| HN Mirror

I don't think you're allowed to reply to a comment and also downvote it.

Suffice it to say, the comment is not rooted in any reality of what Silicon Valley was like, it is pure uninformed speculation, salted with a heavy dose of facile anti-capitalist talking points. It's lazy and factually incorrect.

First, things weren't that fast in the past. They were more fast relative to the old system of being employed for life. You know, that system of hierarchy where even the office furniture you were allowed to have was spelled out in a corporate handbook that assigned levels to everyone and created a rigid hierarchy. So who broke that system? It was the treacherous eight. They broke it, and they started Silicon Valley.

Second, it was about empowering the worker. When the treacherous 8 left Schockley's Lab, they were told they would never work again because you don't go and quit your boss because you don't like him or disagree with his technical roadmap. You are supposed to be loyal and stay. They called and wrote to hundreds of businesses begging them to invest in their idea and couldn't find anyone until Fairchild took a chance on them. Their success changed that old system of workers being morally obligated to stay with their boss, and the boss being morally obligated to find something for them to do.

Third, workers were actually empowered with stock options. Something unheard of at the time. It was called communism. That investors and entrepeneurs would give a share of their company to their workers. That system originated in SV during this period, and it led to a lot of churn as start ups began to try to outbid each other and established companies for workers, draining talent from those companies that refused to play along and give stock options. Yes, this led to an emphasis on speed and higher employee turnover. But it was because firms kept outbidding each other to lure away workers by dangling stock options in front of them.

This is why Noyce left Fairchild semiconductor - not because he wanted stock options, he was already wealthy from the buyout, but because he couldn't retain his best employees, and Fairchild was morally opposed to the idea of stock options. All these workers leaving and staring their own companies and then luring away their coworkers led to skyrocketing wages rather than all the wealth leaving Silicon Valley and being distributed back to shareholders in Wall Street. A lot of that wealth was put in the pockets of workers for the first time. This is what led to the price of a bungalow in Palo Alto costing three million dollars. That's what happens when you dump so much money on workers.

I could go on and on actually talking about the history, but what's the point when someone reads a pamphlet about how unfair capitalism is, and decides to go on a rant about how oppressed SV workers must have been in the 70s. The 70s in general were bad for capital, great for labor, with rising wages and rising inflation, as well as massive investment -- extreme levels of investment. The 60s were a boom time for corporate profits, but not the 70s. Anyway, this is all part of basic econ history people should know before waxing about how workers were being abused, etc. So in most cases people just downvote statements like the GPs post and move on, without refuting each misconception in detail.

If you want to know more, check out the American Experience episodes on Silicon Valley. They are pretty good.