[fakedang]

Honestly just my experience, but I've found it ironic that finance bros in my circle have gone the other way i.e. the effective altruism, philosophizing, podcasting route. While tech bros are now turning openly elitist, and in some cases, racist.

And before anyone claims it's selection bias from within my left-leaning circle, I was well involved within the Tory circus until recently (a couple of years back).

[afavour]

Maybe an NYC bias here but in my experience finance folks are more closely tied to "well to do" social circles. Summering in the Hamptons, that kind of thing. And that crowd has always had a streak of philanthropy, even if it's as much a status thing as a genuine belief in helping others.

Silicon Valley is very far from all that. More broadly I think it's a reflection of the isolation (physical, cultural, etc) of SV.

[notabotiswear]

Some sorta god complex resulting from dealing with machines that has the sole purpose of answering one’s commands, perhaps?

[red-iron-pine]

> effective altruism, philosophizing, podcasting route

all I see is "scam, BS, slop"

[boelboel]

I think it might be because the tech bros got into a one-off event where a lot of people did and could've made money (as long as they were somewhat intelligent). Now the writing is on the wall that growth in the future will stall, as the sector takes up a larger portion of the economy,and positions of power will stabilise. Some of them probably believe turning elitist and racist could ensure them a better position for a while.

Maybe I'm trying to rationalise their behaviour too much but it feels like techbros have gotten a scarcity mindset.

[buellerbueller]

This supports my belief that when being a finance bro was the only way to Croesus-level wealth, sociopaths tended to go into finance, so they could transcend societal norms with their wealth. Then, tech came along, making finance bro-level wealth seem quaint. Where did all the sociopaths go...well, you saw for yourself.

[fakedang]

I agree, this could strongly be the case. Especially since now the most elite in finance are either working in quant roles and /or megafund private equity, both of which are extremely selective compared to tech. Megafund PE was always and still remains a bastion of conservatism, but quant shops still select for more objective skillsets meritocratically.

[cmrdporcupine]

Or... hear me out.

"Tech bro" is finance bro.

Most of the "tech" CEO people we're admiring? as movers and shakers... very few of them actually come from an engineering background.

They're mostly just people attracted to the tech industry as a focus of dynamic high profit capitalism. The technology is only the background buzz.

Many of these businesses (Shopify especially!) -- in particular SaaS businesses -- actually have very weak "tech" innovation, it's really just the deployment of pre-existing engineering solutions (solved by other people usually) at scale in order to run a commercial business that just happens to use a lot of computers.

[fakedang]

By finance bros, I meant people who continue to work in finance in some capacity. True, there is often some migration from finance to tech, which is usually composed of characters like the ones you talk of.