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Comment by pmarca | Hacker News Reader

"As an anecdotal data point, I haven't met a lot of white people from lower-class backgrounds who are players in the Bay Area technology scene."

Hi!

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An amusing and unexpected response, but while you're here, I'd be interested to know your read on this. Do you believe that there is a material % of such folks? Is it the sense you get that the incidence is similar to that found in other industries? Do you disagree with the other notions re: access or class-vs-race?

I think it's safe to say the conditions and environment that enabled your rise in SV were much different than what exists now.

Yes. It's easier for people from lower class backgrounds to break into SV than it was 1-2 decades ago.

College admissions' focus on social justice has only increased over the past few decades (% of low-income students at the very top universities has only gone up). The proliferation of angel money means that it is actually easier for you to get the connections necessary for VC. In the past, VC was an even tighter and more exclusive circle than it is today.

Also 100% correct.

As you say, the strong social justice momentum in the US has made it easier for people from lower class backgrounds to be admitted to top-tier schools.

This does not mean that it is easy, nor common. The measurement is against a low base.

The fact of the matter is that being born lower-class means that it is very likely that you will not move out of that class during your lifetime.

Lots of interesting data here: http://www.pewstates.org/projects/economic-mobility-project-...

WRT the ease of breaking into Silicon Valley, I don't have any basis for comparison. As you may have inferred, I'm a person from a lower class background who broke in during the early-mid-90s and had my life forever changed as a result. Including class mobility.

My anecdotal point above was just that, an anecdotal point.

You are not refuting anything I've said.

I only commented on relative difficulty.

Yes - we agree

Are they really? I remember what the web was like in 1993. It was a hobby, there were no big players, and all the major corporate attention was focused on WebTV, virtual reality, RISC architectures, 3D computer graphics, and other "big ideas". Much like people think of mobile, Google X, hardware startups, the sharing economy, etc. today.

There are a number of technologies now that remind me a lot of what the web was in 1993. BitCoin. 3D printing. Common Crawl. And there are enabling technologies like smartphones and cloud computing that aren't being used to their fullest potential. I suspect that the same conditions that led to Marc's rise still exist in other areas, we just won't know what those areas are until a whole new ecosystem has risen.

100% correct.

I buy this. In fact IMO the opportunity for other folks to make rapid, very widely felt, and profitable changes to the fabric of society is probably more available than ever before.

(Technology diffuses over punctuated equilibria. And the ability to which an individual can innovate, the amount of upside leverage they retain to financial performance, and the speed at which innovations diffuse have all increased since the mid-90s.)

Can you cite any facts that would indicate you didn't just pull that out of your rear?

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