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> I grew in Silicon Valley > The people I work with seem totally normal.

It could be that it's just what your used to. People that grew up outside of the area may see things a little differently based on their life experiences in other places.

I've also lived in Washington, Utah, and Alabama (and NYC for a couple months), so it's not like I don't have other experience. When I say they're totally normal, I don't mean they're exactly the same as anywhere else, but their personalities aren't particularly abnormal, certainly not to the point I'd say that they're "obnoxious and narcissistic."

I think the portion of people the grandparent is talking about is relatively small in numbers, but relatively large in shrillness.

I worked as a dev at one of the major tech companies here for 5 years and basically found that all my coworkers were nice, normal, fairly geeky engineers who really loved technology. My fiancee grew up in the area, doesn't work at tech, and most of her friends are locals. They're all very normal and friendly too. (Probably moreso than I'm used to - I grew up in New England, where everybody's reserved until you get to know them.)

The problem is that the folks who are grandiose self-promoters seem to spend all their time self-promoting, which makes you disproportionately likely to run into them, particularly if you go to startup events. Stay away from that corner and Silicon Valley is basically just a bunch of highly-educated nerds who work very hard.

> all my coworkers were nice, normal, fairly geeky engineers who really loved technology.

I spent a few years living in SF. I think the geek monoculture kind of drove me away. I accidentally fell into tech via math and felt like there was this pressure to conform to this image of a "nerdy engineer". No, I don't obsess about board games or comic books or the latest Japanese cartoons. I kind of get why someone likes them but it gets overwhelming.

Another thing that got annoying was how everyone kept going on and on about tech everywhere. Again, maybe things are different in the South Bay, but SF felt like a flurry of Coffee shops filled with folks talking about Ruby, Haskell and Data Science.

I still remember sitting in a Coffee Shop after I interviewed at my current company in NYC. I overheard a brief conversation between two girls about Python. The fact that they meant the reptile and not the language kind of sealed the deal for me.

Nah, South Bay is like that too, perhaps even moreso. I fit in perfectly - that's the type of environment I've wanted since childhood (although I'm a bit turned off by the posturing-wantrepreneur scene...I just avoid it though). It's a bit tougher for my fiancee, who doesn't care about anything tech-related and is much more the social do-gooder type. Even she's found her own crowd though. There are 8.6M people in the Bay Area - if you look hard enough, it's not that hard to find ones that aren't in tech.

The pathological liars and self-promoters are usually not as common among developer communities.

Now, if you're a founder, you'll see many other founders and VCs whose actions align with those characteristics.

Working for a "major tech company" would insulate you from what Silicon Valley is like, I imagine. There's valley VC/startup culture, and then there's company culture, and they're quite different.

I was going to say the same thing. Talking to co-workers in a "major tech company" is different from talking to other startup CEO/CTO's and just general Silicon Valley networking. The latter is quite exhausting.

So don't, then. Most of the big Silicon Valley success stories came from people that were either students/professors at Stanford (HP, Sun, Siri, SGI, Yahoo, Google, SnapChat) or worked for one of the big tech companies of the time (Apple, EBay, Intel, Oracle, Whatsapp, Twitter, Nest, Android, Slack). Occasionally you get a transplant from another region (DropBox, Facebook, AirBnB, Flickr, del.icio.us, YCombinator), but then they've usually found an idea that's somewhat promising and actively started working on it before moving.

While I might be able to afford this luxury, I think networking in Silicon Valley directly relates to OP's question. What he's missing out on is the interaction with the VC's here, the incubators, the work spaces, the hackathons, etc. Participating in all that and interacting with other self-promotors because you also want to self-promote can be exhausting and what can lead to the 'toxic' referenced in the parent comment.

>grew in Silicon Valley and work here now as a dev

>The people I work with seem totally normal.

These two statements don't seem related to you?

I grew up in Orlando, Florida and for the first 25 years of my life, I thought people just went to Disney World when they felt like it. I thought everyone was tan and wore sunglasses and shorts all the time. I thought everyone knew how to surf, or had been to the ocean recently. I thought most people just had guns and didn't worry about them.

All of these things were normal to me, because I hadn't experienced other people's normal. So when you say "I grew up here, all of the people I know are normal," you're basically saying "I live in a filter bubble and might be accidentally proving your point."

You sound bitter, so maybe you've been burned. I'm not from here, and the people I work with don't seem toxic at all. Maybe I got lucky and found a good working environment that isn't the norm. I get your point, but the poster didn't exactly expose himself as a toxic person, so I'm not sure you can make the leap in assumption about his point of view that you seem to be trying to make.

He doesn't sound bitter to me. He's pointing out a possible oversight in perspective.

I've also lived in Alabama, Utah, and Washington (and also NYC for a short time). I'm not saying my co-workers are exactly the same as other demographics, but they're certainly not "obnoxious and narcissistic."

Interesting observation. I live and work in NYC. When I read about all of the sexism and misogyny in tech it sounds completely different from the tech scene I know and work in. I've long suspected that a lot of those stories are trumped up by "journalists" who want to write stories about the tech gender gap because it's a trendy topic and it affords them the opportunity to use the term "brogrammer" in a sentence. However, I wonder if maybe the Silicon Valley tech culture is significantly more assholey than the tech culture in NYC.

Several months ago I went to the south bay for a job interview. The people who interviewed me seemed nice, if not cut throat. However, I was rather shocked by some of the people I met at the hotel. They were very smug and had extremely entitled attitudes. A few of them were very happy to share with me the fact that they own multiple homes, although I didn't ask them. One guy straight up told me he doesn't like blacks and hispanics. This comment was made at the hotel rooftop pool. It was not a private conversation and the man didn't seem to even fathom that I might have found that offensive.

Then again, it was a ritzy hotel in the most expensive part of that town. I might meet similar people if I stayed at the St. Regis in NYC for a few days.

So IDK, are Silicon Valley types ass trumpets?

> When I read about all of the sexism and misogyny in tech it sounds completely different from the tech scene I know and work in.

I work in NYC too, after spending quite a few years in the bay area. Tech has a diversity problem in general. It is not like things are magically all sunshine and rainbows in NY.

The only distinction is that the Bay has so many many of these small companies that are filled with white men in their twenties who all went to school together and think alike.

Yeah, a lot of them can be as bro-like as your typical finance bro.

I grew up in the Silicon Valley and I thought the same thing until I moved away.

Exactly where? People calling the bay area the "silicon valley" is strange to me. Kids don't even agree you're from the same area if you're not from a certain side of a city, so you have to specify where and when.

There is a big difference between "east side san jose" or sunnyvale or something.

Sunnyvale. 3 blocks from Apple HQ.

Isn't that cupertino? There's a huge difference between different subcultures, I grew up in san jose and can recognize extreme differences in each city and side of a city.

Apple HQ is on the edge of Cupertino.

And yeah I agree, San Jose is a lot more chill... but IMO that's because there's less of the Silicon Valley there, if that makes sense.

I lived in Alabama for 2 years, Utah for almost 3, Washington for almost 3, and NYC for a couple months.

Hm, I guess we grew up in different parts or got exposed to different types of people.

Oh... and for the record, I just agree with the narcissistic part... I have no idea what OP is talking about with regards to being obnoxious, pathological liars, self-promoters, etc.

> Well I mean, they're all relatively enthusiastic about technology, and generally affluent, but aside from that I don't see anything particularly unusual.

The culture of the bay area in general can be very toxic for a particular type of individual. If you're religious or lean to the right in any way, you'll be met with open hostility. The culture of the bay area is also passive aggressive. Nobody wants to offend or confront, so if your manager doesn't like you, you probably won't know it. You'll just get the shittiest tasks and won't be sure why. It's a particular kind of hell for someone who values honestly and blunt talk, like a new yorker, for example.

"Nobody wants to offend or confront, so if your manager doesn't like you, you probably won't know it. You'll just get the shittiest tasks and won't be sure why."

That's a pretty common practice in a lot of companies everywhere - it's called "managing someone out" (as in "out the door"). Companies do it because if an employee can be convinced to leave voluntarily, the company saves money and avoids the potential lawsuit that might ensue from a termination.

I'm aware. I stand by my statement.

There are neoreactionaries in the bay area and they seem to be doing fine.

Stunning counterargument.

I'm religious (mormon) and have not seen any problems.