.

I'm not telling you or anyone else to sacrifice their well-being. I'm saying
you should take a look at the demographic trends and recognize that for your
own sake you need to play a part in bettering the communities of the
unfortunate. Because your own livelihood depends on an intact civil society
with a functioning non-corrupt government that is not owned by a few corrupt
industries.

The society that gave you the opportunity to enjoy wealth did not just
spontaneously arrange itself. It was designed and protected by altruistic,
honest, competent and intelligent people just like you. Except you aren't
playing a civic role in your community but the corporate lobbyists and
Christian fascists are, which threatens your lifestyle.

Your social mobility was enabled by the middle class, through hardwon
political and social battles with robber barons. You inherited the social
traditions that made you more than a serf, but are not passing those
traditions on to the next generation. They are quickly going away through
corporate owned lawmakers creating a neo-feudalistic corporate fascism.

All I want is for people like you to spend some of your time engaging in
community leadership and politics, like my grandfathers did after the war to
create and defend the middle class, the social safety net, and social
mobility. You came from a poor background, but I come from an upper middle
class background whose ancestors played roles in creating those social
programs that kept you alive and gave you access to educational resources.
They did it for future generations of poor children like you were, and I want
you to pay it forward through civic participation. Don't just tell the poor to
go wallow. Lend a helping hand.

~~~
justin_vanw
A helping hand doesn't always help. You act as though we know what the
problems are, and what the solutions are, but refuse to act because of idiocy
or bigotry.

Suppose you were given a budget of $100Billion USD to spend however you
wanted. Now, give me your plan to fix something, anything. Tell me how this
'helping hand' will be used, and I'll respond with a long, long list of ways
you are actually going to do more harm than good. It's not out of idiocy and
bigotry that I advocate these positions, it's out of a desire to not simply
waste resources (and thus cause harm) when we have no idea how to actually
help.

Now, to your specific points, you are just full of shit. You are spouting a
bunch nonsense. I could refute one point at a time, but your MO seems to be to
just move on to new talking points when old ones are refuted. No doubt you win
arguments by simply wearing out your opponents with your endless stream of
ill-posed statements.

Honestly, I would be happy to demolish your arguments one at a time. So, if
you want to have this debate, lets start with one important theme, and go from
there, not 500 assertions that you'll just abandon and replace with 500 more
in your next post.

Just to be completely clear, I don't claim to know what all the problems and
solutions are. I claim that _you_ don't know what the problems and solutions
are, and should stop criticizing people just because they don't advocate the
same radical positions you baselessly hold.

~~~
forensic
These are solvable problems. You are way too aggressive with me.

University researchers have many consensus, scientifically based viewpoints on
how to improve social issues. The simple fact is that the research is just
ignored in favor of radical emotionally-potent ideologies.

Many political ideas have been scientifically tested. I spent years in
university learning about them and I certainly don't know them all, but I know
professors who have worked on these issues for decades and have been able to
draw strong scientific conclusions.

Economists throughout the world are able to reach consensus (defined as 90%+
agreement) on many issues. Their consensus is ignored politically.

Psychologists are able to reach consensus on certain questions of public
mental health and the mental health of the poor. Their conclusions are
politically ignored.

This is the pattern. The pattern is that other countries have demonstrated
social success stories and other countries have put the University social
science into practice and reaped success. The USA does not. American political
policy is a combination of Christian fascist social policy, corrupt
Democratic/Republican fake social program pork barrel, and Military-
Industrial-Security complex pork barrel.

People with reasonable views based on consensus science are underrepresented.

If you actually think you can "demolish all my arguments" then you've lost my
respect for your lack of humility. You're just one man, you don't have time to
be an expert in every field.

My opinions are mostly informed by the consensus views of social scientists.
When implemented, social science has been very successful.

What do I want to do about the poor? I just want scientifically literate
people to put more time into politics so that they can counteract the voices
of irrationality that currently dominate lawmaking.

I want smart people to act on the good science that is out there instead of
having the wealthy and intelligent throw up their hands and pretend it is
someone else's problem.

~~~
justin_vanw
I'm too aggressive with you? You are the one that says I advocate positions
that are obviously wrong and hurt children. I suspect you aren't accustomed to
having someone competently push back when you go on one of your rants? Either
you think I advocate hurting children, or you think I just post bullshit to HN
without thinking it through. Either way, you are far more insulting than I
have been. I have the distinction of being direct, both with my arguments and
with my insults.

Again, you give a dozen assertions, and again it's without any context,
argument or evidence.

I would love it if you would give one of these near-universally accepted
truths that economists all agree on. I also look forward to your
rationalizations when you have to restrict who is a 'real' economist (I really
doubt you will find 90% agreement among economists that are Chinese
Socialists, members of the Austrian school, distributionists, working
economists at major brokerage houses, etc). I suppose you want to limit it to
'mainstream' western economists at big name universities?

Try to keep it concise this time, and see if you can give me an example
without bringing in another dozen unrelated 'facts'.

