August 20, 201410 yr but failed to mention they are almost always opposite a similar group of girls, donned in too-short, too-tight dresses, with too-tan skin and too-blonde hair. I seriously want Trixie to be a national term not just Chicago. There is no good term in other cities for these people. As to the comment about the West coast not being as bro as the midwest? I'd argue LA is extremely bro, but like everything else there its a very different brand of bro. Lots of them are "Beautiful People" with ties to the entertainment industry but still have the same sort of attitude only difference being they are better dressed. Just listen to the LA dance music scene and don't tell me that its not like the ultimate endgame of bro culture. *Warning, this is long. Like how LA hipsters are less douchey than hipsters in other cities, LA bros are also less douchey than bros in other cities. As someone who is 25-50% LA bro, I can easily handle the scene there. And the whole dance music scene is better in LA...and Vegas. People party better in LA and Vegas, and the bro/trixie scene has a fashionable, sexy, positive vibe. I think people are generally nice is LA/Orange County. But that's the only place in America where people have outright asked which brand shirt I was wearing. Or commenting that I was wearing "last years Dockers." Really, who the hell cares?? Nobody has ever done that to me in NYC/Brooklyn/Ohio/Montreal/etc.
August 20, 201410 yr I think people are generally nice is LA/Orange County. But that's the only place in America where people have outright asked which brand shirt I was wearing. Or commenting that I was wearing "last years Dockers." Tell those a-holes that you're not your f&#king khakis. Then again, you're not a beautiful and unique snowflake either.
August 20, 201410 yr I think people are generally nice is LA/Orange County. But that's the only place in America where people have outright asked which brand shirt I was wearing. Or commenting that I was wearing "last years Dockers." You didn't notice that they added another belt loop that year? Savage.
August 20, 201410 yr I think people are generally nice is LA/Orange County. But that's the only place in America where people have outright asked which brand shirt I was wearing. Or commenting that I was wearing "last years Dockers." Tell those a-holes that you're not your fking khakis. Then again, you're not a beautiful and unique snowflake either. Right! I'm not at [insert coolest club on earth here] trying to impress anyone, I'm working in an office trying to look as homely as everyone else lol.
August 20, 201410 yr What category does this fall into? Confused ... That chain ... oh, that chain...
August 21, 201410 yr but failed to mention they are almost always opposite a similar group of girls, donned in too-short, too-tight dresses, with too-tan skin and too-blonde hair. I seriously want Trixie to be a national term not just Chicago. There is no good term in other cities for these people. As to the comment about the West coast not being as bro as the midwest? I'd argue LA is extremely bro, but like everything else there its a very different brand of bro. Lots of them are "Beautiful People" with ties to the entertainment industry but still have the same sort of attitude only difference being they are better dressed. Just listen to the LA dance music scene and don't tell me that its not like the ultimate endgame of bro culture. *Warning, this is long. Like how LA hipsters are less douchey than hipsters in other cities, LA bros are also less douchey than bros in other cities. As someone who is 25-50% LA bro, I can easily handle the scene there. And the whole dance music scene is better in LA...and Vegas. People party better in LA and Vegas, and the bro/trixie scene has a fashionable, sexy, positive vibe. I think people are generally nice is LA/Orange County. But that's the only place in America where people have outright asked which brand shirt I was wearing. Or commenting that I was wearing "last years Dockers." Really, who the hell cares?? Nobody has ever done that to me in NYC/Brooklyn/Ohio/Montreal/etc. That's not just an LA thing. Khakis and cargo shorts are lambasted endlessly in San Francisco too ("tourist clothes" or "engineer pants"). In LA's defense, I've never been insulted for being clean-shaven or lacking in tattoos. That has happened to me a lot in hipster parts of San Francisco. "What don't you have any tattoos?" or "Shouldn't you grow your beard out?" is fairly common here. I've also been insulted for wearing a nice oxford in said hipster areas. What was the insult? "Nice shirt, fag." This dude was really threatened by me. His girlfriend was clearly checking me out, and he didn't know how to handle it. SF is every bit as judgmental as LA, but just with different fashions. And San Francisco is the only city where people have immediately asked how much money I make through backhanded means. "What neighborhood do you live in again?" or "How come you don't work in tech?" San Francisco is like Wall Street with Asperger's. Some LA people will ask what you do, but they tend to be less judgmental on neighborhood and whether you have equity in a start-up. I could live in Echo Park or Venice or Mid-City or Downtown, and no one will care except for logistics reasons. In San Francisco, if I go to the Mission and say I live in the Marina, conversation over. If live in the Mission and go to the Marina, conversation over. It used to be this way for people from Oakland and Berkeley too (though now Oakland is hot). Back in the day, if someone from Oakland went out in San Francisco, there were a whole slew of insults they could expect throughout the night....thankfully San Franciscans have gotten over the Oakland thing, but it's really only because so many have moved there and it's now a wealthy city (it has a higher median income than Los Angeles). Coastal California in general can be a shallow, judgmental place, and it is something that can be tough for some transplants. New Yorkers seem to handle it fine, but people from normal places like Texas or Ohio may find it too much...then again, Ohio and Texas are plenty judgmental too, just more in the high school and college years. I remember getting torn apart once in Ohio once for wearing shoes and a belt that didn't match. But overall, Midwestern folks tend not to be worried about fashion as much, so it's a big transition when going to a fashionable city like LA. Middle Americans tend to grow out of that stuff... They get married, have kids, and do stuff like that. A lot of judging you'd find in San Francisco or Los Angeles is due to people never growing up. There are a good number of overgrown children in both cities. There is no denying that. For me, the Bay Area is worse. There is a mainstream/hipster hatred of anybody who looks like "they'd do well in LA." San Francisco has a whole host of insecurity issues with Los Angeles (people look too good) and New York (it has amazing mass transit). That can make it even more judgmental, not to mention it's way more expensive than LA and NY, so the money thing becomes a bigger issue. It's true you can't live a comfortable life in San Francisco unless you're 1% or have at least 5 years of rent control. And due to the insane housing shortage and competition just for a place to live with 4+ roommates, people will shack up with somebody who they're not attracted to. They'll shamelessly take advantage of their money and apartment. I know far too many girls doing that in the Mission District and Downtown Oakland...ugly, ugly stuff. People will do anything for a place to live... Honestly, I think Wall Street might be more moral and less shallow than today's San Francisco. People look more polished and sound more abrasive on Wall Street, but at their core, they tend to be nicer, more outgoing people. Wall Street bros are certainly a unique style of "douche", but the worst stuff has shifted and mutated to San Francisco. That's where the money is at. Is San Francisco New York? http://nymag.com/news/features/san-francisco-techies-2014-3/ Basically, all of this stuff is why Los Angeles, which can admittedly be a shallow place, still has better bro culture than San Francisco or New York. The stereotypes are only half true. It's just too diverse of a city...no single urban tribe dominates the scene enough to treat everyone else like crap. And in LA, a lot of the Hollywood culture is concerned with the quality of their work and staying employed (the whole "your'e only as good as your last project"). Only a handful of people ever get rich and the money isn't there like it used to be. It's actually pretty rare to hear someone say "I came to LA to get rich." Normally, it's just "I came to LA to work in movies/music/art/fashion/etc.". I regularly hear kids in San Francisco say, "I came to San Francisco to get rich." Or if they're reaching, "I came to San Francisco to change the world....cough, cough, by tracking user data on mobile dating apps." That's a very different attitude. It is more clearly about the money in San Francisco. That's also the case on Wall Street. There is way more wealth in SF/NY which creates a dominate in-group. In New York, that's finance bros (I don't think hipsters have any real power in New York City- Wall Street dominates them). In San Francisco, that's tech hipsters and tech bros. It is amazing to see the hipster and bro culture clashes at some of the tech companies...most are White/Asian/Indian kids with similar upper class backgrounds at good schools, but they'll tear each other apart on fashion and taste. Also, I'd say the San Francisco divide is finally starting to lean more bro. It seems like hipsters are on their last legs and are looking more and more dated. From a marketing perspective, it's just not working anymore as people have realized Gen Y is mostly a lost generation (nationally-speaking, but of course not in San Francisco where Gen Y is making boatloads of money). The focus needs to be on the next generation. As was said earlier, bro culture is timeless (same in 1984, 1994, 2004, etc.). It's overdue for a big comeback as a backlash against hipsters. Oakland's moneyed hipster scene will last longer, but it too seems to be peaking and about to pop. Bros will be here in 2024. Will hipsters?
August 21, 201410 yr What happens when bros grow up...and Aubrey Plaza before she was famous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvTdYUwWyE
April 4, 20169 yr I think perhaps the most amazing cultural upheaval that has taken place in America in decades is the death of the Mission hipster. The bro/Marina girl takeover of tech in San Francisco happened with swift and brute force. From Cinco de Mayo 2013 to today, San Francisco saw its hipster scene become irrelevant and move to Oakland. And now with Uber moving to Oakland, there are plenty of warning signs that Oakland's gold-plated hipster scene is on its last legs. The biggest new cultural trend among Gen Z/late Gen Y in the Bay is the renewed dominance of bros and Marina girls. San Francisco always had a strong Marina girl scene in Lower Pacific Heights, Marina, Cow Hollow, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and North Beach, but it has spread across the whole city. The bros have followed suit. The Mission has done a 180 shift in just a few years. Signs are pointing to Uptown/Downtown Oakland's hipster scene following a similar trajectory. Neighborhoods on BART are losing their hipsters. It will be fascinating to see what happens in Oakland once it goes bro. A lot of Oakland's identity is tied to being the anti-San Francisco, so the San Francisco takeover will be amazing to watch play out. It also means that Oakland's local economy is about to boom. Oakland's housing prices were high because of SF employees, but now it looks like a lot of tech companies are going to relocate to Downtown Oakland. This could result in all sorts of spinoff business if Occupy Oakland doesn't destroy it first. There has been a lot of global media attention on SF's bro scene and how it's integral to the tech economy: Bros for Brahmins: Boston Globe susses out San Francisco, c. 2016 Published: Jan 31, 2016 9:11 a.m. ET Like a 21st-century Alexis de Tocqueville, the Boston Globe’s Christopher Muther traversed the continent to see what it is that makes contemporary America tick. Unlike de Tocqueville (presumably), Muther got hammered and played some beer pong. Whereas the 19th-century French political thinker and historian aimed to observe the then-new republic’s experience of participatory governance, the Boston Globe had dispatched its man to check out “Bro culture” in a place where the American future is, arguably, being shaped today: San Francisco. Bros — it’s the Globe that confers the capital “B”; we’ll dispense with it — are, effectively, postcollegiate fraternity brothers. They’ve left their campuses and landed their jobs (at places like Uber, perhaps unsurprisingly, but also LinkedIn and Salesforce and Twitter and so on). They’re now in their mid-20s and beyond. But pretty much nothing else has changed. Sports bars remain their guild halls. And they’re being enabled by the City by the Bay, as Muther is told by a San Francisco artist: The bros, the artist is quoted as having said, “roll straight out of college into perk-heavy tech jobs that are incredibly parallel to the college setting from which they came — dining halls for all three meals, rec rooms, and cookie-cutter apartments filled with people very much like themselves.” FULL ARTICLE http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bros-for-brahmins-boston-globe-susses-out-san-francisco-c-2016-2016-01-30
April 4, 20169 yr More on the Brolympics mentioned in above article. I hate how people trash parks in the Bay. When you're in your late 20s and 30s, you need to learn how to clean up after yourself. While many people my age in the Bay have the maturity level of high school kids, that's no excuse for leaving your empty beer cans everywhere. Trashing public property is immature. One of the main things that separates adults from kids is that adults know how to have fun responsibly. The bros even got called out by the National Park Service on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoldenGateNPS/status/576943472759844864/photo/1 Unpermitted 'Brolympics' contributes to Fort Mason weekend trashing By Katie Dowd Updated 11:17 am, Tuesday, March 17, 2015 The tagline for this weekend's 'brolympics', hosted in Fort Mason, was "Faster. Harder. Stronger. Bro-er." They forgot to include "trashier." The Golden Gate National Recreation Area was none-too-pleased this weekend when a non-permitted event associated with the Mr. Marina Competition left behind its trash. Among the detritus was food, coolers, tables, hibachi grills and, of course, vomit. Unfortunately, people tend to leave trash behind because people DO clean up after them. Some nice folks from the neighborhood helped park staffers clean up the mess, which GGNRA's Alexandra Pickavet said was larger than they've seen on the Fourth of July weekend. The park service currently has an open investigation into the event. The brolympics (writing that word unironically is difficult) appeared to mostly consist of drinking games. The event invited bros to "show off your lawn game skills and drink some brews at Fort Mason." FULL ARTICLE http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Brolympics-trashed-Fort-Mason-over-the-weekend-6138955.php
April 4, 20169 yr How does a journalist get paid to fly to San Francisco and party with tech bros? America's obsession with SF has gotten ridiculous. I'm sure there are still plenty of bros in Boston to write about... Bros have turned the City by the Bay into their playground By Christopher Muther GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 30, 2016 SAN FRANCISCO — They are being blamed for creating a housing crisis, shoving generations of families out of their long-time neighborhoods, and causing income disparities in this once-upon-a-time daisy-scented city that long thrived as a haven for free spirits, artists, an impressive gay community, and a lot of wonderfully self-professed weirdos. But on this particular night I blamed them for getting me so drunk I could barely open the Uber app on my phone. I’m referring to the Bros. This invasive species in San Francisco — generally male and in his 20s or early 30s — has been spreading faster than Asian carp in the Mississippi River. The Bros I encountered here have a lot in common with the Asian carp. They drink like fish. As companies such as Google, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Yahoo, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and dozens more move into the Bay Area, so do the Brogrammers. Young and flush with techie cash, the Bros have turned parts of San Francisco into their party playground. It’s a Brovasion. FULL ARTICLE (pretty accurate except the term "Marina Girl" is certainly not going out of favor since it's one of the core subcultures of San Francisco) https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2016/01/30/the-brovasion-san-francisco/AiBmTxyrZyzmLkksFqCdWJ/story.html
April 4, 20169 yr How does a journalist get paid to fly to San Francisco and party with tech bros? America's obsession with SF has gotten ridiculous. I'm sure there are still plenty of bros in Boston to write about... Bros have turned the City by the Bay into their playground By Christopher Muther GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 30, 2016 SAN FRANCISCO — They are being blamed for creating a housing crisis, shoving generations of families out of their long-time neighborhoods, and causing income disparities in this once-upon-a-time daisy-scented city that long thrived as a haven for free spirits, artists, an impressive gay community, and a lot of wonderfully self-professed weirdos. But on this particular night I blamed them for getting me so drunk I could barely open the Uber app on my phone. I’m referring to the Bros. This invasive species in San Francisco — generally male and in his 20s or early 30s — has been spreading faster than Asian carp in the Mississippi River. The Bros I encountered here have a lot in common with the Asian carp. They drink like fish. As companies such as Google, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Yahoo, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and dozens more move into the Bay Area, so do the Brogrammers. Young and flush with techie cash, the Bros have turned parts of San Francisco into their party playground. It’s a Brovasion. FULL ARTICLE (pretty accurate except the term "Marina Girl" is certainly not going out of favor since it's one of the core subcultures of San Francisco) https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2016/01/30/the-brovasion-san-francisco/AiBmTxyrZyzmLkksFqCdWJ/story.html Super Bowl week. The Boston papers expected the Patriots to be there. Most of these guys aren't programmers. They are marketing or business grads. Following a wave, not creating it.
April 4, 20169 yr San Francisco is like Wall Street with Asperger's. I know this is old, but damn this is ironic. It's the first wave techies who are more likely to have Aspergers. The guys coming in now are the social types, adding value to the company rather than the product.
April 4, 20169 yr "bro culture puts a nice dunce cap on the patriarchy" -- and more of the recent old grey lady's take on it: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/magazine/bro-liferation.html?_r=0 and from a few years ago (and oh so fitting for this thread topic) -- let us not forget how the bro's ruined santacon: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/12/how-bro-culture-hijacked-santacon.html
April 4, 20169 yr Best quote from Boston Globe homeboy. I guess they don't have Fernet there: The rest of the night was a blur with round after round of shots. They drank something called Fernet, a spirit which tastes like an industrial strength mouthwash that you would administer to a horse with a particularly robust case of halitosis. Yeah, Fernet is disgusting, but it is SF's signature liqueur. The last time I went to Mauna Loa (core Marina Girl bar on Fillmore), a group of cute girls were ripping shots of Fernet while singing along to "Will You Be There" by Michael Jackson. That Michael Jackson song has gotten pretty popular in the bro scene. I got stood up by a Tinder date that night (to be fair I had to cancel on her once due to work, so probably a revenge move), but it didn't matter since these girls picked me up. They were all alpha females in their early to mid-20s with executive positions in sales and marketing at tech companies. They pretty much were walking stereotypes of modern-day San Francisco, but they were much more outgoing and friendly than Oakland hipsters. They probably made three times as much money as me, but it didn't matter. They also didn't have trust funds or any financial support arrangements like is common in Oakland's one-percenter hipster scene. They seemed to have come from normal upper middle class SoCal and East Coast backgrounds. It seemed like they worked hard for their jobs. Overall, they were not bad people. It's girls like this who have made San Francisco's tech economy so successful. Bros are getting too much credit. Marina Girls are the integral difference maker between this tech economy and the one in the late 90s. We're in a bubble, but it's not going to have a big effect on San Francisco when in blows. It also will inflate again right after it blows. There won't be this start-up drought for a decade again. The engineering is a small part of the growth and success of all these social media and sharing economy start-ups. Biz dev, sales, and marketing are why San Francisco's economy has grown so fast while adding 500,000 private sector jobs in five years. There is no other city in America creating this many high-paying jobs in the private sector (and not directly tied to healthcare). You of course need a good product, but without the marketing and biz dev, it won't go anywhere. :| San Francisco has perfected marketing and business development. Marina Girls have a much bigger influence on this than they're getting credit for these days. The female users on unicorn monsters like Pinterest are what count, not males. Ditto with Instagram. Ditto with Snapchat. As a whole, we men suck at social media compared to women. We're less active, less engaged, less influential, and less attractive to advertisers. Social media is a female-dominated medium. Recent shifts in tech make me believe the days of "brogrammers" are numbered. Old media seemed to have had a more even gender split than today's social media giants. These articles about tech bros are largely ignoring the growing impact of women on tech. Local media like the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Oakland Tribune (RIP) seem to get it, but the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe do not. While we're bound to see some social media companies collapse (already happening at Twitter where many people are awaiting their pink slips), a good number of these social media companies are going to be around for a long time.
April 4, 20169 yr "bro culture puts a nice dunce cap on the patriarchy" -- and more of the recent old grey lady's take on it: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/magazine/bro-liferation.html?_r=0 and from a few years ago (and oh so fitting for this thread topic) -- let us not forget how the bro's ruined santacon: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/12/how-bro-culture-hijacked-santacon.html I think what's fascinating is the growth of female bros, not male bros. The alphas in modern-day San Francisco are Marina Girls. What has happened is that scene has spread from subculture to dominant culture. They took over the hipster bars and social events in the Mission, pushing that stuff to Oakland. Now Oakland is showing signs it's about to lose its iconic hipster scene (the last surviving, mainstream hipster scene in the Bay). 2017 should mark the death of Oakland hipsters. Uber's influence is going to be huge due to their hiring practices... Out of all the unicorn start-ups, Uber has arguably the strongest business model. It's a big win for Oakland that the entrenched Uptown hipsters hate with a passion. Uber has a bro culture, not a hipster culture. Uber could take hits as it continues to fight laws and regulations in cities around the world, but they filled a hole in the market. All great businesses start by filling a hole in the market where there was unmet demand. The demand for Uber is there and should remain for quite some time. Ditto with Airbnb, but that's on shakier legal ground, and could get decimated by laws and regulations. Landlords and HOA's are already putting "no Airbnb" clauses in San Francisco-Oakland leases and mortgage contracts. I expect many other cities to follow suit. Airbnb does reduce housing supply, so I expect it won't have the same success winning over lawmakers that Uber has had so far. Airbnb could be overvalued, and it arguably has a much stronger bro/Marina Girl culture than Uber does. *That stuff on SantaCon is very interesting. For my entire adult life, I've only known that as a big frat party. I had no idea its history is anti-corporate since it's arguably the most corporate event in San Francisco after Pride. I try to avoid SantaCon because I don't like public puking and it can get really messy in SF. It's worse than St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. I avoid SF Pride for similar reasons, though Pride is better for meeting straight corporate executive women. Day drinking events don't appeal to me since I think they bring out the worst in people. For some reason, I've always enjoyed nightlife a lot more. If I agree to attend a day drinking event, I show up as late as possible, which is what I call "dusk drinking." Bay to Breakers is the only one of the giant SF day drinking brofests that I still attend. It attracts a more diverse crowd, and it's not as trashy (still super trashy, but toned down compared to Pride, Folsom Street Fair, and SantaCon). Bay to Breakers has a larger police presence, so I think that's the difference maker. I'm amazed when cities do big day drinking parties and don't bring in any extra cops...a bunch of drunk bros is a recipe for trouble...
April 4, 20169 yr It's impossible to put into words how detestable these people are. I guess we can all thank gentrification for this. I used to complain about all the drug dealers. Please, come back, all is forgiven! lol http://gothamist.com/2015/01/27/bros_before_snows.php http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
April 5, 20169 yr I clicked on this thread out of curiosity of what is "bros." Now I see what it is and am dismayed that something so irrelevant is an actual discussion topic. And I'm even more dismayed that so many words have been written about it. No need to reply. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 5, 20169 yr I think these days, the bros have a lot more pride since they're now a minority after being eclipsed by the much larger combined nerd and hipster populations nationally.
April 5, 20169 yr It's impossible to put into words how detestable these people are. I guess we can all thank gentrification for this. I used to complain about all the drug dealers. Please, come back, all is forgiven! lol http://gothamist.com/2015/01/27/bros_before_snows.php That's actually kind of amusing, the kind of thing one does in college that gets laughed about later on.
April 5, 20169 yr I think what's fascinating is the growth of female bros, not male bros. The alphas in modern-day San Francisco are Marina Girls. What has happened is that scene has spread from subculture to dominant culture. They took over the hipster bars and social events in the Mission, pushing that stuff to Oakland. Now Oakland is showing signs it's about to lose its iconic hipster scene (the last surviving, mainstream hipster scene in the Bay). 2017 should mark the death of Oakland hipsters. Uber's influence is going to be huge due to their hiring practices... Whether you want to call them Marina Girls, Trixies, Valley Girls, Sloane Rangers, or whatever, those younger single women who are perceived as attractive and their (female) allies have dominated social scenes, along with popular fashion and associated pop culture for many years. They prefer bros, "jocks", "chads", or what have you because of similar shared values and a perception that those guys are likely to grow up, eventually. They prefer them to nerds because when they are embarrassing it's "laugh with" not "laugh at" and because they have some social skills. Also, in those subcultures the "quality" of one's girlfriend is directly tied to one's status. They aren't about hipsters or other pretentious subcultures because they aren't always going to be the center of attention. Musicians is the one exception to this and that's fading. Also, they are always building networks....female and sometimes male. Guys are expected to accomplish things (including catch women) on their own. That ties into both social media and the business world. In the off hours social world, this has been the case for at least forty years. When you have a business world that's as blended with the social scene (and vice versa) as you have out there combined with the general assumptions of feminism (though most of these women are at most mildly feminist), their influence is only going to increase.
April 5, 20169 yr I clicked on this thread out of curiosity of what is "bros." Now I see what it is and am dismayed that something so irrelevant is an actual discussion topic. And I'm even more dismayed that so many words have been written about it. No need to reply. It's kind of like the 'glass block is terrible' thread, except the glass block in this case keeps getting uglier and installed in more inappropriate spots.
April 5, 20169 yr I think these days, the bros have a lot more pride since they're now a minority after being eclipsed by the much larger combined nerd and hipster populations nationally. I feel like I'm becoming one of the very few guys left in their late 20s who doesn't have a beard and glasses but also isn't a Bro.
April 5, 20169 yr What's interesting is that the "bro" culture is starting to bleed over into more than a handful of Indians and Asians in each college and city. The sons and daughters of immigrants seem less likely to find their way into the bro world than do the third generation, where there is often no trace of the old country to be found in their personalities. Last year I witnessed some particularly obnoxious bar-dominating behavior by an Indian bro on Derby Day. I mean, just think about that for a second.
April 5, 20169 yr And just contemplate for a second the way in which the Kentucky Derby has turned into a national holiday for bros.
April 5, 20169 yr I think these days, the bros have a lot more pride since they're now a minority after being eclipsed by the much larger combined nerd and hipster populations nationally. I feel like I'm becoming one of the very few guys left in their late 20s who doesn't have a beard and glasses but also isn't a Bro. Believe it or not, that is what San Francisco used to be like. Before this tech boom, there were lots of guys who weren't bros and weren't hipsters. Ditto on the female side. Sigh, those were better days, and San Francisco did lose a lot of its soul hence why all these journalists fly in from all over the place and notice the changes. Still, it's ten times the city that Oakland is, and not all the change is bad. The rise of San Francisco Marina Girls has fueled the greatest economic boom in history. Creating 500,000 high-paying private sector jobs in five years is why SF turned bro. It attracts ambitious people from all over the world. This economy would have never happened without the bros and Marina Girls. Hipsters weren't building world-changing companies. Bros and Marina Girls were doing all the work. Tech Boom 2.0 could not have happened without them. Oakland attracted the old SF Mission hipster scene, but it just flat out doesn't work since Oakland is structurally the Newark of the West Coast, not Brooklyn. All the money in the world won't fix Oakland's self-destructive culture. Nothing in Oakland remotely approaches the hipster scene that the Mission had before it died. Oakland is just too NIMBY and violent. We actually miss the SF Mission hipster scene since Oakland's Uptown and Temescal scenes are lame substitutes. And Oakland hipsters are arguably too obsessed with Burning Man to create any sense of inclusive community. That's why teenagers throw rocks at the Burning Man floats in West Oakland. Those Oakland native kids know they're not welcome in their own city...
April 5, 20169 yr What's interesting is that the "bro" culture is starting to bleed over into more than a handful of Indians and Asians in each college and city. The sons and daughters of immigrants seem less likely to find their way into the bro world than do the third generation, where there is often no trace of the old country to be found in their personalities. Last year I witnessed some particularly obnoxious bar-dominating behavior by an Indian bro on Derby Day. I mean, just think about that for a second. That girl from Miami who blew up on her Uber drivers was pretty bro. SF tech is almost entirely White/Indian/Asian, which is pretty remarkable when considering the population of the Bay Area. The city itself is not diverse, but it's surrounded by diverse places with large Black and Latino communities. As a whole, Blacks and Latinos are underrepresented in tech while Indians, Whites, and Asians are overrepresented. There is some evidence that many tech companies in San Francisco and Oakland are racist against Latinos and Blacks. I've seen the data, and it's bad. But it could also be a supply/pipeline problem. Maybe most sales, marketing, and engineering majors are White, Indian, and Asian? *Tech gets blamed a lot for being racist. I haven't studied it enough to form an opinion. My ex said it was sexist and racist, but she worked at a pretty small start-up with some shady people. My guess is problems are more common at the small start-ups. They're off the radar more. Once a company gets to a few hundred employees, it's too big to take PR risks. Apple, Adobe, Airbnb, Pinterest, Zenefits, Facebook, etc. also have lots of female executives. Though their data does show a shortage of Blacks and Latinos, especially of males. A lot of tech companies have hired "Diversity" teams to change tech's image. Google: Still mostly white men work for us by Parija Kavilanz @CNNTech June 2, 2015: 9:27 AM ET "We're still not where we want to be when it comes to diversity," the company said in its 2015 diversity report. "It is hard to address these kinds of challenges if you're not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts." Here's what Google's employees look like: 70% of Google's total workforce are men, and 60% of those are white. Also, 82% of its tech workers are white and 59% of those are men. These latest numbers from Google show that the needle hardly budged in these breakdowns compared to last year's report. Still, the company said it remains committed to recruiting "talented and diverse people." In May, Google announced an ambitious $150 million plan to attract more women and minorities, and said that the money would go to outside organizations and communities, while the other half would be be used internally to make Google more inclusive. Other steps it set in motion have included sending Google engineers to historically black universities and looking for fresh talent at a wider variety of colleges. The company said it also offers a variety of scholarships for students of color, women, students with disabilities, and veterans in its bid to invest in promising talent even before they graduate. http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/02/technology/google-diversity-report/
April 5, 20169 yr I think there is a type of person that exists that isn't a bro or a hipster. I remember staying at my brother's in Minneapolis where he was surrounded by hipsters in Lowry Hill. These were the hipsters of the arts type deal where they didn't have a lot of money and were in between Uptown and Downtown. I remember thinking that man, my brother and his roommate look so out of place. But I always thought they were pretty hipster, but they weren't at all compared to the people around them. They were more like beer drinking, cigarette smoking guys from Iowa who worked construction and wore flannels and blue jeans and liked to grill, while partaking in some hipster activities like hitting the bong and listening to hipsterish music, but they weren't on the same level as the people all around. Whereas a person like me is more of a jock Midwest type, but definitely doesn't fit into the hipster scene or the raw bro scene. There definitely is a middle ground. I work call it, average Joe, or Joe the plumber :wave:
April 5, 20169 yr There is some evidence that many companies in San Francisco and Oakland are racist against Latinos and Blacks. I've seen the data, and it's bad. But it could also be a supply problem. Or a matter of communication. Literally. It's not at all uncommon for minorities who are already wary of discrimination to mistake poor social skills for "racism" when it's nothing of the sort. Encountering this makes the person lacking the skills more wary of them, and it spirals. Throw in the fact that particularly smart black kids are steered towards law, politics, and other non STEM areas and it compounds. As you say, there's a supply problem.
April 5, 20169 yr ^Judging by STEM classes at Stanford and Berkeley, it's a pipeline problem. This is also the same issue with STEM roles in tech when it comes to women. I don't think tech is racist or sexist (though some individual companies might have issues). When you look at the sales and marketing teams, women are overrepresented at some companies and on par at most others. I think shortages are mostly due to pipeline. There are a lot more female sales and marketing majors than female software engineering majors. And tech has a strong PR reason to hire minority whenever possible since it has such a "bro" image of being White/Indian/Asian. A lot of San Francisco and Silicon Valley companies are trying desperately to change that image... *But there is a lot of silent racism in the Bay. It's quite evident at social events. I think when Whites/Asians/Indians try to avoid black folks at bars and nightclubs, that is racism in many cases. And what about Burning Man? It doesn't get any whiter than that in the Bay. When "cultural fit" is advertised as being a top attribute in job candidates, that can come off bad if you're not from the standard tech background. :| There is real pressure to conform to the mainstream bro/Marina Girl standard in SF or the mainstream hipster standard in Oakland. These are White cultural standards. When hiring is based heavily on cultural fit, that can shut out people who aren't from the dominant culture. And this isn't behind closed doors. "Cultural fit" is listed on almost every single start-up job ad. They really mean "likes to party, Ok with social life tied to work, likes beer, vape pens, etc." They don't mean it as a racial thing, but I can see where it is misconstrued. This is what they mean by "cultural fit": Zenefits has since become the latest symbol of Silicon Valley excess and the tech industry’s notorious “brogrammer” culture. But some former Zenefits employees feel as though the company has been portrayed unfairly. I spoke with numerous former workers who expressed surprise at its inaccurate depiction in the media. Yes, they said, employees drank in the office at Zenefits. But drinking and partying are often part of start-up culture, several former employees said, suggesting that mixing work and after-hours revelry could be expected in offices largely staffed and operated by millennials. They underscored that what went down at Zenefits—a three-year-old start-up that’s raised more than $580 million in funding from established venture-capital firms like Fidelity Investments, TPG, IVP, and Andreessen Horowitz—wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. ...Others say that hiring young employees fresh out of college contributed to a rowdy office culture. “It honestly felt like I was at a frat party, but we were all getting paid to work and be there. I don’t want to say people didn’t care, but it seemed people were really laissez-faire in terms of their punctuality and the way they acted around the office,” an ex-employee said. “Their demeanor during these work meetings wasn’t always the most professional. But most of us were recent graduates and still pretty young. It was kind of like getting to hang out with friends.” http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/former-zenefits-employees-reveal-whether-sex-really-occurred-in-the-stairwells
April 5, 20169 yr San Francisco's tech bros told: quit changing the gayborhood Residents of San Francisco’s historically gay Castro district are worried that the gay scene is changing, and traditional LGBT institutions are rapidly disappearing Nellie Bowles and Sam Levin in San Francisco Tuesday 2 February 2016 14.10 EST When Cleve Jones, a longtime gay activist who led the creation of the Aids Memorial Quilt, went to his local gay bar in the Castro district, he saw something that shocked him. “The tech bros had taken over The Mix. They commanded the pool table and the patio. These big, loud, butch guys. It was scary,” he said. “I’m not heterophobic, but I don’t want to go to a gay bar and buy some guy a drink and have him smirk and tell me he’s straight. They can go anywhere. We can’t.” Residents of San Francisco’s historically gay Castro district are worried that it’s changing, as speculators come in to flip the few remaining ramshackle old Victorians and the old-timer gay bars shutter. In a recent small survey, 77% of people who have lived in the neighborhood for 10 or more years identified as gay, while only 55% of those who moved in the past year did. When an iconic building was on the market earlier this year, it was between two potential tenants: a gay strip club and a SoulCycle. The SoulCycle won. This winter, The Gangway, the oldest gay bar in town, is closing down. “When you lose the geographic concentration, you lose a lot,” Jones said. “We lose the cultural vitality, the political power – you also lose the specialized social services.” ...Amy Sueyoshi, 45, associate dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, says she now feels less safe as a genderqueer person walking around San Francisco and faces more street harassment. “Now, me and my friends step off Muni and we get called ‘dyke’ and ‘queer’ … It feels less loving … I do think that taking a walk on Valencia Street is not so great for me any more.” “The Dyke March has become this huge frat party … All these straight dudes and their girlfriends are descending on the park and setting up hammocks,” Sueyoshi said. “It’s a little bit sad.” FULL ARTICLE (great read detailing the RainBro shift of the Castro) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/02/san-francisco-gay-bars-shut-down-lgbt-tenderloin-castro-district
April 6, 20169 yr What is the name for those kids these days who put labels on everyone else? Traditionalists? We were recently talking on the Maple Heights boards about the various clique names over the years there....
April 6, 20169 yr ^Judging by STEM classes at Stanford and Berkeley, it's a pipeline problem. This is also the same issue with STEM roles in tech when it comes to women. I don't think tech is racist or sexist (though some individual companies might have issues). When you look at the sales and marketing teams, women are overrepresented at some companies and on par at most others. I think shortages are mostly due to pipeline. There are a lot more female sales and marketing majors than female software engineering majors. And tech has a strong PR reason to hire minority whenever possible since it has such a "bro" image of being White/Indian/Asian. A lot of San Francisco and Silicon Valley companies are trying desperately to change that image... *But there is a lot of silent racism in the Bay. It's quite evident at social events. I think when Whites/Asians/Indians try to avoid black folks at bars and nightclubs, that is racism in many cases. And what about Burning Man? It doesn't get any whiter than that in the Bay. When "cultural fit" is advertised as being a top attribute in job candidates, that can come off bad if you're not from the standard tech background. :| There is real pressure to conform to the mainstream bro/Marina Girl standard in SF or the mainstream hipster standard in Oakland. These are White cultural standards. When hiring is based heavily on cultural fit, that can shut out people who aren't from the dominant culture. And this isn't behind closed doors. "Cultural fit" is listed on almost every single start-up job ad. They really mean "likes to party, Ok with social life tied to work, likes beer, vape pens, etc." They don't mean it as a racial thing, but I can see where it is misconstrued. This is what they mean by "cultural fit": Zenefits has since become the latest symbol of Silicon Valley excess and the tech industry’s notorious “brogrammer” culture. But some former Zenefits employees feel as though the company has been portrayed unfairly. I spoke with numerous former workers who expressed surprise at its inaccurate depiction in the media. Yes, they said, employees drank in the office at Zenefits. But drinking and partying are often part of start-up culture, several former employees said, suggesting that mixing work and after-hours revelry could be expected in offices largely staffed and operated by millennials. They underscored that what went down at Zenefits—a three-year-old start-up that’s raised more than $580 million in funding from established venture-capital firms like Fidelity Investments, TPG, IVP, and Andreessen Horowitz—wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. ...Others say that hiring young employees fresh out of college contributed to a rowdy office culture. “It honestly felt like I was at a frat party, but we were all getting paid to work and be there. I don’t want to say people didn’t care, but it seemed people were really laissez-faire in terms of their punctuality and the way they acted around the office,” an ex-employee said. “Their demeanor during these work meetings wasn’t always the most professional. But most of us were recent graduates and still pretty young. It was kind of like getting to hang out with friends.” http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/former-zenefits-employees-reveal-whether-sex-really-occurred-in-the-stairwells We’ve talked about the difference between racial and cultural bias around here from time to time, and this sounds like a classic example. Those companies have a certain cultural vibe, and you fit or you don’t. It’s kind of like a white college grad applying at one of Jay Z’s companies, if he doesn’t get in it’s culture, not race. Same thing. I’m sure some of it’s actual racism, especially when the hiring decision makers are themselves uncomfortable with even remotely stereotypical blacks because of their own poor social skills being misinterpreted in the past. But some of it also falls on black kids not going into those fields because they are not encouraged to….by their “own people”. There’s still a lot of the “talented tenth” mindset out there. They had a bunch of “black history month” displays at my daughter’s school, honoring individuals. They were all activists, politicians, athletes, entertainers, or lawyers. Where were the scientists? The doctors? The inventors and entrepreneurs? God knows they have existed and been important. I swear, it was like having a display of important women and they were all nurses or teachers…. As for the fraternity mindset in the post-techie era, is there anything in America more segregated than the college fraternity system???? In fact, it's that way for the same reason the Baptist churches are: different outlook and approach, entirely.
April 7, 20169 yr As for the fraternity mindset in the post-techie era, is there anything in America more segregated than the college fraternity system???? In fact, it's that way for the same reason the Baptist churches are: different outlook and approach, entirely. ^Yes, Burning Man and Oakland's hipster scene. Greek Life in California is extremely diverse compared to those two scenes. Set foot on any UC campus, and you'll see it. Even Stanford Greek Life is more diverse than Burning Man or Oakland hipsters. In fact, I'd wager fraternities and sororities in California have more racial, ethnic, religious, and economic diversity than tech as a whole. Influences far wealthier than upper middle class California bros and Marina Girls are to blame for the resegregation of the Bay. Greek Life is certainly magnitudes more diverse than Burning Man and Oakland's hipster scene. Keep in mind the average bro or Marina Girl can no longer afford rent in the Bay. Most of them are surviving on rent control, which covers nearly every rental unit in the Marina District, Pacific Heights, and North Beach. Most of them are not trust fund kids (they just want to be so they don't have to live with roommates for the rest of their lives). Greek Life is not the reason tech lacks diversity...though of course the bros and Marina Girls are starting to show up more at Burner events in San Francisco and Oakland. Still, they're not the main influence on the scene. The big influences are far wealthier and whiter than any Greeks can imagine... To give an idea of how white Burning Man has become, keep in mind much of it is fabricated in Oakland and most burners live there. Oakland is 25% Latino and 25% black. Only 6% of burners are Latino and only 1% are black. Burners set up their fabrication shops in what was once California's largest black community, West Oakland (though HQ is still in San Francisco's Mission District). Burning Man was down to 1% black in 2015. This is causing lots of racial tension in Oakland, quite a bit worse than when most Burners lived in San Francisco since SF was always much less diverse than Oakland. It's unfortunate since some of the burner sculpture parks built in Oakland are decent. But the artists are a small, small part of the burner community. The party kids and tech titans have far greater influence. This is what "radical inclusion" looks like in the Bay: Burning Man founder: 'Black folks don't like to camp as much as white folks' Steven W Thrasher at Black Rock City, Nevada Friday 4 September 2015 12.50 EDT Burning Man founder Larry Harvey has countered criticism of the lack of racial diversity at the festival by saying that part of the reason there are so few black attendees (known as burners) is that “I don’t think black folks like to camp as much as white folks”. In an interview with the Guardian, Harvey vowed that “we’re not going to set racial quotas”, defended the presence of rich Silicon Valley executives at the festival, and said he will personally go undercover this week to investigate the luxurious camps of ultra-wealthy tech bosses said by the New York Times to boast chefs, air conditioning and servants. According to the most recent Black Rock city census, compiled yearly by a team of academic demographers and anthropologists to determine the makeup of the festival, 87% of burners identified as white; 6% identified as Hispanic, 6% as Asian, and 2% as Native Americans (figures rounded) – on the latter of whose ancestral lands the event occurs. The smallest demographic of burners – 1.3% – identified as black. According to the census, which also measures income, this means that the temporary city is home to twice as many people who earn $300,000 a year as it is to black people. CONTINUED (good article detailing racial identity and non-profit politics in the Bay) http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/sep/04/burning-man-founder-larry-harvey-race-diversity-silicon-valley
April 7, 20169 yr And these racial issues aren't something new. This happened in Oakland all the way back in 2009, long before Oakland was experiencing any sort of gentrification on the level being seen today. I doubt many bros were going to Burning Man parties in Oakland back then... APRIL 01, 2009 MUSIC Burners Torched Over Native Party Local Native Americans go to war against insensitive Burners and win. By David Downs There was supposed to be a "private" Burner party last Saturday night at the Bordello in Oakland, complete with three hundred guests, twenty DJs spinning thumping techno and bass, dancers, a fashion show, micro-massages, raw food, an absinthe bar, and coconuts. Instead, the event ended in tears. More than fifty Bay Area Native American rights activists converged on the historic East Oakland property at 9:30 p.m. to ensure the shutdown of popular Burning Man group Visionary Village's "Go Native!" party. The fired-up Hopis, Kiowas and other tribal members spent more than four hours lecturing the handful of white, college-class Burners about cultural sensitivity until some of them simply broke down crying. The emotional crescendo capped a month-long saga that started with a tone-deaf dance party flyer, led to an Internet flame war and a public excoriation of Visionary Village's young, neo-hippy leaders before real tribal elders in the East Bay demanded a cancellation of the event. ... Ravers were offered a discount off the $20 door fee "if you show up in Native costume," and the money would fund "neurofeedback research demonstrating causality between medicinal use [of peyote], improved brainwave patterns, and heightened mirror neuron activity in users." The 140-year-old Bordello property abuts Interstate 880 and an ancient Ohlone Indian site dated to the 12th century B.C., which was also promoted. CONTINUED http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/burners-torched-over-native-party/Content?oid=1369150
June 8, 20169 yr Bro on PCP hides from police in garbage truck hopper: http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/college/georgia-collegian-in-garbage-truck-392045
March 21, 20178 yr One of the funniest and most SF experiences I've had lately was when I interviewed a sweet French girl to be my roommate. I really liked this girl's story since it was similar to mine. She didn't come from money in France, and moved to San Francisco to work at a $12 an hour customer service job at Airbnb back in the pre-bubble days of 2012. She later worked her way up in the company to an equity-paying user research position. Today, she makes $140k a year (70k salary, 70k equity). It was a great example of someone coming from nothing and working their way up in America. I could really relate to her since I had the same experience when I moved to SF from Rust Belt poverty. She was the exact opposite of most young people I meet in San Francisco and Oakland these days. Parents didn't pay her rent, she didn't have a trust fund, she didn't go to a fancy school, and she was a self-made person. She said she was quiet, traveled a lot for work (perfect since I did too), cleaned up after herself, didn't smoke or do drugs, and didn't expect to be best friends with roommates. She also said she slept a lot when getting home from work trips. In other words, she was an ideal roommate for a business traveler like myself. When I asked her what it was like working at Airbnb, she snapped. She exclaimed in her heavy French accent, "It's a big drunken F**k fest! All these frat bros and sorority girls!" She clearly did not fit into the company's corporate culture, but stayed there because of her equity vesting and the fact she got to travel all over the world for work. She continued on about how everyone at work slept with each other, many people got hammered and/or high by midday, people constantly cheated on their spouses or significant others with coworkers, and no one had any morals. In short, it made Uber sound like a professional corporate culture! This is the norm at almost every tech startup in San Francisco, and it works (the proof is in the VC rounds and market valuations). I got to thinking, maybe Fortune 500 companies have it all wrong? Maybe old blue chippers like P&G are tired and out of touch with millennials. Maybe Ford Motor Company should go back to hiring frat bros from UM to head global sales and marketing. Maybe Coca-Cola is too concerned with HR rules. Maybe rules and regulations demotivate the workforce. Maybe telling people not to sleep with coworkers is crazy since that's human nature. San Francisco has the strongest economy in the history of the world, and its corporate culture is that of a fraternity/sorority social. Maybe a never-ending sorority social is the right culture for companies that want to succeed in the modern economy. Airbnb is valued at over $30 billion and could go on to be bigger than any hotel chain. Every year, people say it's the year that SF tech declines. It just isn't happening in big numbers yet. The strong companies are still hiring six-figure salary entry-level workers with equity like nobody's business. And for every startup that goes under, ten more take its place. They're all staffed by the same fraternity brothers and sorority sisters that work at all the other offices in San Francisco. The SF marketing machine has a never-ending pipeline of Greek Life talent. Could the college fraternity and sorority system be imparting something unique on kids that leads to business success in the real world? Greek Life is competitive, more competitive than almost any other college clubs. But it's also team oriented. The team orientation of Greek Life may be the secret to San Francisco's success. There also tends to be an entrepreneurial sprit in Greek Life. I wouldn't be surprised if big companies start studying fraternity and sorority culture more to figure out ways to grow. *Or maybe San Francisco is in a giant bubble....
March 21, 20178 yr One of the funniest and most SF experiences I've had lately was when I interviewed a sweet French girl to be roommate. I really liked this girl's story since it was similar to mine. She didn't come from money in France, and moved to San Francisco to work at a $12 an hour customer service job at Airbnb back in the pre-bubble days of 2012. She later worked her way up in the company to an equity-paying user research position. Today, she made $140k a year (70k salary, 70k equity). It was a great example of someone coming from nothing and working their way up in America. I could really relate to her since I had the same experience when I moved to SF from Rust Belt poverty. She was the exact opposite of most young people I meet in San Francisco and Oakland these days. Parents didn't pay her rent, she didn't have a trust fund, she didn't go to a fancy school, and she was a self-made person. She said she was quiet, traveled a lot for work (perfect since I did too), cleaned up after herself, didn't smoke or do drugs, and didn't expect to be best friends with roommates. She also said she slept a lot when getting home from work trips. In other words, she was an ideal roommate for a business traveler like myself. When I asked her what it was like working at Airbnb, she snapped. She exclaimed in her heavy French accent, "It's a big drunken F**k fest! All these frat bros and sorority girls!" She clearly did not fit into the company's corporate culture, but stayed there because of her equity vesting and the fact she got to travel all over the world for work. She continued on about how everyone at work slept with each other, many people got hammered and/or high by midday, people constantly cheated on their spouses or significant others with coworkers, and no one had any morals. In short, it made Uber sound like a professional corporate culture! This is the norm at almost every tech startup in San Francisco, and it works (the proof is in the VC rounds and market valuations). I got to thinking, maybe Fortune 500 companies have it all wrong? Maybe old blue chippers like P&G are tired and out of touch with millennials. Maybe Ford Motor Company should go back to hiring frat bros from UM to head global sales and marketing. Maybe Coca-Cola is too concerned with HR rules. Maybe rules and regulations demotivate the workforce. Maybe telling people not to sleep with coworkers is crazy since that's human nature. San Francisco has the strongest economy in the history of the world, and its corporate culture is that of a fraternity/sorority social. Maybe a never-ending sorority social is the right culture for companies that want to succeed in the modern economy. Airbnb is valued at over $30 billion and could go on to be bigger than any hotel chain. Every year, people say it's the year that SF tech declines. It just isn't happening in big numbers yet. The strong companies are still hiring six-figure entry-level workers with equity like nobody's business. And for every startup that goes under, ten more take its place. They're all staffed by the same fraternity brothers and sorority sisters that work at all the other offices in San Francisco. The SF marketing machine has a never-ending pipeline of Greek Life talent. Or maybe San Francisco is in a giant bubble.... gawd, I'm glad I don't work in tech. ugh. that sounds horrible.
March 21, 20178 yr ^As a 32-year-old, I agree lol. I don't think I could handle an SF tech job at my age. I'm way too old for a company like Airbnb! When I met an Uber recruiter, he started talking about all the sex and cocaine right away. It actually turned me off from working at Uber. How can you survive long in that kind of environment? 20-somethings think they're immortal, but they're not. It's also weird how these recruiters are almost always sorority girls in their 20s. That dude was one of the only males on his team. It's like that on almost every tech company's recruitment team. There's like one token dude surrounded by all these gorgeous sorority girls (which is typically a dream job for the dude). I used to date a "smokeshow" as the bros say in tech. She was clearly hired for her looks, and I could never figure out exactly what she did other than party and network. Later on, I think she went legit with a sales role for a while. Now I believe she's back to tech partnerships or startup events. My old roommate is also considered a "smokeshow" and heads social events for some SF startup. She was completely a drunk, and I don't know how she got up in the morning some days. It's like she never got hangovers! "Smokeshow" is how I know I'm old lol. I didn't know what it meant until recently! *Those kids were fun to party with back in the SF glory days, but actually work with that every day?? **And they're naive to think they won't outgrow it. Granted, SF is loaded with 30-something and 40-something singles still living a college fraternity/sorority lifestyle, but it's more due to economics than anything else. Oakland is loaded with 30-something and 40-something singles/couples also living a college hippie/hipster lifestyle due to economics (it's like Berkeley never ends!). If it weren't for the housing crisis, I doubt college culture would extend into the 30s and 40s like it does in the Bay... But maybe never-ending college culture is the "secret sauce" politicians keep talking about in the Bay? Perhaps it motivates people to take bigger risks and work harder?
March 21, 20178 yr Sounds like Reynholm Industries. "A lot of sexy people not doing much work, and having affairs" I probably would've loved it. In 1990. My hovercraft is full of eels
March 21, 20178 yr ^I think the bros/broettes here have a very short memory of history. The last tech bubble blew in 2000, which was too long ago for most SF tech workers to remember. History could repeat itself...even today, too many companies only care about user base numbers and not revenue. The key difference today is the bro culture in SF. Talking to old-timers, I get the impression the first tech bubble in the late 90s was far nerdier and a lot more naive about how Wall Street worked. All those companies rushed to go public before they were anywhere near ready. Lots of SF workers had bad lock-up terms that completely wiped them out after the stock crashed. The smart VCs and Wall Street guys sold their stock quickly after IPO and cashed out as millionaires leaving the San Francisco employees wrecked after the companies imploded. A lot of those early web companies were losing money at rates that make Uber look financially responsible. The stock followed suit post-IPO. And almost none of those old web 1.0 companies had the sales and marketing talent to succeed. There were a lot of companies losing potential sales because they had no sales reps. The exceptions were the Google and Salesforce type companies. And those were also the most bro companies at the time. *Even today, the labor shortage in San Francisco is most pronounced with sales. Nobody wants to be a sales rep, but it's where all the money is at and it's what keeps companies alive after an IPO. Though my friends who do tech sales all say it's way more fun and less demanding before an IPO. There is just this huge shortage of sales talent with Gen Y, and it could continue into Gen Z. The most obscene job offers I get from headhunters are always for account management roles in industries where I have no experience. It's nuts. I would only consider them for the right company at the right time. But even then, I don't exactly want to be an account manager, which probably makes me a typical millennial. Now is probably not the right time in SF tech to jump into a strange industry you know nothing about.
March 22, 20178 yr ^As a 32-year-old, I agree lol. I don't think I could handle an SF tech job at my age. I'm way too old for a company like Airbnb! When I met an Uber recruiter, he started talking about all the sex and cocaine right away. It actually turned me off from working at Uber. How can you survive long in that kind of environment? 20-somethings think they're immortal, but they're not. It's also weird how these recruiters are almost always sorority girls in their 20s. That dude was one of the only males on his team. It's like that on almost every tech company's recruitment team. There's like one token dude surrounded by all these gorgeous sorority girls (which is typically a dream job for the dude). I used to date a "smokeshow" as the bros say in tech. She was clearly hired for her looks, and I could never figure out exactly what she did other than party and network. Later on, I think she wen't legit with a sales role for a while. Now I believe she's back to tech partnerships or startup events. My old roommate is also considered a "smokeshow" and heads social events for some SF startup. She was completely a drunk, and I don't know how she got up in the morning some days. It's like she never got hangovers! "Smokeshow" is how I know I'm old lol. I didn't know what it meant until recently! *Those kids were fun to party with back in the SF glory days, but actually work with that every day?? **And they're naive to think they won't outgrow it. Granted, SF is loaded with 30-something and 40-something singles still living a college fraternity/sorority lifestyle, but it's more due to economics than anything else. Oakland is loaded with 30-something and 40-something singles/couples also living a college hippie/hipster lifestyle due to economics (it's like Berkeley never ends!). If it weren't for the housing crisis, I doubt college culture would extend into the 30s and 40s like it does in the Bay... But maybe never-ending college culture is the "secret sauce" politicians keep talking about in the Bay? Perhaps it motivates people to take bigger risks and work harder? Nothing all that new about smokeshows, the major automotive trade show displayers were hiring actresses to work their booths as far back as the 80s. Not so much the auto show as the SAE show. The level of involvement is probably different now, but the concept remains.
March 22, 20178 yr ^I think the bros/broettes here have a very short memory of history. The last tech bubble blew in 2000, which was too long ago for most SF tech workers to remember. History could repeat itself...even today, too many companies only care about user base numbers and not revenue. The key difference today is the bro culture in SF. Talking to old-timers, I get the impression the first tech bubble in the late 90s was far nerdier and a lot more naive about how Wall Street worked. All those companies rushed to go public before they were anywhere near ready. Lots of SF workers had bad lock-up terms that completely wiped them out after the stock crashed. The smart VCs and Wall Street guys sold their stock quickly after IPO and cashed out as millionaires leaving the San Francisco employees wrecked after the companies imploded. A lot of those early web companies were losing money at rates that makes Uber look financially responsible. The stock followed suit post-IPO. And almost none of those old web 1.0 companies had the sales and marketing talent to succeed. There were a lot of companies losing potential sales because they had no sales reps. The exceptions were the Google and Salesforce type companies. And those were also the most bro companies at the time. *Even today, the labor shortage in San Francisco is most pronounced with sales. Nobody wants to be a sales rep, but it's where all the money is at and it's what keeps companies alive after an IPO. Though my friends who do tech sales all say it's way more fun and less demanding before an IPO. There is just this huge shortage of sales talent with Gen Y, and it could continue into Gen Z. The most obscene job offers I get from headhunters are always for account management roles in industries where I have no experience. It's nuts. I would only consider them for the right company at the right time. But even then, I don't exactly want to be an account manager, which probably makes me a typical millennial. Now is probably not the right time in SF tech to jump into a strange industry you know nothing about. That makes sense when I think about it, tying into my theories about prevalence of autism in tech's early days having so much influence. What they need is people that can read others nonverbally, what is working and connecting and what isn't. Those guys can't do it. They need people they trust that can even as they are trying to make such roles less important.
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