FWIW, this comment should be immortalized, somehow. I am replying, so that I can find this in the future. This describes, to an eerie degree of detail, some of my own interactions with people in the industry, as well as interactions that my friends have had.
The industry seems to attract people who can only be described as smooth opportunists, always a shy step away from becoming confidence artists. People with big dreams of material success, but with next to no ability or talent, and with a tragic lack of self knowledge (and often a lack of domain knowledge). Pure entitlement and greed, and a desire to use other people as a bridge to the stars[0].
I will say this, however: they do have a keen sense of what the incentives are. They will keep doing this, for as long as society keeps rewarding them, and refuses to punish them. And unhooking those incentives is not difficult: do not let them externalize blame, do not let small dishonesties pass, do not let them internalize praise that belongs to someone else, and, most importantly, do not look the other way, when they decide to cannibalize the career of someone else, in order to nourish their own.
Silicon Valley, since at least the Web-2.0 days, has been about nerds making frat-bros rich, in exchange for a livable wage (salaries tend to be only slightly in excess of cost-of-living, unless you are willing to live either far away from your workplace, or in a small moldy-smelling box of a studio). This is a bad deal. Silicon Valley idolizes Steve Jobs (even when he was alive), but gives little thought to Steve Wozniak (upon whose work, Apple and the PC industry were built). When I was in college, both Jobs and Dennis Ritchie died within a short time of each other. Silicon Valley mourned Jobs, but only a few of us nerds mourned Ritchie.
Silicon Valley chose to name the most innovative car company in the country "Tesla", but it attracts and cultivates legions of future Edisons and Morgans[1]. And that is perhaps the perfect allegory for Silicon Valley: a car company named after someone like Tesla, but owned and operated by someone like Elon Musk[2].
[0]: Maybe this is an ancient human affliction. Did the pharaohs not do the same in their day?
[1]: Funny parallel, that since 2009, SV has been trying to rent out compute and storage, instead of just selling it outright.
[2]: Another pretender, seduced more by the warm glow of gold, than the cool blue crackling lightning of a Tesla Coil.
The industry seems to attract people who can only be described as smooth opportunists, always a shy step away from becoming confidence artists. People with big dreams of material success, but with next to no ability or talent, and with a tragic lack of self knowledge (and often a lack of domain knowledge). Pure entitlement and greed, and a desire to use other people as a bridge to the stars[0].
I will say this, however: they do have a keen sense of what the incentives are. They will keep doing this, for as long as society keeps rewarding them, and refuses to punish them. And unhooking those incentives is not difficult: do not let them externalize blame, do not let small dishonesties pass, do not let them internalize praise that belongs to someone else, and, most importantly, do not look the other way, when they decide to cannibalize the career of someone else, in order to nourish their own.
Silicon Valley, since at least the Web-2.0 days, has been about nerds making frat-bros rich, in exchange for a livable wage (salaries tend to be only slightly in excess of cost-of-living, unless you are willing to live either far away from your workplace, or in a small moldy-smelling box of a studio). This is a bad deal. Silicon Valley idolizes Steve Jobs (even when he was alive), but gives little thought to Steve Wozniak (upon whose work, Apple and the PC industry were built). When I was in college, both Jobs and Dennis Ritchie died within a short time of each other. Silicon Valley mourned Jobs, but only a few of us nerds mourned Ritchie.
Silicon Valley chose to name the most innovative car company in the country "Tesla", but it attracts and cultivates legions of future Edisons and Morgans[1]. And that is perhaps the perfect allegory for Silicon Valley: a car company named after someone like Tesla, but owned and operated by someone like Elon Musk[2].
[0]: Maybe this is an ancient human affliction. Did the pharaohs not do the same in their day?
[1]: Funny parallel, that since 2009, SV has been trying to rent out compute and storage, instead of just selling it outright.
[2]: Another pretender, seduced more by the warm glow of gold, than the cool blue crackling lightning of a Tesla Coil.