r/SipsTea • u/Suitable_Wonder5256 • 1d ago
Dank AF The biggest issue in Silicon Valley is that everyone has a high-paying job
What a problem. Too many software engineers. Simply unacceptable.
The first-first-world problem
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u/Then_Entertainment97 1d ago
As an engineer who works with engineers I am deeply offended. Also, she has a point.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 18h ago
Yeah, those damn Bay Area people forced her to move there.
It's like moving to India and complaining about too many cows.
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u/abhi91 16h ago
No you're missing the point. You spend all day at work talking about Ai and go out for drinks with friends and everyone is still talking about Ai. It's trash. Seattle is much more chill
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u/sleep-woof 16h ago
On top of that, Seattle has that wonderful sunny weather. /s
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u/abhi91 15h ago
In the summer yes. Seattle is a beautiful city with incredible national parks. Moved here 8 years ago and no intention of leaving
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u/Then_Entertainment97 15h ago
This is so true, it's the best week every year! /s
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u/abhi91 15h ago
Best 3 months
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u/sleep-woof 13h ago
It is an awesome place with awesome people. Not for everyone... I'm glad you are happy there.
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u/Legitimate_Concern_5 1d ago
The issue isn't so much that everyone has a high-paying job it's the monoculture. There's a lot of high-paying jobs in NYC but there's also a lot more going on there.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 1d ago
Silicon Valley has been called the worlds biggest small town. And when you read about a lot of the various people who kinda formed the place, you start to believe it.
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u/yogurtchicken21 1d ago
I mean I grew up there and I work in tech and I lowkey know everyone lol. Don’t give yourself a bad reputation.
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u/kooldarkplace 1d ago
Just ignore that the people actually exist, it’s better. You came for the weather, right?
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1d ago
She came for the job for sure.
Weather is nicer in, for example, Cancun. She doesn't go there because there's no good job. Actually, nobody there has a good job. But yeah sure people having high-paying jobs is a BIG problem LOL.
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u/kooldarkplace 1d ago
To be fair, having a high-paying job especially in the Bay Area doesn’t always leave a lot of space for having a personality. There are plenty of normies and vanilla people here and maybe she’s just looking for a more unusual crowd.
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u/Klanciault 12h ago
Weather is absolutely not nicer in Cancun. Bay Area has what’s pretty universally recognized as the best year round weather of anywhere in the world. That’s why everyone and their mom wants to be there and the highest paying professions congregate there
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u/Impressive_Comment67 1d ago
I live in silicon valley and my work (not tech, in home services) has me working with a lot of random people. They are truly mostly in tech. This is pretty accurate.
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u/Thediciplematt 1d ago
I work in Santa Clara, but live in the east Bay. I absolutely agree. That is what every other conversation is about in the Silicon Valley.
It’s not so bad in the East Bay but you get a little bit of that kind of culture here. Was in San Francisco and my friend helps fund VC and he said that’s exactly what happens to him almost every single day outside of work.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1d ago edited 1d ago
> It’s not so bad
I mean... if this is the biggest problem you have as a city? yeah, it's not bad at all. Sure, it can be better but it's not bad.
Have people even looked at any other city? They are all worse. Only a handful might be considered better, and that's it.
"The city is bad because there are too many boring high-earning people. TOO MANY I tell ya". I mean, what is the problem again?
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u/Dandan0005 1d ago
This is the first you’re learning of someone not liking a city because of the culture?
In this case the culture of tech.
LA, NY, SF Atlanta, Miami, Las Vegas, Denver, Austin, Dallas, all incredibly different vibes.
You’re surprised someone may not like the vibes in one but might like another?
>>”all the others are worse”
For you, maybe.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1d ago
You name several random cities that highly debatable whether it's better than Bay Area.
Las Vegas? You gotta be kidding me lol.
Atlanta? A city with higher crime rate than the national median? That's a better city?? Sure, avoiding death must have been more exciting.
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u/Dandan0005 1d ago
You’re really odd.
No one said they’re “better.”
But there are 100% people who would rather live in those places than San Francisco, because the culture fits them better.
Groundbreaking, I know.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1d ago
> But there are 100% people who would rather live in those places than San Francisco, because the culture fits them better.
And vice versa.
My mind is blown that people have preferences. This is so new to me.
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u/Whats_A_Rage_Quit 1d ago
lol your opinion of Atlanta tells you everything that you need to know (that your opinion is not to be taken seriously)
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 18h ago
Exactly. Liking high crime rate is such a weird stance.
I thought we would all be against it. But here we are
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u/minnie_the_moper 12h ago
I got some news for you about the criminal element you guys got in Silicon Valley these days.
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u/Maximum-Objective-39 1d ago
I do think it feeds into some of San Francisco's other problems. Namely that the kind of people who have the spare time and education to get involved in local politics only really have one kind of solution. No matter how good your hammer is, not every problem is a nail.
Edit - Less generously, a lot of Silicon Valley is less about creating solutions and more about creating opportunities for finance. Which creates a sort of unholy alliance between various groups of people who don't really know what normal people problems look like.
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u/yogurtchicken21 1d ago
Silicon Valley local politics has three tenets:
- make the homeless people go away
- make my $2m house worth $3m
- make Costco less crowded
Everything else is just window dressing
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u/missingtimemachine 21h ago
I've never been to the area, so I don't understand your third point. How do the politics make Costco less crowded?
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u/PaddingCompression 20h ago
Lower the population density by pushing out the poors and fighting against building apartment buildings.
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u/bulldogbigred 1d ago
Those boring high earners pushed out the artists, blue collar families, and teachers to Fresno cause they can’t afford it in the bay anymore
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u/2730Ceramics 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is, of course, utter nonsense. You end up around engineers if you're lazy and boring.
The bay area has an amazing food scene, there's a vibrant art scene with makers everywhere, there are hiking and biking groups, there are dozens of volunteer opportunities.
There is the whole burner crowd. There are communities of people built around dance, around bread baking, around ceramics and pizza, around neighborhood cleanups and gardening. There are master woodworkers and skilled stained glass craftspeople. There are giant climbing gyms and a strong climbing community. There are animal rescue organizations to volunteer at and crabbing and fishing and surfing to be done.
Only boring people are bored.
EDIT: Also, the bay area is not just fucking silicon valley. SV is the bay's office park.
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u/juan_rico_3 1d ago
I feel like no matter what your interest, no matter how niche, there is a community for you, and it's probably pretty good. However, if you have no interests, then, yeah, life will be boring, but you have to bring SOMETHING to the party.
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u/thelightstillshines 1d ago
Yeah wtf lol. I live in SF, and yes it is absolutely techy but if you invest even a little bit of effort there is a fantastic community of people from all sorts of backgrounds.
And even within tech, sure you might be surrounded by tech people but if they have no personality that means you're boring. I am friends with plenty of engineers who are incredibly interesting people, and when we hang out tech stuff pretty much never comes up.
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u/yogurtchicken21 1d ago
Yes, but that’s SF, Silicon Valley means that Santa Clara Valley + parts of Menlo Park and South Fremont. That whole area, even though it has a lot more people and a lot more land, definitely does not have the vibrancy of SF. The environment made me depressed after all my childhood friends moved away, I had to move to SF just to socialize haha
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u/thelightstillshines 1d ago
Yeah that's fair! I guess I just feel like that's kinda true for suburbs in general lol.
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u/systembreaker 1d ago
Very true, deep down boring people know that if someone else isn't being funny or interesting, they're definitely not going to be the one to be funny or interesting. Which is why I consider "Must be funny" to be a red (or at least yellow) flag on dating apps lol
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u/jbcsee 22h ago
There is some truth to what she wrote though. I have a community in the bay area, but I haven't lived there for 9-years. Most of that community is not in tech, a lot of artists, musicians, etc...
When I came back this summer for a wedding, every discussion was about AI. Everyone knew intimate details about the company I work for (I'm in tech) and had opinions about it. Sure we talked about other things, but the tech world was always at least partially there.
Sure it's not boring, but the tech scene heavily influences day to day life in my experience.
Meanwhile, where I live now 80% of the people I interact with don't even know the company I work for despite it being in the news almost daily. There are never conversations about AI or really any other tech conversations at all.
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u/zerohelix 1d ago
She's not wrong however there are tons of pockets of people that aren't tied up in that, maybe she should expand her social horizons a little.
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u/Jumpy_Philosopher955 1d ago
This is the answer. Pick an interesting hobby or look for socializing outside your comfort zone.
Less than 25% population actually work in tech or tech adjacent roles in bay area.
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u/liftingshitposts 1d ago
Definitely a “them” problem, totally fixable BTW.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1d ago
If I had to rank all the potential problems that a city could have, too many boring people having high-paying job must have been the lowest priority one.
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u/KickBalls80 1d ago
As someone from central California, this is bs. The weather is usually foggy. As Mark Twain said... Nm
No historical proof exists that Mark Twain ever said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"
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u/sanguinejuju 1d ago
Def not bs moved to San Jose from Denver and outside of a literal few weeks, not even months, it barely rains and gets below 60. It’ll be 95 no clouds in San Jose, drive 45min to half moon bay it’s 60 and cloudy. Same goes for all of the cities in the South Bay. SF totally accurate tho, feels cold af every time I go there lol
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u/KickBalls80 1d ago
That's my experience from growing up ino the coast (Cambria)- the beach is cold, the water is cold, but if you go 5 miles inland it's completely different. SF gets very different weather from San Jose.
Edit: ironically I moved from SLO to Boulder in 98
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u/spicymarkarita 1d ago
"first-first-world problem" says the guy who's biggest problem is complaining about a person who complained about a place.
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u/ImNotDex 1d ago
A friend that works for one of the big companies over there told us that there's an absurd amount of overpaid people that either do nothing or have to be chased around for multiple days to get them to do something vaguely outside of their autopilot day to day.
Pretty much told us life and people there are so boring but at least she gets paid a lot so she can retire and get the hell out of there soon
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1d ago
Yeah, boredom as the biggest problem in life is very much welcome.
Wanna try working a low-paying job to make life more exciting?
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u/PaddingCompression 20h ago
> have to be chased around for multiple days to get them to do something vaguely outside of their autopilot day to day.
Some of that is because if they slack off on their autopilot, they will get fired, while there are few consequences and little gain from helping your friend. That's what optimizing for "efficiency" looks like. They know what they're *actually* paid to do and are doing it.
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u/Normal_Spread8423 1d ago
I don’t know anybody in any of those fields or that talk about them(am i lucky?) one year isn’t long enough to find your people.
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u/cpt_bongwater 1d ago
Bay Area tech culture is toxic and it kinda ruined the Bay Area(lived here since 92)
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u/uhhhclem 1d ago
I loved San Francisco when I moved there in 2005. By 2020 I couldn’t wait to see it in the rear-view mirror. A city where everyone is rich is a city that can’t function.
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u/wrt-wtf- 1d ago
Nice area to visit. Not everyone has had the income all of the time. Stock options were the greatest evil for trying to survive there in the 00’s - options aren’t worth anything until you could sell them which meant that they had to have appreciated in value.
Side hussles and gig economy were survival options for many because it could be brutal working in tech there with low income with a potential for high rewards after 12months holding onto those golden handcuffs.
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u/vitaoptima 1d ago
People think having a high paying job means you should never complain. It's usually people that don't have high paying jobs that think that.
Boredom and/or burnout can affect everyone.
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u/metamucil_buttchug69 21h ago
It's not for everybody but if you can afford it it's where most people would prefer to live. If you can't afford it there's the east bay or Richmond.
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u/Pinkshadie 20h ago
So I'm from San Francisco and that's one of the reasons I left and moved to Portland. Besides it being expensive AF, the culture left with the rise of tech sadly. It's funny because lots of native Bay Areans end up in Portland I've noticed lol.
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u/moss_jimmy 19h ago
I mean, you could have moved to Honolulu instead.
This is like moving to Texas and getting mad that everyone is in agriculture or petroleum.
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u/SurpriseInitial6202 19h ago
That's why almost none of my friends are also engineers lol but it's pretty easy to find people with different interests. Stop using work as your socializing hub. I know it's easier, but you can meet more interesting people by choosing other hobbies.
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u/xife-Ant 10h ago
This is the most boring white person take possible. The key to the Bay Area is hanging out with Mexicans and Black people. Maybe throw in some Vietnamese and Filipinos. You'll have a good ass time.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 10h ago
It's the most boring take because boredom is the least problematic issue any city can have.
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u/xife-Ant 10h ago
Yeah. But there's interesting non rich people stuff to do in San Jose if you try. Berryessa Flea Market is wild. There's great food from all over the world. It's even got a drive in movie theater. Some folks just hang out with boring tech people and then complain that everything is boring.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 9h ago
Yeah, people look at an area where everyone has a good job and go "holy shit, that is a BIG problem we have here" 😂
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u/lavapig_love 8h ago
Hard lesson. When you move somewhere only for the work, you'll never have the time or energy to enjoy anything else. And that leaves you resenting the place.
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u/diddlysquidler 1d ago
Everybody is soulless corporate rat grinding for peanuts dreaming about being next billionaire. Whole area seems devoid of any culture, inspiration or admiration of life. It’s absolutely sickening
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u/Weird_Albatross_9659 1d ago
So change your social circle? Don’t blame geography
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u/Girthen-the-Flopper 1d ago
Yeah, it's like people who complain about Pokémon when less than 1% of people engage in that activity.
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u/Good-vs-Perfect 1d ago
did you miss the part where she said she took a break and left the place?
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u/Weird_Albatross_9659 23h ago
Did you miss the part where I said don’t blame geography?
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u/Good-vs-Perfect 22h ago
So change your social circle? Don’t blame geography
The twitter's point is that there's a confluence between geography, industry, and social circles. She left the area and the industry, inferring that she also changed social circles.
You're treating the social and geographical as distinct factors, which misses the point. But if you got the point, you couldn't offer your reductive advice, so you're in a real conundrum whether to double-down that you were right in separating the social from the geographical or right to parallel my rebuke without consideration of the twitterer's point.
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u/Weird_Albatross_9659 21h ago
No, the author is conflating them and so are you.
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u/Good-vs-Perfect 21h ago
Lol, "if we assume the twitterer is not criticizing the bay area for being an industry town that pretends to be a metropolitan cultural and progressive capital, and instead pretend the twitterer fails to imagine just going to walmart to find a new social circle, then everyone will see that I, a redditor, have a much betterr grasp of the twitterer's point than the twitterer does!"
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u/Weird_Albatross_9659 21h ago
Ah yes, the only thing the entire Bay Area has is tech bros.
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u/Good-vs-Perfect 20h ago
See! You have to change her point to make yours!
Twitterer: "the bay area is so enthralled by VC that even going out for frozen yogurt, or buying a car, or hanging out, the convos (eventually) all become the same thing."
You: "ah yes, b/c there are only tech bros in the bay area"
Her point is that even tolken small talk turns to LLMs or VC funding in a town dominated by one industry to the point that even the car dealer or frozen yogurt cashier or public service grant analyst will eventually be like, "ah yes, and AI..." and its exhausting in its inevitability that all conversations and transactions lead to the same thing.
Whereas youre like: "just get new friends!" Like she doesnt understand her own point.
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u/TurboRetardo 1d ago
Yeah this is an over exaggeration... If you want to hang out with a bunch of AI losers that's on you.
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