[corodra]

Eh, I don't think "tech bubble" is appropriate to nail down the problems. Egotism and hubris, along with thinking being above the rest of society is the problem. And to be fair, it shows up here in HN too. There's a weird mentality of "Well I'm smart in computers and programming, that automatically makes me an expert in civil infrastructure, economic theory, social support programs, agriculture, etc". I mean, seriously, it's really weird and it's happening constantly. It's like a lot of this "revolutionary SV agriculture startups". They're bunk and retarded. They're just 1940s-1970s research projects without ever citing or learning from trails already blazed. They act like "No one has ever researched how to grow food, here I come to rescue with my power of programming and social media posts! Venture capital firms, I'm ready for money!" Not a single one realizes that a lot of large scale, efficient and affordable farming practices were pioneered by people like Norman Borlaug. But they "draw inspiration" from a random SV ceo. Just pisses me off.

Plus, "The people's voice matters. We must democratize everything... as long as they only agree with me."

Reality is, silicon valley is not really different from the old titans of industry. One difference, the old assholes were upfront "You need something, I hire people to make it, and I'm in it for the money." The valley, "I'm here for you. You giving me your money is the best way to make the world a better place through [insert disruptive product]. You'll be happy with a lighter wallet. We're going to save the world together."

[bavell]

I agree with your overall perception of SV as an outsider myself. There are very smart people doing big things alongside starry-eyed naive people doing silly things. Sometimes it's a blurry line between the two and sometimes I can't help but facepalm at some of the stories I hear coming out of SV...

[corodra]

Well, let's be honest about the "intelligent" part. Sure, there are some brilliant computer engineers out in SV. But would you say they're necessarily smart financial planners? The cost of living in a lot of parts of Cali in generally are ridiculous and some of the most expensive in the country. A lot of SV companies complain that there are not enough capable programmers in the area. Well, if a 50k-70k salary in other parts of the country gets you a decent sized house, a car, cheaper food and cheaper well... everything. While a 120k in SV gets you a studio apartment and reliant on public transpo... I mean, what makes more sense? God have mercy if you have kids.

So if you have a segment of engineers who believe living in SV is "smart" financially... do you really want them to make opinions on government spending? I'm not saying that "people not living in Cali" are instantly money smart. But, you don't quickly take financial advice from a friend that's gone bankrupt twice, is always in crippling debt due to overspending and throws money at ideas largely based on keywords.

I guess my long drawn out rant is just the problem where lots of folks consider SV "smart". Thus they're allowed to have an affecting opinion on things they're truly not "smart" about.

[MegaButts]

> The cost of living in a lot of parts of Cali in generally are ridiculous and some of the most expensive in the country.

A lot of these arguments could be made about New York, specifically Manhattan. There are people there that can genuinely afford it, and there are people that struggle financially because they want to be there (for whatever reason).

There are obviously lots of people in the Bay Area struggling to make ends meet, including some software engineers. But the reality is most talented people here are so well-paid it's not an issue. You're talking about $120k salaries, I'm talking about $100k signing bonuses. Of course the average engineer here isn't swimming in money, but there are plenty of people who make so much more money here that it's a wise financial decision to stay. Personally I ran the numbers and I put more money in my savings every year here than I would anywhere else.

I completely agree with the general sentiment that software engineers in particular suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect and I regularly have to explain to engineers that the world outside of software is not so neatly contained. But the notion that most software engineers here are not smart because they choose to live somewhere expensive is irrelevant if you aren't also talking about how much more money they make to live here.

[jacquesm]

Spot on. The amusing thing about farming is that the only thing that is hard is to do it at scale. You can make just about anything work at lab scale but as soon as you really end up having to feed a sizeable population of your product that's when all the nitty gritty little details start adding up to 'can't do'.