I might be looking at things with rose-colored glasses, and I'm relatively young (mid-30s) and so my perception about Silicon Valley's past may be completely wrong, but I believe there was a major cultural shift in Silicon Valley that began sometime around 2012 when the area started emerging from the 2008 financial crisis. While making money was always the goal of corporations, I am under the impression that before the past decade there seemed to also be a deep love for technology by Silicon Valley engineers and businesspersons. Think of the innovations that came out of Xerox PARC, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Apple, Netscape, early Google, Sun Microsystems, SGI, and many other companies. There seemed to be a passion behind technology and a genuine belief that the world can be made a better place with better technologies. Even Apple under John Sculley and Michael Spindler seemed to be much more visionary than Apple under Tim Cook; think of the Knowledge Navigator, as well as all of the projects that came out of Apple's Advanced Technology Group. In short, Silicon Valley seemed to be a mecca for computer nerds, and I enjoyed moments of this when I started working in Silicon Valley a decade ago.

What changed in the past decade, in my opinion, is this mercenary attitude toward technology. To me it seems that the industry seems to be dominated by those who care about making money at all costs, technological vision, passion, and ethics be damned. "Move fast and break things" has been abused; its original definition of encouraging agile development and taking risks has unfortunately been used by some to promote technological recklessness: applying technology without considering its consequences. Many companies I've once respected seem to no longer be about how they can best serve their users by selling good products and services, it's now about how companies can milk their users as much as they can. Many interesting places that helped define the old Silicon Valley, such as warehouses filled with used computer hardware, are gone now, as the cost of living rose to astronomical levels. Speaking of the high cost of living, this has pushed out many lower-income and middle-income earners, and it's even a squeeze for engineers. I believe this only further promotes a mercenary attitude toward technology: if you want to purchase a house in a safe neighborhood with good schools for your children, you must optimize for money. It no longer seems to be a nerd mecca anymore.

What are some solutions? I really think America needs to deal with its housing and higher education costs. There is a chronic shortage of housing in this country, leading to sky-high home prices in America's job centers. These prices remain stubbornly high despite the doubling of mortgage rates that took place since 2022. There is also a problem with high college costs and large student loan debt loads. The high cost of living combined with high student loan debt loads means that many Americans are not in a position to bootstrap their own businesses or work for employers that may pay less than Big Tech but also don't follow Big Tech's business practices. Dealing with these very high costs may mean that future generations of technically-inclined people may make career decisions that are less driven by money.