I mean... it's an argument that might make sense if they're talking about the mines in Africa they used to build computer components, but what exactly do you extract from the land when you're sitting around thinking?

Well, if they didn't "build" it; then it make sense that they must have "extracted" it? (sarcasm off)

Just a repeat of socialist policies: San Francisco, the East Berlin of America.

Extracted all they can from it? I assume Tiffani Ashley Bell means the talent, venture capital, and knowledge built up over the years in Silicon Valley.

Technology and venture capital extracted as much from the Bay Area as it attracted to the Bay Area and, in the meantime, made a great many Bay Area entities, both public and private, rich.

What she seems to forget is that, in the early 1970s, Silicon Valley consisted of Hewlett Packard, a few research labs, and a smattering of ham radio enthusiasts.

Aerospace companies and defense contractors working with DARPA located research facilities here to take advantage of the proximity to Stanford University and UC-Berkeley instead of simply recruiting here and taking that talent elsewhere. Similar research hubs were established near other major engineering and research universities (e.g., Route 128 in Massachusetts, North Carolina's Research Triangle, etc.).

Silicon Valley's Homebrew Computer Club, founded by employees of those nearby corporate labs, brought computer hobbyists together to trade parts and share knowledge. Many of them worked on ARPANET and would use the knowledge and experience from that project to create the Internet.

Venture capital came to the Valley in 1972 with Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. Venture capital began flocking to the Valley with the 1980 IPO of Apple Computer, an early Valley start-up.

From the '70s and into the '80s, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), founded in 1970, played a pivotal role in developing object-oriented programming, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), Ethernet, PostScript, and laser printers. Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, and others used that technology in their start-ups when Xerox failed to realize the potential of its own technology.

Despite the wave of start-ups, Silicon Valley remained mostly a corporate research mecca through the '80s. Commercial use of the Internet grew in the '90s. Started by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994, Yahoo! began the wave of Internet-based start-ups in Silicon Valley.

I moved to the Bay Area in 1995 and got a front-row seat to the dot-com boom that transformed the entire area. I lived too far from Silicon Valley to feel the full effect of rising housing prices and overcrowding, but my townhouse did triple in value in the years I lived in the Bay Area. I used to drive by the NUMMI plant (now the Tesla Factory) every day on my commute to a consulting job in Fremont and worked in finance in SOMA where "Dot-Com Gulch" helped to transform a run-down former dockyard and warehouse area of the city into a thriving residential and commercial hub.

In the meantime, the Bay Area was not always eager to accept its new role as a technology capital. Anger at rising housing prices fueled protests against tech start-ups. Neighborhoods were gentrified as new wealth displaced long-time residents, pricing them out of their houses. Oakland became an escape for the refugees from gentrification and escalating housing prices.

San Francisco added a payroll tax to take advantage of its new role as an incubator for Internet start-ups and technology companies. The City later added a wealth tax on CEO pay to take advantage of the wage disparity sometimes found in successful start-ups and single-owner firms. "We’re not gonna shed any tears if penthouse dwellers have to cough up," the San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters proudly declared.

San Francisco had offered tax exemptions to lure tech firms to The City, but found itself angered when those same firms were getting rich without paying the Danegeld. That many San Francisco residents found high-paying jobs in those same firms and paid taxes did not matter as CEO pay disparity became the bugaboo on which The City's witch hunt would focus.

In fact, thousands of people moved to the Bay Area to take advantage of the start-ups, the venture capital, and the overall economic boom the tech industry had helped create. Those folks bought houses, voted, paid taxes, and contributed to the area's economic well-being in myriad ways.

In sum, the Bay Area gained as much as it gave to the technology boom, in fact gained more than it gave. The politicians, eager to cash in and enact social justice, killed the Golden Goose with restrictive housing policies, burdensome employment rules, and rampant taxation.

Not a surprise. This is merely an extension of the longtime political staple, claiming that a reduction of any kind in spending sometime in the future is a critical “cut“ today.

I wouldn't say with open arms anymore. If you want to work that is great. But many places in the US aren't happy with provincial California attitudes and their refusal to assimilate into their new community. But considering just how hostile many parts of California are to business that alone may feel like open armed acceptance.

How long will other states remain even that welcoming, if all those techies bring their "woke" hiring and voting practices with them? Let them move into red states without changing their ways and our country is done. They are the problem.

How long will other states remain even that welcoming, if all those techies bring their "woke" hiring and voting practices with them? Let them move into red states without changing their ways and our country is done. They are the problem. ~ jdgalt at December 28, 2020 8:18 AM

California companies can bring their hiring practices with them wherever they go. California emigrés can also vote however they want to. It's in the institutionalization of those preferences where the problem lies.

California is not in trouble because companies there want to hire a racially or gender diverse workforce. It's in trouble because California voters and politicians put that preference into law, mandating a pseudo-quota system for employee counts and opening even legitimately non-conforming businesses to lawsuits.

@jdgalt,

Politicians love them so much for the tax money they bring in and they're more than happy to screw up the locals who elected them in the first place.

The big tech companies in california make money to pay their staff from sales all over the US and the world. They are not extracting anything, they are net bringing $ into cali.
As to high housing prices, cali and SF have so many restrictions on new housing. If you propose to put up apts or a business, any local can challenge you and delay the project for years for no reason at all. And they do.

As to high housing prices, [Cali] and SF have so many restrictions on new housing. If you propose to put up apts or a business, any local can challenge you and delay the project for years for no reason at all. And they do. ~ cc at December 28, 2020 9:21 AM

Not just California. A 2018 article on rising houses prices in Texas points out:

A 2016 study by the National Association of Home Builders estimated government regulations account for nearly a quarter (24.3 percent) of the final price of an average new single-family home. And between 2011 and 2016, these regulatory costs rose by nearly 30 percent, while the nation’s per capita disposable income increased by just 14.4 percent. In other words, regulatory costs are rising more than twice as fast as the average American’s ability to pay for a home.

Rising costs associated with building have made the development of moderately priced housing difficult and less profitable for homebuilders. As a result, single-family home construction is skewing away from “entry-level” housing and toward larger, more expensive — and more profitable — homes.

They seem like simpletons. Maybe this would help. It's from 2600 years ago. 30 second read and packed with wisdom.

The Goose & the Golden Egg

http://read.gov/aesop/091.html

Well, the techies might be moving away from California, but they're still voting for the same policies and types of politicians.

Austin has been "liberal" forever, but it was hippie-liberal, not elitist-liberal. When I moved there during my last year of college in 2003, there were still a couple of Republicans on the City Council. SW Austin and the part of North Austin that is in Williamson County were somewhat conservative. Now the entire City Council are leftist democrats, with a couple of Socialists thrown in for some extra spice.

My coworker got an MPA from the LBJ school a couple years ago, and showed me an email he'd received from one of his former classmates. The classmate and his partner had moved to Austin from New York and were "shocked" that their Congressional representative was a conservative! (This person happens to live in the same jerrymandered district as me, but I live 50 miles away in Blanco County.) The classmate was trying to put together a fundraiser for Abortion Barbie/failed gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis to defeat Chip Roy. Got that? "Shocked!" Anywho, at least Davis got her ass stomped.

I'm not sure how long Austin can remain prosperous. It will probably always have a decent economy because of the University and the state Capital, but the homeless problem, rioting, outrageous taxes, and political monoculture are steering it down the same path as San Fran or Portland or any number of over-priced liberal trash heaps. So, like locusts, they'll all move on to either the next liberal city in a business-friendly red state, or out here where I live to work from home and start a "sustainable" mini-farm. And they'll vote the same way and spout the same bullsh*t and remain completely oblivious to the fact that THEY'RE the problem.

> I'm not sure how long Austin
> can remain prosperous…
> …steering it down the same path
> as San Fran or Portland or any
> number of over-priced liberal
> trash heaps.

Thanks for saying so, it confirms the impression from Iowahawk and closer friends who've enjoyed recent years and decades, but describe the creeping insanity.

Just for starters, the Uber & Lyft thing was abject stupidity.

Meanwhile, Miami has a burgeoning boner.

Amy, have you read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand?
It is playing out in Democrat strongholds.