Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley
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This industry makes me profoundly sad sometimes. Often.
A rich guy who wants to make more money in the tech field will be better off doing angel investing, literally getting on the other side of the counter with startup founders.
After all, capital isn't hard to come by these days. Even outside of the Valley. I have raised (and sadly, burned uselessly) money and it was no way hard. So the factor of having money doesn't mean much. Apart from that, a rich guy will have some advantages (self-confidence, ability to take risks, good initial network) and some disadvantages. Among these are poor understanding of audience for most kinds of ideas, pressure from high status relatives ('startups are hipster toys, you have to go to business school'), high opportunity costs. If we look at successful startup founders, very few come from rich families. Also, having to raise outside money provides a reality check, something which a rich kid will code using his own money has a higher chance to become just a toy - facing investors provides validation and feedback you can't ignore. Raising money is something people think is hard, and it's no way fun to do, so they avoid it whenever they can, so someone who doesn't need it will probably not do it. Which leaves him all alone with his vision...
I seem to remember that many entrepreneurs are born to upper middle class parents.
Not spoiled enough that they cannot work, but still fortunate to have a safe upbringing and be risk tolerant.
(I do agree with you that people are born with very different prospects depending (among other things) on parents social-economic status)
When I was in University I didn't understand why some people didn't care about grades and partied so much. When we left school and got into the real world I understood why: they had rich parents with contacts that could get them good jobs or seed capital for their own businesses.
I had lots of ideas and worked in a lot of startups for more than 10 years but now the following phrase from the article describes my situation very well:
"Most of the time, potential founders who share my background tend to work at lucrative jobs in finance or tech until they can take care of everyone in their families before they even dream about taking more risks — if they ever get there."
Networking might be a benefit, but I'm sure that people go to parties with a different goal in mind, and that the time cost of partying can be better utilized in other ways.
However, I can confidently say there's a big difference in the bond formed between two people chugging beer bongs together vs asking someone in a lecture if they'd like to have lunch.
I also think the party scene would be difficult to replicate in terms of the sheer size of your potential network (I make no assertation about the objective quality of that network, but the article suggests it's not what be predisposed to think).
Anecdotally, I've got lifelong friends from both camps; but the people I lean on now in my professional development are the people I partied (hard) with at university.
I've tried to say it in many different ways, but I'll try again: being "graded" constantly and basing huge path-driving decisions on those grades are a huge detriment to people and to society. I and many others would have had a much better, more rewarding, and more valuable experience if the point of Univerity wasn't gathering a dozen metrics a week for several years in a row in order to get a piece of paper.
(I'm agreeing with your post.)
Networking (60% of my "gigs":) Nepotism (10%, maybe more, much less in my case) Proven Ability to Deliver (20%) Good Luck (10%)
That's not much different to what happens at conferences I've attended, except it ends before the nightclub, usually.
Building a network that's reliable is far more than someone you met at a meetup and added them to your LinkedIn. It starts either at school or through some social functions where one can connect on a deeper level than just a title.
Maybe this is why it's so much harder to form meaningful bonds later in life.
Also makes a good case for formal education and a school that has good signaling ;-)
This was kind of my experience. I went to university two states away from where I grew up, knowing a grand total of one person there. I had the academic end more or less handled, but my first semester at university was the loneliest I've ever been in my life. I made good grades, but otherwise I was miserable, depressed and lonely.
It's easy to meet people in high school. Most high schools are small compared to major universities, and you have classes with those in your grade. Many of them you've been around for years. But now you're thrown into a new setting, with thousands of people. It's hard to make that transition from high school friendships to college friendships.
I spent my freshman fall pretty much just going to class and straight back to my dorm. On the weekends I would go to the football game, but that was it. The rest of the time I watched TV or played on the Internet. It was probably the loneliest I've ever been in my life and, as Christmas came that year I was seriously questioning whether or not I wanted to continue at my university. I had moved two states and five hours away, just to sit around and be lonely.
I told myself going back from Christmas if Spring semester wasn't any better I was going to transfer back home. Well, spring rolls around and one of the guys I'd sat next to in the intro to engineering class invited me to rush his fraternity.
Whut? I had been pretty vehemently anti-Greek; I was a nerdy computer science guy who liked roleplaying games and science fiction movies - not really what I assumed "frat" material was. So my first inclination was to say no thank you.
But I then I stopped myself. "What's the worst that could happen?" I asked myself. "The worst that happens is I don't like it, and I've wasted a few hours. No matter what, it beats sitting in my dorm room, in the dark, mindlessly surfing the web."
So I did it. And it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.
I met so many amazing, awesome people it blew my mind. The guy that ended up being my big brother (for non-fraternity folks, think of a big brother as a mentor) could have been my twin separated at birth - we shared so many arcane interests (including roleplaying games and science fiction movies - we had a chapter D&D campaign running by the end of the semester).
I was eventually initiated, and throughout the remainder of college, the fraternity was a big part of my social life. It was instrumental in breaking me out of my shell and grounded me in the university community. I ended up graduating, having never again considered transferring. And I learned so many valuable social and leadership skills thanks to being involved in the fraternity.
Fast forward 15 years, and the people I met in the fraternity are still some of my best and closest friends. I still do a couple of concerts a year with group of brothers, and have ever since we were in college together. My big brother was the best man in my wedding a few years back and I was the best man in his wedding last year. Several other brothers were groomsmen as well. Several brothers drove up for my daughter's baptism a couple years, and we still go to gatherings once a year or so.
About eight years ago one of the brothers had his house burn down. We all pulled together and filled up a pickup truck worth of supplies to get them him and family through the tough time until insurance kicked in.
A group of four of us have a long running iMessage group that sees thousands of messages a year, especially involving our sports programs. When I'm watching football, I'm usually doing it with one window on the game and another on the chat window as we follow along. It's like being with your friends at the pub.
And it goes without saying that brothers end up getting jobs from other brothers. I think I know people in every conceivable industry at this point thanks to having met them at university.
Pretty much every major event of my life since I pledged, fraternity brothers have been a part of. All because I took a risk on something I thought I might not like but decided to try anyway. I'm glad I was wrong.
So yes, those raucous parties and silly rituals do serve a purpose. We're social creatures by nature and it's a way of building up your social life, and blowing off the stress of school. Universities are institutions of learning, yes, but we're not there just to learn 24/7, just like I'm not at my job now 24/7. These things are fun, and they build up your social network.
So I find this slightly confusing, because in my experience of university, the fact I was living in dorms already offered me the opportunities to meet people that you're talking about. Pretty much from the day I arrived, people were sat talking in the corridors, and everyone else was as anxious to meet new people as I was, so I don't know how I could have avoided making friends.
That said, I do know that despite my social anxieties, I tend to be pretty comfortable talking to people I don't know that well (if anything, more so than people I do), so that might have made it easier than I realised.
One thing that does occur to me though, is in the UK alcohol is readily available to students. I realise US colleges are hardly dry, but I'd imagine it's not quite the same as the UK, where almost every student will have their own stock of preferred drinks ready for any social occasion.
In retrospect, some of it is probably social anxiety.
But I think the bigger part is simply feeling a lack of connection with other people in the dorm. Other than living together we were all leading entirely separate lives. Different majors, different friend groups, etc. We'd see each other in the evenings but that was pretty much it.
The size of the school (~30k students) also didn't help me - the chances of me sharing a class with someone in my dorm were pretty low. Even big classes like Composition, there's probably 40 different composition classes being taught at any semester. I did have one or two people from my History class in my dorm, but that class had 400 people in the auditorium, so not really conducive to discussions. I was just one fish in a really, really big sea.
It was compounded by being an out-of-state student from a long way away from home. Many of the people in the dorm with me were in-state students, many from the same large high schools in the major cities. They came with a built-in networks of friends, many of whom were in the same or adjacent dorms. I knew one other person from my city at all, and he lived on the other side of campus.
So in my particular case, I had a lot working against me. I have no problems believing many people had a great time socializing in dorm life, but I just couldn't develop a connection with anyone there because of the sheer magnitude of the issues.
Which was kinda why it was so weird my friend invited me to rush. We'd sat next together in Intro to Engineering and chatted a few times, maybe sat together once in the cafeteria and studied for class, but not exactly what I would have called a deep connection. It was really surprising when I was offered that invitation.
In a fraternity, though, you are forced to build that connection. It's pretty much the entire point of the organization. If you want to be a part of the organization, you have to be a part of the brotherhood. You have to develop a connection with those in your pledge class (those who join the fraternity the same time you do), or you drop out or get dropped out.
I started with a smaller number of people that I could get to know (there were 11 people in my pledge class, a much smaller number for me to work with). And because we had tasks to work towards together, both as a pledge class and as an organization, we learned to work together with each other. I can't speak for every fraternity, but mine was super, super big on requiring us to work together. There was only one thing we were ever asked to do as individuals. Every single other thing we were expected to do as a class or as an entire organization. With requirements like that, I couldn't help but get to know people.
I'm not saying this type of thing is for everyone, but it really did work out well for me and for everyone else in my pledge class.
> One thing that does occur to me though, is in the UK alcohol is readily available to students. I realise US colleges are hardly dry, but I'd imagine it's not quite the same as the UK, where almost every student will have their own stock of preferred drinks ready for any social occasion.
My school, a large state university, was actually completely dry (officially, at least). Part of it is the drinking age in the US is 21, so only upperclassmen are even above that level at all. But even if you were over 21, alcohol was prohibited on campus. All the dorms, buildings and grounds were dry.
But this was pretty widely ignored, even by the administration. Generally speaking, as long as you weren't making an ass out of yourself or driving, you were okay. Sophomore year I traded beers with my RA (the person in charge of the dorm) on a pretty regular basis.
I'm not from the US, so I obviously can't tell if the same is true there (and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't, given the sheer cost of tuition): here, there's a strong push for most people to go to university straight out of high school because that's what's done if you're at least averagely smart as you need to to get a well-paid job (or so the story goes, regardless of its truthfulness).
At the same time, many people don't really know what they want to do (and degrees here lack the breadth of those in the US), so they end up dicking around a lot, going out partying, because they have no real focus. They don't care about their grades—they don't even care about university—it's purely a means to an end (i.e., getting a decently paid job), and when that end is more than a couple of years away while you simultaneously get your first taste of freedom as an adult, it's hard to care about effects that are years away.
I think thats overly generalized. When I went to college I was (by design) mixed into a group of students whose parents were migrant workers; they were at college with the first year of tuition covered on a special program for migrant workers. I noticed among them the same thing I noticed among some of the more affluent people at school: some worked hard and did well, others did nothing but party. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more common among people with affluent parents, but I think the stronger reason is college (in the US) is a bunch of 18 year olds on their own for their first time; some are ready for the responsibility, many aren't.
This is so absolutely on point.
I've been through life, until now, with exactly that feeling, expecting but not knowing that others feel the same way.
I've been in a bit of a rut recently, and this gives me some ammunition to get myself back together... so thank you for quoting, and thank you, author.
Chances are if they're slacking off in university then they're going to slack off at work too, which means whatever they're not doing will need someone to be hired to do it anyway.
It does make it really hard to change your mindset when you come from this sort of background, when you've achieved more than anyone in your family and therefore can't really talk to them about your ambitions or career objectives.
It sounds awful, but sometimes I wish I had been born into a different family, with highly educated parents I could have amazing conversations with, who would encourage me to achieve and grow even more.
I find I constantly have a mindset of "I'm not good enough" and it's paralysing. I want to interview for the top tech jobs out there, like Google or Facebook, but my brain keeps telling me I'm not good enough, it's awful.
I went to Medical school and for a period of time was surrounded by people who, for the most part, came from affluent or otherwise successful families. My experience was the opposite of what you might have expected: I met many people who felt like they weren't good enough, whose parents weren't encouraging to them, and in several cases had no relationship with them whatsoever. Which I guess is only to say, if you want to be "Good enough" you just have to accept yourself for who you are and continuously try to be better. If you want to apply for the top tech jobs, you should. And if you fail, you should ask how you can improve, do so, and try again. Ultimately, you can only ever be good enough if you try. Failure isn't a disastrous outcome; its absolutely a part of the process of getting better.
I realize you may not be implying this, but I just wanted to point out that highly-educated parents don't always have amazing conversations with their children, or encourage them to achieve and grow even more, or even accept or approve of the accomplishments their children have achieved.
If you feel like you are not good enough - maybe you aren't. Maybe it will take another few years to work on something you are proud of and then you'll feel ready.
You sound relatively young - there is no rush to join google/facebook this year or the next. If you look at the bigger picture - you'll likely be working until you're in your 60s.
That's a long time. So I'd say don't sweat the goals you set for this year or the next so much, once you have the bigger picture, things will fall into place much more naturally.
First, let me say that I am happy where I ended up. I'm successful, enjoy my work, and when I compare my personal income with our family income when I was growing up, it is an absurd multiple.
We were a very poor family in a poor part of the South. I went to a top-10 small private university on a full ride, felt completely alienated and never quite figured out how to function in that environment. I dropped out and moved to San Francisco at what turned out to be a very good time (early 90's), and once Netscape dropped, discovered nobody else knew what they were doing with this web thing either, and more or less faked it until I made it.
At the same time, I have had and do have ideas that others have executed on, that I know I could have made a go at, if only…
The if only list is long, and most of it comes back to self-imposed limitations that I can trace back to how I grew up. Frequently it relates to economic security, but there are other habits of thought that stop me from even getting to worrying about that.
One big one is that I never learned to think about entrepreneurship. A big lesson hammered into me growing up was the importance of "finding a good job", not figuring out how to make my own.
I did start a company in my mid-30s, and we did OK, until we didn't. And that failure (I think) had nothing to do with the habits of thought of a poor kid. But failing in a similar way in my 20s would have left me in a position to learn from that and try again, something I'm unlikely to make a go at 10 years later. I do little things for side income, but those are hobbies.
So it ends up being this thing that doesn't really bother me at this point, but does leave me to wonder what would have happened if I had picked parents from a very different walk of life.
And I am quietly amused when people tell me how they built everything themselves "after a seed from Dad", or "with a great connection I made through a family friend" or similar. Those are impossible blockers for a lot of people, even if they get over some of the habits of mind better than I did.
I've known immigrants who started with nothing and ended up fantastically independently wealthy.
And the vast, vast majority of people who settle somewhere near the middle.
What nobody teaches you is: it's all about luck.
Below that, the fine print: the harder you work and the more you sacrifice, the luckier you will get.
''If only'' works both ways. If only - then I would have been successful in some way. If only - then I wouldn't have met the partner who I fell in love with. It works both ways but people tend to overweight the negative (regret) and underweight the positive (gratitude). All you can do (young, old, or in between) is get up every day, be realistic about where you are and where you want to be, and keep moving forward.
it's all about luck
Spoken like a critic. Not a producer. I know lots and lots of smart people who know how to criticize but not to create.
This is what's behind the achievement gap anxiety: Wise rich people don't want to perpetuate a world where only money selects success. It's wasteful and ultimately unsustainable.
But when people invoke merit they typically mean they're avoiding favoritism, nepotism, and are looking for someone who given what they know or learn about the person would best fit into the job to execute it.
Yes, people only hiring people for whom they feel affinity is somewhat of an issue. I say somewhat, because it can be problematic working with people who understand things differently --say working with people who have a union attitude vs people who have a work at will attitude.
So, I understand the "I'd have beer with them" kind of thing even though it does bother me. I don't drink beer and I'm not into peer dynamics. But I understand why people might be into that.
That said, merit typically means not hiring someone just because they're friends, family, owed a favor, seniority, strict ethnic affinity (which happened and happens in lots of immigrant communities, of old and new), belong to some specific group, etc.
Instead, ask them about problems they've encountered and how they solved them. Doesn't even need to be programming problems. Get an idea for their problem solving process and ability. That's what you should be hiring people for.
Ahh, but natural ability is just as much of a privilege as having a fortunate upbringing! Both are essentially unchosen, born-with things; you can't choose your inborn talents, and you can't choose your parent's resources.
Really, what you're scoffing at is learned skill and saying that born-with skill is better, for whatever reason.
But meritocracy[1] just means "only results matter". It doesn't matter if you worked your ass off for 30 years in acquiring skills that bring results, against all odds (whether genetic or externally imposed). Or if you were just born with it and hardly had to put in any effort.
[1] Whether that is a reality or not; doesn't matter for the sake of the argument.
You're using an overly restrictive definition of "merit". When you hire the best person for the job you're hiring based on merit. How they got there isn't really that important from your perspective as an employer. That's a meritocracy.
Yes, I would say that's the bias. It's human nature to allocate your resources to give your children the best possible start in life. In poor societies that may be as simple as feeding them when you yourself go hungry. In our society it means scheming to get them into the best college or giving them seed money to start a business.
I would note that making alterations to promote diversity don't change that, either. They just distort the system such that people with resources game the system in unproductive ways. A good example is all those "women and minority owned" businesses that get preferential treatment in government contracting. From what I can tell nearly all of them are headed (wink wink) by the wife of a white guy with a relatively upper class upbringing.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
Everybody knows people who grew up poor and "made it", and also people who had all the advantages but can't seem to make anything of themselves.
Day-to-day, how do founders in similar positions coming from cultures with tight-knit families address this? Especially as parents age?
I'm curious about the socio-economic background of the parents as well.
If you are born to parents in the lowest quartile you have ~10% chance of making it into the highest by age 26. For people born in the highest the probability is ~30%.
(and if it was random it would, obviously, be 1/4 = 25%)
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america...
Another problem is that because the distribution is so heavily skewed toward the top (for both income and wealth, but more heavily for wealth), dividing the population into equal groups creates a somewhat misleading picture of mobility. A nonlinear breakdown of classes is more reflective of the distribution. In that case we might ask something like how many people move from the bottom 40% to the top 5%.
Although for some questions, e.g. "Can you escape poverty in the US today?" (which could be specified as moving from 1st -> 3rd quartile) this data works.
But, for other types of questions, e.g. "Is extreme wealth mostly hereditary?" you'd need a non-linear breakdown of classes.
I would wager that a lot has changed in the last 7 years.
Cronyism is just a given when it comes to finance and business dealings.
I'd like to offer a potential explanation of this: Middle and upper-lower-class individuals have the most to gain by doing things on their own.
* An upper-lower-class or middle class child will not have the same burdens and problems as a lower-class individual as describes in this post. They likely have just enough of a support system to be able to make it on their own.
* An upper-lower-class or middle class child will NOT be able to get into a great college with scholarships. They will likely choose a safer route, like a cheaper state school. This makes them less desirable to employers, so the "safe" route doesn't exist.
Basically I ended up paying more for a less valuable piece of paper. Because my chosen school sucked it was really hard to find a job. I'm only where I'm at because I'm lucky, and I don't think many people in my situation would have had similar success.
The first paycheck comes after two weeks, $1800 after taxes and withholding. I am in awe of how much money I suddenly have in my bank account. My fellow students who were interning instantly started complaining about the tax rate and how they wouldn't be able to afford SF rent and the lease payment on a sports car.
And really, if you're able-bodied and able-minded and nobody is trying to kill/maim/imprison you, then life is good. I went to retrieve the mail this morning, and was greeted with a bright blue sky, and an eagle sitting on top of a nearby doug fir tree giving me the eye. Pretty damn awesome to be alive.
This is actually a bond that I find I have with many people I know who grew up here in New York and work with mostly transplants (I'm not bashing transplants...).
I know a lot of people across a wide class divide. I've done some interesting stuff and I've also been in scary/dangerous situations that seem normal to me. The times I've mentioned them I've seen people go wide-eyed and get very uncomfortable.
I really hate the fact that I feel like I'm walking on egg shells whenever I'm not talking exclusively about work with them.
Learn to do whatever it is they do, then ask for a raise to match. I say this because one of the bad habits I got from my own upbringing was constantly undervaluing myself, and doing exactly this has made a huge difference.
I'm a student and notice that a lot of the other low income students and underrepresented groups (of which I am a part of) in my CS program go straight to "safe" jobs, usually enterprise stuff.
Actually now that I think about it: I work in my university's IT department, helping out with the website. The place is straight out of Office Space, very traditional Java/CMS stuff. It's also incredibly diverse. Blacks and Latinos make up a good portion of the working force and even the higher up/managers. There's a good portion of women as well.
But when I interview at start ups or more "modern" companies it's all white or Asian.
Edit: few people work in start-ups as well, so it is probably easy to run into confirmation bias looking at the people you know in your life
Personally, I can't see myself working at most of these startups, but it has nothing to do with their constituency (I get along great with those 'white and asian' people!), it's just that usually their vision/direction or products are simply uninteresting to me, and I definitely prefer working at startups to big companies. For example, I would much rather work at a food-oriented startup, than another boring code/SaaS type startup, and I certainly wouldn't touch any fashion startups with a 20ft pole, just purely because of what I'm interested in, having grown up in a latino community. Unfortunately, the types of startups that I am interested in, aren't usually the ones that get all the buzz on techcrunch.
Either way, having 'equal opportunity' shouldn't force those of us with different cultural preferences to meet some arbitrary ideals for 'equal outcomes'.
There is more mobility than most people realize, but it's not like employment approaches anything near a random distribution. Given the potential advantages of being born into a wealthier class (both hereditary and non-hereditary), I would expect to see underrepresentation.
While it didn't surprise me I'd still like more surveys and insight to exactly how hard it is for the lower class to join the tech and start up booms.
A lower class person can hide in plain sight in tech because everyone assumes that if you are in tech you are not lower class, and no one checks your papers at the door. One of the motivations for someone from the lower class going into tech is so that they aren't perceived as lower class. They sure as hell aren't going to draw attention to that fact.
You're the one calling it trailer trash. Even educated poor people often speak in a more genuine and direct way than elite people do. It may sound funny to a fancy person but that doesn't make it trash.
> ...no one checks your papers at the door.
Yes, they do. Every job, startup accelerator, and VC checks your background. Elite VCs fund elite founders. Elite founders hire elite managers. Elite managers hire poor people to do the actual work. The order is maintained.
They check your education, not your family background. Nobody has a clue whether your parents were middle class or lower income.
Ricky, for example, has a Stanford degree. No hiring manager will know about his low family income. Pretending that VCs/managers somehow have an invisible ball to peer into an applicant's entire life is completely disingenuous.
I'm sure there were kids in OP's position that got a 1400 instead of a 1600 and went to SJSU instead, for instance.
How do you identify those who are underprivileged, but carry that quality too? It can be very difficult to identify.
I got turned down by 15+ companies and startups in the past few weeks because they couldn't sponsor my work visa. This is Canada.
The USA? Being a dropout makes me ineligible for any US work visa.
So much for merit.
This post had some of that individualistic attitude to a much broader and obviously systemic problem.
I've become allergic to words like "privilege" as they usually are seen in the company of ill-thought-out and grandiose/insulting/wrong proclamations about How Things Should Be Done,
..but this is none of that - it's an honest look and deep analysis of someone's experience.
And knowing how important upbringing is, and the sheer (almost superhuman) tenacity the author had to go through to even partially overcome the (poisonous? non-optimum?) mindset that was completely a result of things out of their control...
what the heck is everyone else supposed to do? How does society do right by people like this? Overall, we're pretty horrible at dealing with things that are as subtle as mindset.
When I see that word, "privilege," especially tied to attacks on white/male/hetero/whatever, my response isn't "oh jeez, not that again".....it's "yeah, that is a problem, and I really wish the other white male hetero folks in the room could see it and not just roll their eyes".
It sounds like you want to be an ally, and that's great. I think the hardest part is probably recognizing that when people talk about privilege, it's really not personal, it really isn't about you, even though you're a beneficiary of it every day. Knowing about systemic injustice and doing nothing/remaining silent, though, that's pretty callous, and knowing about systemic injustice and perpetuating it, well, then it would be about you.
There are certainly issues in society, real problems but I'm tired of hearing it. Somehow all of my hardships in life are reduced to nothing, because I'm "privileged".
But having privilege doesn’t mean any of those things."
Maisha Z. Johnson, http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/what-privilege-really-me...
Cf. "Literally", "I could care less", "Dapper"
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
"Having Privilege Refers to Systematic Benefits for Your Identity (But the Same Identity Trait May Still Attract Incidents of Prejudice)"
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/what-privilege-really-me...
> “Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}, you are guilty because you have a privileged position in the {sinful,racist,sexist,homophobic,oppressive,…} system.”
> For [that argument] to work, the subject must be prevented from noticing that the demand to self-condemn is not based on the subject’s own actions or choices or feelings, but rather on an in-group identification ascribed by the operator of the kafkatrap. [...]
> The subject must be prevented from asserting his or her individuality and individual agency; better, the subject must be convinced that asserting individuality is yet another demonstration of denial and guilt. Need it be pointed out how ironic this is, given that kafkatrappers (other than old-fashioned religious authoritarians) generally claim to be against group stereotyping?
Most times I've seen people talk about privilege, it got personal (as in, filled with obscenities, personal attacks, and thinly veiled threats) very quickly when others did not immediately agree with them. So your statement does not comport with my experience, at least.
Is it?
Would you then argue that since Asians in the US have a higher median income than whites, the difference is due to discrimination? If not, then what is the cause?
Applying a term like 'privileged' to an entire group of people based on a single characteristic is stereotyping at it's worst. This isn't to say that trends don't exist, but it is not ok to assume something about an individual simply because it's true, as a general rule for the group they belong to. Like it or not, that's the trap that many people fall into when talking about privilege.
The term just isn't nuanced enough.
Like, for example, there are those studies that show how people with names that sound traditionally black don't get called for job interviews nearly as often. Take the name off the resume and they get called with parity to traditionally white-sounding names.
Or, for another example, it used to be that orchestral auditions were conducted where you could see the player as they played. Orchestras of the period were heavily male-dominated. After they switched to blind auditions--that is, the player plays behind a partition, so you can't see whether they're male or female--suddenly a lot more women started getting hired for orchestral musician positions. The gender balance has begun approaching parity, when the listeners can't see who's playing.
You're right that generic white guy is "invisible," but another way to look at it is, we're the standard. We fit the type everyone wants already. We don't stand out, because we're basically the accepted definition of an acceptable person. We are who you hire, put in your tv shows, give housing loans to, etc.
Just like you mention, blind auditions boiled the interview down to the only thing that matters - the music. And if they were truly better at playing than the others, the orchestra was hurting itself by not hiring them in the first place. Other competing orchestras could implement the blind-audition approach and play much better music and get more audience members as a result.
The last thing you want, however, is to swing the other direction and give people jobs based primarily on their minority status. That's as bad as nepotism/cronyism and it rots organizations in the same way.
You know, in situations like this I'm often reminded of that Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
I think a lot of the pushback against awareness and understanding of privilege comes from that idea.
Being told that you're getting some lucky break because you're a hetero white dude, whether it's preferential treatment in job interview callbacks or orchestra hiring or any of the million other things that have been so insanely thoroughly documented.. well, kinda draws attention to the possibility that, if we were living in a meritocratic world, suddenly all us lucky white dudes would have to compete with a much wider group of people. A man's salary and all that.
As far as swinging the other way and preferring people for their minority status, quite frankly, I'm totally ok with doing so for a generation or two, since I would at least be trying to compensate for hundreds of years of systemic bias against those beleaguered groups of people. Forever? Naw. For now? Sure, even if it means I personally would lose out on contracts or whatever.
But our disagreement here is something to work out in the political arena, not something I think it makes sense to try and bridge from first principles or anything; I at least used to feel the way you do, and came to change my mind about it only through a lot of life experience that told me it made sense to change my mind.
Consider scholarships: if you're a white male, you have to be exceptional vs your cohort in some other way (academics, athletics, etc) to find a scholarship. If you're a minority, you have to... be a minority. That's a disadvantage of being Generic White Male #434242.
To be clear, I fully recognize that real, actual race-based discrimination on a systemic scale happened fairly recently in the US, and to an extent still happens today. 100% no argument there.
The problem with "privilege" as a label is that it describes a population, yet is applied consistently - sometimes weaponized - to individuals.
Which, funnily enough, is one of the benefits of it, you can ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, because the bias it implies wouldn't effect you anyway.
I don't try to convince climate change deniers either, because I learned long ago that you can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into.
My argument is fairly constrained in scope and can logically be broken down like this: privilege can be used to describe a group but not applied to an individual. This should be axiomatic; incorrectly applying group properties to an individual is known as an ecological or division fallacy. Whenever you hear (or invoke) an admonition to "check your privilige", consider whether this error is being made.
The thing is, people know this. I know they know this because any example of "anti-privilige" is summarily dismissed as a unique case representing the elastic nature of privilige.
The other thing that makes privilige hard to discuss is that when you question assumptions or ask for specifics, you are instantly dismissed as an enemy of the cause. Your reply here is a great example. Above you mention "a million other things" that have been "insanely thoroughly documented", I said I'd like to see them to look at them critically, and that trigged Red Alert. At that point you lumped me in with climate change deniers and considered me irrational, because asking questions makes me the Enemy. This is a pattern that occurs frequently; the CoC discussion on php-internals took a similar path. It's such a bizarre thing to me, because as engineers we all follow a rubric that's roughly: 1. identify and describe the problem 2. consider solutions 3. implement the best solution. But in the social justice arena, trying to participate in #1 gets you cast out as oblivious, ignorant, irrational, or worse -- unless you belong to a certain in-group.
In the quest for inclusion, it seems like there's a lot of exclusion happening.
So just curious: what's with referring to men as "dudes" when you're trying to make points about inclusive behavior and language and such? I'm seeing this a lot, and this weird language tic really detracts from whatever point the person is making. You don't refer to women as "chicks," do you?
That's the point - being invisible is a privileged state. Black people are not invisible the US, where some people (not all) will inevitably treat them with suspicion (or worse).
So compared to a rich, white expat in some African or Asian country, the typical resident of said country is privileged? Because in that country, compared to the expat, the resident is essentially invisible, and the white expat is decidedly not invisible.
And many people will treat the expat with suspicion, or worse. Are all of those people "privileged", and the expat "not privileged"?
There may have been some confusion as I apparently left out a word ("/in/ the US"). I'm only discussing privilege in the US.
I have no idea how these things work in Africa or Asia. Presumably there are similar situations in other countries, though that is a guess. Your scenario sounds reasonable - yes, the natives would have the privilege of starting with the "default" level of suspicion while the (white) foreigner has to overcome an extra scrutiny.
Privilege can be overcome. You specified a rich expat, and money can be a very effective way to make problems go away. However, a similarly rich native will probably have to spend somewhat less money in similar situations because of their privilege.
It predisposes us to assume that the privileges possessed by an individual are one of the primary drivers of the experiences they have had in their life. Privilege isn't uniformly distributed across all members of a group.
Let's say that group Y enjoys a much higher college acceptance rate. Due to their privilege, 80% of applicants from group Y are accepted to college. Do the 20% of applicants from group Y who were denied also posses the privilege of greater rates of college acceptance? Is it right for me to assume that since an individual belongs to group Y, they have personally benefited from this particular privilege?
Let me be clear: I think that taking a hard look at inequalities between groups and seeking to ameliorate them is the right thing to do, and something we should all be doing. What I find problematic is using broad statistics to make assumptions about individual people.
People like to imagine that they don't actually make policy decisions, then they have no influence on the world. That's really not the case, and the best course of action is to be aware of the influence you have, and make sure your biases aren't influencing things in a negative way.
I would argue that height, intelligence, general health, economic class, propensity for addictive behaviors, wealth of your parents, children rearing skills of your parents, closeness of extended family, social network of your family, family religion, access to nutrition, country of birth, access to healthcare (I could go on and on) all help/hurt your potential in life.
Saying that "you're [white, male, rich] so you're privileged" is ridiculous when it only one of probably thousands of different factors that can impact your success in life. It's lazy thinking.
What exact privilege does growing up desperately poor in rural West Virginia bring you? A person from a middle class black family in NYC would have much more opportunity.
Yes, each person would face their own set of challenges (ie, the black person vis-a-vis the police, although believe me that unjustified police brutality happens to white people too). But it's wrong to judge one as being "privileged" based solely on their skin color, without knowing anything about them.
Sadly, I noticed that most of the people shouting "privilege" at others themselves come from very privileged backgrounds, and have learned this attitude at some expensive private liberal arts college. I'm not sure what is driving their crusades (guilt?), but again, I was raised that it's not right to judge people based solely on their skin color, regardless of the rational behind it. And fail as I may sometimes, I will continue to strive toward that goal.
Finally, what about those of us coming from a mixed-race background, with a grandparent or great-grandparent from a "non-privileged" group? If you look hard at some of us, you can see evidence of that group. Are we partially privileged? Or is being privileged a discrete state?
..(my response is) "yeah, that is a problem"
Well, no, not always. There are two huge problems with the whole "you are privileged therefore.." argument, so much so that I question the value of even using it:
- They extrapolate the general to the individual, which is unfair for the same reason that all prejudice is unfair.
- It's used disgustingly often as a throwaway attack to silence people. (In essence: You're privileged, shaddap) - The same people would use this to attack the author of this article, based on what's immediately visible about him (white male), without knowing a damn thing about his struggle.
For a very good recent example of this, look at what happened at Missouri U in the news.
I think the hardest part is probably recognizing that when people talk about privilege, it's really not personal...
If only I could believe that. My experience on the greater internet in the last few years is that, perhaps nine times out of ten, anyone using the word intends it as an attack on a group (their intentions, however noble, are irrelevant), and the other time, it gets the serious, thoughtful treatment we see here.
The author was poor, but appeared to have a positive, if difficult home life. Mentoring would have helped the knowledge problem, but his problem was lack of resource above everything else.
Lack of resource leads to instability, and it taints literally everything you do, even mentally.
I know, I know, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It's not me you have to convince.
If you grow up poor there's a huge amount you need to learn - about law, politics, business ethics, finance, negotiation, social signalling, confidence and assertiveness, and how to find and deal with influencers - that the rich seem to be taught effortlessly.
Having more money doesn't change the basic life training, because the life training is itself a form of positional social signalling.
If you're middle class you're half in and half out. You have some idea how the world really works, but your ability to act on that learning is limited because you won't naturally have the right contacts - unless you cultivate them deliberately.
Most of the poor have no idea that any of this matters. They're caged inside a media-managed world view, and it takes exceptional ability to break out of that.
Mentoring can help some, but nothing helps as much as confidence and contacts.
Poor: You may have to make decisions about which bills to pay or which needs to meet, and being able to pay all your bills and eat is considered a moral virtue. Money is naturally transient, because your obligations have similar weight to your income, and having excess money in your bank account is weird, unnatural to the point that your instinct is to spend it before it goes away. If you use a budget, line-items are on the size of a grocery trip. You're more likely to budget small purchases than large purchases. If you are trying to build savings, putting money into a savings account is another bill.
Middle class: Your bank account is the intermediary between your bills and income, with a mean and a natural trajectory. If your account's trajectory is positive, your natural instinct is to spend it, either on better lifestyle or a large purchase, very occasionally savings. If you have a budget, components are like "monthly food" and you deal with going over-budget by cutting a few more corners next month. Savings are still another bill. Putting the right amount into your savings account to retire in 40 years is a moral obligation.
Capital class: Interest on your earnings is your primary source of income. Your rate of spending must be lower than the rate you earn interest; to do otherwise is dipping into capital, which is morally wrong. Any interest you don't plan to spend is folded back into your capital, giving you a small, permanent raise. I don't understand this class too well because I'm still working on entering it.
Real estate is a great investment (at least in Australia) because it allows you to get access to larger amounts of credit to purchase assets which will generally go up in value over time because of the policies of central banks to target inflation. In addition buying in the right location will insure that on top of location future scarcity will add more value to the investments.
It is also super transparent compared to stocks, where you don't really know what is going on inside a company, land is land and all the data you need to assess the investment is available. And you can control the asset (think renovations, rebuilds, subdivisions etc.) so there is more you can do compared to the stock (buy, and perhaps short the similar stocks)
The downside to real estate is you have to be a little bit patient. Did I mention 20 years? :-)
My portfolio is primarily stocks, which I find surprisingly easy to work with. You just pick well-run companies in fields you understand, ignore financial news, and wait. I should be capable of living off interest in four years.
I'm in US but I agree. I'm not old enough yet (I hope) but most of friends' parents lost all they had later in their life and from what I heard they were heavily into real estate. Some owned few houses and others worked as realtor.
For those that owned houses, they were extended too thinly and couldn't sell fast enough to cover mounting interest and cost when economy tanked, resulting in bankruptcy.
The OP does not say that his parents didn't show him any love, which is more important for the development of a person than any economic status. Many of the other struggles might be used as fuel for building positive character traits, unless one doesn't let it.
Having read through the post, it doesn't appear that he's actually arrived at a valid point, and is just trying to brand himself as being underprivileged through the telling of his life story, which has turned out to be successful by most standards. He uses the argument that "mindset inequality" gave him a chip on his shoulder so he was able to succeed, and therefore others fail because of it, which seems contradictory.
This is not the only post recently where the topic is "oh golly gee, look at the hardship I went through to get through college and the found something."
It's a millennial post, and there have been many of them.
Going through college is a challenge ... Having to work or be responsible during such sucks (I interned at Borland as well as worked for an astronomical research company).
Post college, more than a few have to deal with life obligations that come up.
Our profession certainly offers a bit of a cushion and flexibility, but we have to manage that and our obligations.
I don't see someone here whining about having to support their parents due to the last downturn or the many other personal decisions made.
The blog would have been better written as challenges met and overcome and left out the for lack of tact whiny bits...
Yes, coming from poverty has challenges, and friends in such stretched into their late 20s to complete a degree...but perspective and awareness of the wider world is needed... Not another post about personal insecurities..
The "poor" kids also tend to find each other at college and over the first few semesters form separate networks from the rich kids. People tend to want to hang out with people who are similar to them. One group goes out partying together, the other sits in a dorm room listening to music and drinking a $15 handle. Their friend groups don't overlap over much.
The poor kids tend to build networks where the members personal skills and resources they bring to the table in the present are important (or that was my observation). I guess when you can't throw money at a problem knowing who's the IT guy and the car guy becomes more important.
> Compare that level of confidence to a kid with successful parents who’d say something along the lines of “If you can believe it, you can achieve it!” Now imagine walking into a VC office having to compete with that kid. He’s so convinced that he’s going to change the world, and that’s going to show in his pitch.
I enjoyed this article a lot but clearly this guy also made some of his own hardships. Going on ski trips just to fit in and then running out of money is incompatible with the image of a frugal poor kid.
And no I didn't run out of money while in college because I went on ski trips. I lived on student loan and credit card just to pay for food and not much else. My parents couldn't send me much money. And yes I worked to earn money while in college, which doesn't help with improving grade. And of course the peers with no money worry can pick and choose non-paying internships or go do something that adds to their resume.
Growing up poor (I mean poor) damages one's psyche that others just don't understand. The degree of severity may vary but combine teen years + seeing parent(s) struggle with money everyday, you have a recipe for a hurt in your heart that lasts your life time that others just don't understand. And this 'hurt' is more noticeable when you know your peers around you are not suffering same issue.
And no I don't advocate for a national program to eradicate poverty.
The essay by PG actually meant that there are no poor founders at all. It would be interesting to have statistics on whether poor founders fail more, or don't even get a chance to try at all. I have reasons to believe that the rare poor person is more motivated and determined than the average groomed-to-be middle class entrepreneur, and there are plenty of cases of dirt-poor persons becoming millionaires.
Here is one instance where that powerful way of thinking runs head on into a stone wall. He said "few successful founders grew up desperately poor" and moved on. Succinct. yes, but not powerful. This piece took a couple thousand words to say the same one succinct thing that PG said, and nails it in terms of the empathy it generates and the power with which it communicates. While PGs writing in this issue comes out as aspie. This is the lesson he needs to take from that latest article and the Internet's reaction, and not that “Life is short” and totally miss the point.
Narrativity and Authenticity and Poetry and Verbosity is power! (when dealing with humans).
The shock came from seeing how I lacked culture/experience/skills/confidence others had. And these others had grown up in more stable environments with either some or quite a bit of money.
I didn't know how to play any instrument. I wouldn't say everyone I knew in college played an instrument since I wasn't at Standford :) but still it was obvious to me I LACKED the soft skills my peers had.
I had not done many things as a teenager that are possible only when you grow up in a family with some means. And this weakened already not so robust confidence in myself, resulting in a mostly downward spiral as far as confidence in myself.
You see growing up with money buys you a lot of soft skill that helps you later.
I'm not bitter though. It is what it is. I try to be thankful for what I've had so far.
Also growing up poor gives you an advantage in terms of risk, because you know the worst that will happen is that you will just be poor like you were when you grew up. Once you've been poor, it isn't as scary. I think many rich friends have a nightmarish fear about it and are risk-averse because of this.
There is a lot of guilt, though. I care about my family and want to help them, but giving them money doesn't work - it is wasted. So they remain forever poor and I have money, and I feel bad about it.
I lived in a society where everyone was almost the same, similar economic status, similar privilege etc. etc. Life sucked. I decided to move out to be among the top 10% instead of one of the 100%. I eventually ended up in SV.
This place is awesome and the very reason I am here is because I can be in the top 10%. I dont want to be equal but I seek privileged, extra-ordinary wealth and stuff that most others can not afford. I think it is an amazing thing that places like SV exist. If you somehow take out that incentive I think I will move somewhere else. Of course I would be moving out of California sooner or later given the taxes.
Unfortunately, happiness quickly loses its correlation with wealth. Unsolicited advice to the parent: seek out a strong community. Being "better than everyone" is a great path to dying alone.
Another way to read it is: coming to America for opportunity and upward mobility..
I don't find the 'I seek wealth' shallow or selfish, rather the true feelings of most Americans. We worship money and status in this country too often.
Outrage at this - is encouraging, but not from the SV crowd - they seem quite interested chasing massive wealth themselves.
That is certainly not a truth universally acknowledged (http://idsn.org/caste-discrimination/ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/Dalit-tonsu...)
However if we look at impartial research such as by James Tooley who was studying history of Education system in India, he points out that literacy and education levels in even the tribals and so called "low castes" in India was reasonably close to "so called higher castes" and most certainly higher than the peasants in United Kingdom. It is a fascinating book in itself and borrows heavily from another book of same title written by Gandhiji's disciple Dharampaal.
Beside the third book is a comprehensive survey of all caste related laws, judgements and British Census reports in India and shows pretty big holes in "discrimination" and "privilege" arguments.
Here is the essay by Dharampal who notes the British Census in one of the provinces (Madras). It compares schools, school going people in England and Madras which were of comparable size. Turns out that enrollment in Madras is actually higher than that of England and lower castes dominated the students.
http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/Indigeneous-Educati...
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ELPRLC0/ref=dp-kindle-re... [2] http://www.amazon.com/The-beautiful-tree-indigenous-eighteen... [3] http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Over-Backwards-Arun-Shourie/dp...
Just ignore those down votes and be sure to post your story everywhere you can. Actually, I think you should campaign to be the poster child of Silicon Valley!
BTW, Mississippi has lower taxes than California, you should move there.
I'm allowed to ask these questions; the Indian side of my family are Brahmins, and boy does it show! Most of us walked straight from the lawyer/doctor/accountant/businessperson class in India into the lawyer/doctor/accountant/businessperson class in the USA and Canada.
Sure things were difficult, but most of us had huge advantages.
I had lived in China for more than 5 years, Boston, Japan or Korea for more than 9 months each.
In my opinion, minimizing conflict has nothing to do with being poor, and a lot with being Chinese educated.
On the contrary, I volunteer helping poor kids like Spanish gypsies or Subsaharan African and they(and their parents) are ultra confident, and spontaneous. Being open is the default thing for them.
I managed Chinese people in China and there was a world of difference between natives and those Chinese educated overseas.
When living on the US, I was shocked to see parents cheering their kids for the most stupid thing, when in Europe as a kid you are forced to do 4x more effort without rewards at all(like learning multiple languages). It is just what it is expected from you.
In Asia, this pressure over kids is even higher than in Europe.
Family is very important for Chinese almost a religion. This has advantages and disadvantages. For innovation, it is a big disadvantage. Innovation means taking risks, being close to your family means having to convince lots of people those risk are worth it. Most people won't understand you and it is very hard.
In the US, everybody is on their own, basically, nobody gives a dam, which is great for changing the world.
After finishing college here in the US, he got a very lucrative job at a consulting firm and was doing very well. Yet his parents (especially mother) kept pressuring him to go back to Hong Kong because, according to him, that's the rightful place of a family's only son. Keep in mind that such a move would mean upending his life and also taking a big pay cut (he compared salaries).
He also told me that Chonese schools reward conformity above all else and strongly discourage (sometimes with physical violence) sticking out or taking initiative.
That's not to say the author's observations and opinions are wrong. In fact what he shared is very valuable - people who come from middle class or above families tend to take their privilege for granted, and in fact can't even imagine what it is like to be poor. I myself only learned it by volunteering at homeless shelters and soup kitchens. It's very heartbreaking that the world's richest and most powerful country has so many struggling people, but it can also be instructive in terms of what one can do to help fix it. So I commend the author for writing this piece.
It may not be something a startup can solve but "administrivia as a service" - some means of connecting families who need with someone able to actually advise and not be taken advantage of
In the uk we have a volunteer service called citizens advice bureau - I am thinking something like this on tap might be beneficial in ways hard to quantify
?
Excellent article by the writer. Apologies for the long post, however hope it is helpful for someone in similar situation. I can relate to many things that he has faced and feel incredibly lucky to not have faced some things that he had to.
I grew up in a small town in a poor family in India as eldest of four siblings. Our monthly budget was 20 dollars and things were really tight. However my dad worked really hard 16 hours every day and made sure that my studies do not get hindered. He told me every single day that with hard work I can achieve anything that I can dream of.
I got into IIT Bombay (one of the most prestigious colleges in India). However it was obvious to me, that I need to get a decent paying job right after school to support siblings and my dad who couldn't do 16 hours any more.
It took my the next 8 years working for others, to save enough to pay for the studies and marriage of me and my siblings and to help my dad retire.
During these 8 years, I built and ran the biggest social network to come of of India. Apart from this also built something which is now the Twilio of India. I was also the part of the team which built the current mobile offering at LinkedIn.
If I had financial stability, I would have started working on mine own ventures 3 years into my career. But it took 5 more years. As soon as I had financial stability, I quit LinkedIn (with 2.5 years of stock unvested) to start a company.
I started a company, where we had incredible opportunities. We built something like Slack for consumers around the same time as Slack. However, being on H1 visa, I was a minority stake holder in the company. And it is a bad situation to be in, if your traction is not already proven. It made sense to exit the company, so we sold it to Dropbox in an acqui-hire.
Dropbox treated me really well. I met some of the smartest people I have ever met over there and it can be a great place to work for many people. However, I soon realized that it wasn't a good fit for me. Such companies are very top driven, there is little creative freedom, and most of the work is cleaning up the tangled code developed over 7-8 years. So I quit Dropbox after an year.
Now I am in a job that gives me more creative freedom and I am pretty happy on that front. Meanwhile, I have been sole advisor for a few companies over the past 2-3 years and they are all profitable and didn't need to raise any money. The entrepreneur in me, keeps me raring to go and start another company. However, because I am on H1 visa, I do not want build another company with minority stake at formation (USCIS rules). To fix this, I would need to get a Green Card. However if you are from India, it will take you 8-10 years to get a Green Card in EB-2.
So the next steps are either move from US, or find a way to get a Green Card on EB-1. If anyone knows any good immigration lawyers, please help introduce.
However, related to the original post. In spite of motivation, talent and hard work; financial situation and immigration (in my case) play a big role in your entrepreneurship journey.
It's certainly not the first time I've thought about this topic, but for whatever reason, the OP and much of the discussion is resonating very deeply for me (and apparently for a lot of folks). IMHO, this is some of the most productive discussion about privilege and opportunity that's ever appeared on the internet; for the most part, this discussion has avoided the sort of aggravated competition (i.e. pissing contests) and judgements that generally arise out of internet discussions of privilege. In place of those nastier (albeit very human) responses, this thread is full of empathy, support, and offers of help.
I'm very proud of our little community here today.
I'm planning on writing a more detailed post in a few days after collecting my thoughts a bit more, but I'd like to share some half-formed ideas which this post has inspired (comments and criticisms are very welcome!):
1) Part of what's awesome about this discussion is that it seems to have enabled a bit of ad-hoc group therapy. I think it's very helpful for folks who are facing these hurdles to realize they are not alone; while everyone's situation is unique, it's great that people have been acknowledging similarities in their stories, rather than arguing about the differences. We should try to do more of this (with other contentious topics as well)!
2) As several people have suggested, I believe that collecting these stories could potentially help a lot of people. I'm totally down to build and host a site towards that end - would anyone be interested in sharing their stories in that sort of venue?
3) While the specific issues that people have had to deal with are different, there seems to be some common 'flavors' that many have experienced: a) Socio-economic disparity causing an aversion to risk later in life b) Lack of confidence in oneself which adds an additional handicap compared to more self-confident people, likely resulting in missed opportunities (you can't win if you don't play vs you can't lose if you don't play); impostor syndrome. c) Lack of connections, again likely resulting in missed opportunities and increased difficulty in building new things/finding a job/etc. d) Disparity in access to knowledge that greatly improves chances of success (e.g. importance of SAT scores to college admissions; efficient resource management; interview skills)
Improving the situation in (a) seems to be what the world at large is most interested in. Unfortunately, it's a difficult, heavily politicized, and therefore divisive issue. By contrast (b), (c), and (d) seem like problems that we could really improve, at least within our own community.
For example, someone might have a harder time getting the type of (tech) job that they want due to a lack of personal connections (it can be really hard to get your foot in the door), however, it's likely that the personal connections they need are actually visiting this site every day. While we obviously can't just start providing references for total strangers, how much effort would it be to spend a few hours corresponding with someone and vetting their skills to see if you feel comfortable in recommending them? (I'll put my money where my mouth is on this one - if anyone feels like they'd be a good fit at Cloudera, let's talk! EDIT: just to be clear, I don't really have any hiring authority, but I'm happy to talk to anyone, and potentially help with a recommendation)
Likewise, it seems that (b) could be improved for a lot of people with simple communication - impostor syndrome is very common in tech, so I assume that a lot of people here have advice on the subject, or just an empathetic/sympathetic ear.
Regarding (d), this type of information is all likely available already on the internet, but perhaps it could be more usefully compiled for this particular case, minimizing the number of unknown unknowns? What about a thread (like "Who's Hiring") listing offers for mentorship ("Who Needs a Mentor?") ?
I dunno, am I just being overly optimistic here? It seems to me there's a lot of low-hanging fruit here, if some of us are willing to dedicate a bit of time to it.
More ideas? Criticisms?
I was born in Albania, a small, poor, European country with a GDP comparable to Zimbabwe, Namibia, or Sudan. That same year marked the fall of it's isolated strain of communism, and Albania's borders were opened for the first time since WW2. In the late 90s, after the collapse of its economy and ponzi schemes, social unrest reached its height following the violent murder of peaceful protesters by the government and police. This sparked an uprising and the government was toppled. The police and national guard deserted, leaving armories open, then looted by militia, and criminal gangs, with factions fighting in the streets to take control. My parents moved our beds to the hallway of our small apartment as there were no windows, and my little sister and I had to stay quiet so no one would hear we were there. After a UN operation, the government was restored, and the situation was relatively calm. Sometime that following summer, my dad found out about a US green card lottery, filled out an application form, and because he was in a hurry, handed it to a random stranger waiting in line to submit it for him. He then forgot about it, until a year later, when we got a letter telling us that we had won. My parent's weren't terribly off in Albania, they were comfortable, their friends, families were there, they had great jobs, and the future looked promising. But having just gone through that rebellion, then the Yugoslav Wars to the north trickling across the border, and the allure of the American Dream, they decided it would be best for my sister and I.
We moved to Philadelphia in 2000, in a working class neighborhood, with a few suitcases and not one word of English. My parents took on multiple jobs, their Albanian communist degrees were obviously not recognized in the US, so my dad, once a doctor, is still working maintenance, and shoveling snow in the East Coast, as I write this. Like Ricky said, and like all immigrant kids, my family depended on me to learn english and deal with translation, and everything in between. 5 years later when we became citizens, and received our passports, my parents knew more about American History than was taught in my inner-city high school.
My parents are incredibly supportive, but they moved to the US in their 40s, they weren’t familiar with the language, culture, and even more importantly capitalism. Apart from the classic model of education, they weren’t familiar with the tools required to be successful in such a strange place like this. But with their meager wages they were happy to support my hobbies, buy me lots of books, and a computer with internet access which taught me much more than my inner city schools.
Eventually I got a college degree, then went on to do a dual-masters in design and engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College in London. I even got to go to Tokyo and work for Sony, while studying there. I graduated this past summer, and then launched my final group project as a startup in London with my friends, two English, Oxford educated engineers, and a Spanish designer/engineer who’s father is the president of one of the largest companies in the world.
Then reality sank in, I had to leave, I can’t be an entrepreneur just yet, and I moved to SV to find a high paying job in tech for the next 5-10 years, so that I can: a. afford to pay rent b. pay off my educational loans c. pay off my parent’s home d. help my sister pay for her education e. send some money home because my dad is getting too old to shovel snow
Most people don't have the money or resources to build a company like this, which is why we have VC. They know you are in a desperate situation and exchange the money that you need for a % of the company.
The better thing to do is choose a solid business idea that can be built slowly and at a certain point, put money you make from this venture into an idea that needs more capital to succeed.
I liked to that you went to a community college. I too screwed up in high school. I didn't even know why people were taking another test--the SAT. That said, I cleaned up my act in my senior year, but it was too late.
Everything, and a lot more, that I missed in high school, I made up for in two semesters at community college.
If anyone in high school is reading this, and thinking, "I wish I could do it over?". You can! I had a great time at my community college. I saved a lot of money, and met some really wonderful people. The teachers really seemed to care. I didn't find that at the four year school, or even my professional school.
Just make sure to transfer, and get that four year degree. So many people don't transfer to a four year university, or even get the associate degree. Yes, so much of college is absolute bull shit, but degrees are still valued in a lot of professions. It's changing though, and I couldn't be happier. British companies are taking the lead. I know at Penguin books; HR isn't even allowed to know if you went to college, or not. You are hired on your experience, and maybe a test? The way it should be.
[0] - Apart from the safe suburban upper class childhood, the prep school and Harvard education my parents paid for, the job at Goldman Sachs my uncle got me straight out of school, and the finance network from that experience that eventually helped me with my first funding rounds, but yea, besides all that I'm TOTALLY SELF MADE!
[0] at Phillips Exeter
This essay supports PG's point, it doesn't contradict it. PG's essay calls out "kids with no chance of reaching their potential" as "very bad" aspect of inequality in the fourth paragraph!
What essay did you read?
My other frustration was that some of what PG actually did saw was indeed flawed, and there's only one response [1] that I could find that spoke to it.
Regardless, writing about political domains riles the most base, tribal instincts in all of us. I expect him to be more careful about how he frames his arguments so that they're not overcome by readers' emotion, but can actually have a positive impact.
[1] https://medium.com/@sethbannon/how-paul-graham-gets-it-wrong...
It's time to start considering that either PG made his point poorly, or that maybe you're the one that didn't understand it. I don't know what other reasonable options there are.
Most of the critiques of PG accuse him of not caring about poor people. And yet his essay specifically attacks poverty and lack of social mobility:
> Let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work than attacking wealth in the hope that you will thereby fix poverty.
I have to agree with you. I am actually surprised PG tried to even write a second essay to explain the first one and some people still didn't understand it and it led me to this conclusion and points me to Dale Carnegie's " You can't win an argument"..
Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.
You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And -
"A man convinced against his will
"Is of the same opinion still."
Let us test this claim.
I Googled "inequality in the us" and clicked the first several results. If your claim is true, these will only discuss attacking poverty, and not attacking wealth. (I am assuming that top Google hits do not constitute "the fringe").
The first result is: "20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know from The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality." (http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php). The first two "facts" concern wage inequality and CEO pay, neither of which say anything a priori about poverty. Many of the other "facts" on the page do address poverty more directly.
The Wikipedia page on Income Inequality is next (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...). It primarily discusses actual inequality, mentioning poverty only in one specific section. One of the policy proposals it describes is one of a maximum wage, which has nothing to do with decreasing poverty.
The third result is a Salon.com piece, "35 soul-crushing facts about American income inequality" (http://www.salon.com/2015/07/15/35_soul_crushing_facts_about...). Many of them are again facts that do not say anything about poverty, like "The poorest half of the Earth’s population owns 1% of the Earth’s wealth. The richest 1% of the Earth’s population owns 46% of the Earth’s wealth." Facts like these are directly pitting the poor against the rich, without saying anything about whether the lower earners actually have their needs met and/or have social mobility.
So I disagree that this is a "strawman." I think a core part of the conversation about inequality is that is it horrifying how much the rich have compared with everyone else. That is the attitude that PG is arguing against.
Obviously an oversimplification, as the essay also hints at a 'undetermined' category. On this, the essay touches on two issues I've been thinking about for the past 5 years:
1) As capital (i.e. the means of production) becomes increasingly digital, it becomes cheaper to acquire and production can occur at a marginal cost of near 0 (e.g. it costs facebook virtually nothing when a person makes a new account). Cheaper to acquire means fewer people needed to pool money to attain capital. And marginal cost near 0 means more 'winner-takes-all' markets (e.g. natural monopolies, network monopolies etc.). All this will result in more wealth concentrated in fewer hands.
2) Digital capital is highly mobile. AWS instances can be moved to another country almost instantaneously and without cost. This makes it hard for governments to tax returns to digital capital, barring some global tax agreement. So governments have very little scope for redistributing this increasingly concentrated wealth.
We badly need to have a public (and probably global) conversation along similar lines as PG's essay: do we consider these good or bad things? are we ok with the resulting society? what should we do (if anything) about this?
Instead the conversation seems to be dominated by people who are fixated on remedying the symptoms, rather than the underlying disease(s). Supremely frustrating, and will eventually result in more extreme policy outcomes (i.e. expropriation vs. free-for-all).
Room for a startup/free service that does that!
Having things explicitly called out is way more efficient than trying to derive everything yourself (see also, effectiveness of supervised vs unsupervised learning).
Why? How can there be such a thing? What is there that prevents someone from recording what they encountered and learned, and passing that knowledge on to others?
The practice isn't about acquiring information, so much as it's about moving that information to a different internal subsystem.
At the root of this, you think all knowledge can be encoded in words and shared, and that's the problem, it isn't true. Many things cannot be shared via words, only experienced.
I don't think anyone's disagreeing with you regarding the need for practice. Reading, Discussion, and Practice are all part of a balanced education, on any topic. I'm objecting to the notion that there are topics for which the written word is useless.
They do of course practice in real life, turning theory into practice. That's an essential stage which comes after learning theory on the internet.