
The Bay Area caste system - tsunamifury
https://www.wired.com/story/how-silicon-valley-fuels-an-informal-caste-system/
======
solidsnack9000
_...their lives are increasingly impossible in a city taken over by tech, and
the socioeconomic stratification it fosters._

It's strange to blame the tech industry for San Francisco's fate, because
there is nothing peculiar about what the tech industry has done. Astronomical
returns to capital for a few senior people, high salaries for a large body of
skilled professionals, and concomitant demand for office space, housing and
services from other industries -- that's what successful industry looks like
everywhere. Usually the result is not shortages, homelessness, and lack of
services.

There was -- and is -- a failure of public policy here.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
> There was -- and is -- a failure of public policy here.

It’s very strange that he didn’t criticize elected officials one bit. Instead,
he blames some faceless cabal of venture capitalists for being out of touch.
Who is trying to divide us here?

------
everdev
Basically the theory boils down to 4 groups of people:

1 - Inner Circle - Basically the elites

2 - Outer Circle - People who are paid well to support the elites

3 - Service Class - People who make little money doing tedious work

4 - Untouchables - Homeless, criminals, etc.

It seems like these social categories could be applied to nearly every country
I've lived in or visited.

~~~
1996
This depiction is incorrect.

You need to add 2.B: indentured servants. The modern politically name is
"H1B".

The threat of deportation does wonder to increase their obedience in
supporting the elites.

~~~
calvinbhai
So true!

but, indentured labor on H1B visa, as a caste exists all over USA. Not just in
SF.

Probably, all big cities in US with considerable tech industry has people of
this caste. Indentured, almost forever, with the green card dangling in front
of them on a stick. All they need to do is keep walking, thinking that they
are getting closer to the dream.

But, I think the travails of (most) H1b visa holders (and their dependents)
are not a topic of discussion because this caste is way lower in the pecking
order, much lower than the "untouchables of Bay Area".

~~~
greglindahl
Huh. I see them discussed all of the time; they are your co-workers at just
about any tech company. I've worked with a bunch who got green cards. Not much
like a caste.

~~~
calvinbhai
discussed as indentured or as not an issue?

It depends on the country of birth of the H1b visa holder. So its pretty much
like indentured labor if your co-worker on H1b was born in India. "got green
card" is a loaded term. The process is not easy to understand for those who
dont go through it. And if you weren't born in India or China, it can be hard
to understand the wait times (15-70 years) for green card applicants now.

------
antoncohen
There's a difference between social classes, which exist in nearly every
country, and a caste system. Castes are hereditary, you are born into a caste.

Very few people are born into tech. Anyone working in San Francisco probably
realizes that most people in Bay Area tech weren't even born in the Bay Area.
Working in Bay Area tech is a choice, one which requires hard work and quite a
lot of luck.

People are born with varying degrees of privilege, which makes it easier for
some than others to get a tech job, that isn't a caste system.

I've been on a tech career path since I was a teenager, but with one parent
who was a teacher and the other who was a construction worker, it wasn't like
I was born into it. I've worked with plenty of people who have made the
transition to a tech career later in life. Like one person who said he was
tired of digging ditches so he went to tech bootcamp.

The classes in SF are extreme. The pay disparity is too large. It is really
hard for a lot of people to get by. But it isn't a caste system.

~~~
s-shellfish
You are given some advantages from the people around you. My father was a
construction worker. He also was a hobbyist technical person, and besides the
obvious of introducing me from computer to computer since a very young age, he
also taught me how to think in ways that are very advantageous for thinking
technically, rigorously, and logically.

Education is important and the people you have around you either compete
against information or reinforce it. Construction is mechanical work. It
operates in accordance to rules that are easy to observe and aren't subject to
chaotic, dynamic shifts. It is a literal concrete foundation of how to build
things. Don't excuse my puns, they are intentional.

Some people simply don't have enough information in the background to
reinforce one way of reasoning versus another, and lots of these kinds of
things can direct what path you wind up traveling in, especially when as a
child, you don't have the awareness to understand how world views get
constructed, because you haven't seen enough cycles of it happening, nor had
the time to think about it.

------
stcredzero
This caste system is naturally what happens with a huge influx of money into a
constrained job and housing market. If there was way more low cost housing,
more people outside of the Inner and Outer Parties could make their own sort
of life in the interstices, engaging in commerce and creating in those
interstices. With the constrained housing market, the interstices disappear,
and the economic entities in the markets created by them either disappear or
adjust to serve the Inner and Outer parties.

Add into that, a culture of conformity of thought and ideology in the Inner
and Outer parties, and the analogy with the two models is complete.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)
\-- Wherein 1980's America managed to produce an analog of Pravda-esque
propaganda, but without sending people to Gulags, without airbrushing photos,
and without outright censorship. Instead, the mechanisms are technically "Free
Market." Now 2018 San Francisco is inventing another analogue through free
market mechanisms.

~~~
h8trswana8
The job and housing market constraint is due to poor public policy. Overly-
generous tenant rights, anti-chain laws, anti-gentrification measures - all of
these are creating problems that you don’t see (dilapidated housing, extreme
rents) in other high-density urban areas.

Everyone is blaming VCs. They should be blaming themselves.

~~~
stcredzero
I'm not blaming VCs and big tech companies. The form their role takes is
ultimately shaped by the housing market.

------
carapace
He didn't mention "the Mexicans". There's a weird tacit racism here: SF is
very progressive and liberal, but there is a definite culture gap between
mainstream and ethnic cultures. Asians in general, have bridged that gap
pretty well, but anyone who hails from any country from Mexico to Argentina is
a "Mexican" and will have a hard time breaking into the mainstream culture
unless they assimilate (the obvious marker is to lose the accent.) This
applies even if you're _from California_ (CA was part of Mexico before it was
a part of the U.S.A.) but "too mexican". Being considered "mexican" in this
weird racist way isn't even about being Hispanic. Many Philippinos are caught
in the same cultural second-class status, for example.

If you ever have the chance to visit e.g. the Google campus this caste system
is on display in the most obvious way: Almost all of the "green suits" are
white or Asian, while almost all of "orange suits", the service staff, are
actually Hispanic or otherwise "mexican" in the sense I'm talking about. They
are trained _not_ to fraternize with the "real" employees (in fact, they can
get in trouble for it), and they are _not_ encouraged to improve their
technical skills. There are no programming classes for the janitors and
groundskeepers. They don't get to attend lectures or other perks, etc.

You can see the same "split-level" economic/cultural divide everywhere in the
Bay Area. The entire economy rests, in part, on the backs of folks who are not
encouraged to participate in the techno-utopia to the same degree as the
"blessed" class.

------
techpop10
This is a truly ridiculous over simplification of reality in the Bay area and
so loaded with personal biases to be taken seriously.

The majority of people I know and work with are mostly in between the inner
and outer circle the author describes.

That's a very large group who are paid well (many also sitting on options that
will continue to pay well). Being a software/hardware engineer, marketing,
finance or other back-office roles does not automatically put you in the
"outer circle" on the edge of the middle class.

This is a classic example of an author with a very narrow world view based
solely on their personal experience which doesn't look like reality.

~~~
crimsonalucard
Whenever you accuse someone of personal biases you gotta back up your
accusation with data. How do we know your statements aren't biased as well?

~~~
techpop10
I'm challenging the authors over simplistic breakout of inner and outer
circles which is not supported by anything other than opinion. My observation
(and opinion) is there is a big gap in between the two that's not represented
in his simplistic caste system.

~~~
crimsonalucard
If you want to state your opinion then state your opinion without an attack.
Say, "I don't agree" or "I feel the situation is more complex" because when
you mount an attack and call someones' idea "ridiculous" you better back it up
and make your statements solid.

Every statement you made was harsh, negative and unjustified. You deliberately
mounted an attack without evidence. Without evidence you shouldn't attack
anyone, with only an opinion all you can do is share it in a friendly manner.

------
Uhhrrr
This skips the real old money - the sort of folks who got the De Young
rebuilt. They still have an outsize effect on SF politics.

~~~
kaycebasques
Names?

~~~
Uhhrrr
You can fish some of them out of here:
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/10/pacific-heights-
real...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/10/pacific-heights-real-estate)

------
pmcg
I was an engineer in the "outer circle" who quit and lived for four months
with "untouchables" in a homeless camp.

When I was an engineer I definitely felt the artificial distance between me (a
human being) and a large group of other human beings serving me who were
treated far worse than me. I did not think of them as lesser people, but the
system certainly treated them as such.

When I was homeless I definitely felt the being ignored (or seen as a
nuisance) by higher-class people. It's very obvious how people's behavior
toward you changes when they see you walk out of a tent camp on the street.
Actually, it's not just being ignored when people create artificial complaints
about your group to get the police to brutally displace you.

Everything is complex of course, it's not black and white, there are spectrums
in many dimensions. IMHO the point is to try looking at things from a new
perspective and maybe notice things you didn't notice before, that feel wrong.
It helps for people with power to notice things that are wrong, since then
they can become impassioned to change things.

~~~
tomcam
You have an amazing story. Is there some place I could learn more about your
journey?

------
tanilama
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Hu-k7C...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Hu-k7CMsI2UJ:https://www.wired.com/story/how-
silicon-valley-fuels-an-informal-caste-system/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Caste system is so infamous because it can't be changed. You don't have to
live the Bay. Many people, including myself is preparing to leave Bay Area. I
don't like it, but I have a choice, and don't have to suck it up for the rest
of my life.

Make an analogy between social economic class to caste system is ignorant and
irresponsible journalism. Sad to see even Wired succumbs to clicks.

------
tzs
OT: was there ever a time in the US when there were groups that were
discriminated against and for whom the word "caste" was actually applied to in
common usage?

I'm curious because the preamble to Article IX, "Education", of the Washington
State Constitution says: "It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample
provision for the education of all children residing within its borders,
without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex".

I have not been able to find out what groups they had in mind when they chose
the word "caste" in that.

------
crimsonalucard
It applies to every country but it is definitely more stratified and
noticeable in sf.

------
cryptozeus
Isn’t this the case everywhere?

------
qop
For the lazy, here's a TL;DR

"I'm not a millionaire and I think I should be! It's the rich folks' fault!
It's the government's fault! It's technology's fault! I hate it here and I'm
not going anywhere!"

\-----------------

There's (3.8million - 54)mi of the United States available yo travel to. We
can travel freely throughout our great nation, that alone is a huge advantage
over many other places in the world.

There's no such thing as gentrification. This is a misunderstanding of real
estate and how it works. If rent goes up, you have to pay. If you can't,
nobody OWES you anything, you failed the economic selection for that place and
now that you can't cut it, you have to relocate.

Come to New York! 30min commute from Hoboken (where I can rent an entire house
for 3500/mo) and you have the most advanced tech industry in the country at
your fingertips.

The bay sucks. We all know. Just leave.

------
austincheney
> California is the future of the United States, goes the oft-cited cliché.
> What the US is doing now, Europe will be doing in five years, goes another.

 _Let 's hope not._ I have already stated in a different thread that I will
NEVER relocate to the bay area for employment.

There are a lot of very apparent social problems with the bay area and most of
these have to do with inflated stratification and social connectedness.

1\. Cost of living and housing shortages there are stupid absurd. If you make
enough to live in a tiny house with a tiny yard close to work then life is
good, but most people cannot afford a million dollar home. Instead move to
Fort Worth or Atlanta where you can purchase 5 homes for the same price with
each being substantially larger.

It isn't just houses. EVERYTHING costs more in the bay area whether talking
about fuel, food, or consumer goods. Nothing says social stratification like
where and how you live.

2\. Political correctness and social sensitivity. There are sensitive people
in the world, but only on the west coast do they stop working to band together
to send political action letters to the corporate leadership. If I wanted to
play politics I would get involved with a community political action program
to make a difference. However, I would rather program at work, since this is
what I get paid for and what I actually enjoy doing with my time.

People overly sensitive and band together to play politics at work because it
is a luxury provided by the employer and the immediate socio-economic climate.
You won't see the contracted security guards or janitors at a major valley
campus banding together to whine about a military contract.

Allowance of extreme sensitivity in the work place feels like a huge risk to
your career. God forbid you make a process control recommendation to improve
the cleanliness of code and leave people offended and sad (probably because
they suck). When their sadness becomes a cause for complaint that becomes a
management problem it is a problem that ultimately falls on somebody. Yes, I
have been through foolishness like this. This feels like putting your career
in a blender. At least that example is work related. This one is not:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-ceo-fires-top-
executive...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-ceo-fires-top-executive-
after-use-of-the-n-word-1529709156)

3\. Youth. I have been programming for a long time and have come to the
conclusion that in most cases young inexperienced programmers generally suck.
Yes, I know there are brilliant exceptions, but generally speaking the
youngest developers are the least disciplined, least aware of second and third
order consequences, and least prepared for negative feedback.

As an employee you don't get to be hostile because your code sucks and some
poor soul has the unfortunate circumstance of conveying this message to you.
Yes, I have actually encountered this, and no I am not exaggerating. This is
the so called "millennial" behavior, but it has long existed before
millennials were a group and generally doesn't exist with older people.

There are age discrimination laws in the US that prevent discrimination based
upon age for individuals aged 40 and higher. This means, fortunately, it is
perfectly legal to outright refuse to hire persons at any age below 40 for
their age alone. As a start up I imagine discriminating against young people
would be beneficial in the rare circumstance you need fantastic code shipped
immediately and you are loaded with huge piles of cash as necessary to entice
experienced employees to work for your startup who would otherwise know better
than to take a risk on a startup.

Start ups generally prefer young developers because they can be worked to
death, are more risk averse, are willing to work for less pay, and (most
importantly) are gullible and/or idealistic. Older people tend to be
personally invested with things such as a family, business interests, social
responsibilities, multiple employments, and various other responsibilities
that the young simply don't have, which means they aren't giving 16 hours of
work a day to your startup. Concentrating your employment population around a
seriously disproportionate youthful demographic substantially expands
stratification.

~~~
eldavido
Re: your #2. This is also something I've been thinking about.

I jokingly talk about "The Fear". The Fear is what makes people work hard. The
Fear that your company might not exist, that it might all come to an end, that
you'd better get after it, work hard, and generally do your best work.

People at Tesla have The Fear. People at startups have even more of it. People
at Google, emphatically, DO NOT have The Fear. It might be because they're
basically a monopoly in many things (search) or because their management
encourages it, I don't know. But it feels like they're worried about a lot of
things and business success / customers / shipping / competition, the things
people usually care about in a competitive market economy, isn't a big part of
it.

I've heard that great societies often fall when their elites become too
inwardly-focused and fight each other too much, rather than whatever
enemy/competition they have. I think this is what's going on at Google; their
elites are so distracted by political correctness, gender politics, etc. etc.
that they're opening themselves up to get overtaken. I don't know by who or
what, but it does feel like so much of all of this is such a giant
distraction.

I think this sort of thing is going to get more common in tech though. There
are such huge reward to monopoly and let's face it, Google has no real
competition in search, or short video playback (Youtube), or Internet
advertising other than facebook.

------
RickJWagner
I'm not convinced this will happen everyplace else.

SF has a unique business environment. It's hard to imagine much more of
America becoming this way.

------
thecleaner
In comparisions like these where they make claims that 100k isn't enough for a
family of four, do they take into account the significant amount of equity
people get working at the Bay Area. I guess all major money is in the stock
grants, right ?

~~~
koala_man
Welcome to Hacker News.

The article makes no such claim. What it says is that 117k is considered low
income.

This is determined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development,
where "low income" is defined as 80% or less of the median income in the area.

Both bonuses and equity are included in this number, as are interests and
dividends. See the full definition on
[https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2018-title24-vol1/xml/CFR-...](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2018-title24-vol1/xml/CFR-2018-title24-vol1-sec5-609.xml)

