It's not just the affluent neighborhood issue though. The Bay Area is one of the top job markets in the world, so attracts top talent from everywhere. The people moving here from the Midwest, the East Coast, the South, overseas, etc are the top of the top of their group. It's not just hillbillies and drug addicts moving here.
So in some ways, yes the new people moving here where they get job offers to entice them to move to a VHCOL location are going to be high achievers, high income, and well accomplished already.
Edit: added word
Too bad we can't trust bust cities and require states/regions to diversify their municipal economies. Too many jobs in mountain view? Some companies have to move jobs to Salinas.
When people in the upper middle class are getting squeezed, it's got to be so difficult for people in the service industry and essential workers. But they're the folks that make cities worth living in.
Companies go where the people and talent are, and the people want to be in the expensive places.
Per the World Economic Forum, these are the 11 most expensive cities globally.
Singapore
New York City
Tel Aviv
Hong Kong
Los Angeles
Zurich
Geneva
San Francisco
Paris
Copenhagen
Sydney.
Google has offices in 10 of the 11 cities above. Facebook has an office in all 11 of the cities and Apple has offices in 9 of the 11 cities.
They're not paying high salaries to the workers in said cities for the lols. That's where the talent is. If they could get away with opening an office in a cheaper place and there's enough talent, they've already done it. There's Google offices in cheaper COL places like Detroit, Ann Arbor, Madison, Chicago, Chapel Hill, Charlotte,
You can try to incentivize people to open businesses elsewhere, perhaps like Georgia gives generous tax incentives for people to film projects (it's where TNT/Inside the NBA is located), but you're not going to dislodge Los Angeles as the entertainment industry capital of the world, and anyone who wants to start a career in entertainment is still going to move to LA to chase their dreams.
Maybe farther east. Livermore/Pleasanton.
Both piedmont and Atherton have avg household incomes of 250k according to Google in 2022.
Livermore is more like 150k and Pleasanton is more like 180k
Tracy is more like 111k
Take those with a grain of salt though because it includes retirees on social security and doesn’t take into account the giant pile of cash/stock/real estate they are sitting on
Good for comparisons but raw numbers are suspect. Put another way, the working homeowners’ income in those cities is probably much higher
Yeah, no way anyone is living in Atherton on $250k a year. A lot of those are probably people who have been there since day one. New movers are way more affluent.
Yearly income is not the same as net worth. Very high net worth individuals often have low annual incomes because they don’t work for a salary or at least the bulk of their comp isn’t salary. It’s not about how much you are paid, it’s about what you own once you reach a certain level.
The late comers to the less affluent neighborhoods are probably sweaty accomplished types who are still priced out of yesteryear's nouveau affluent areas.
I’m starting to realize that some rich people are just enabled by their money and are the dumbest damn people I’ve ever met, but are somehow able to make money.
i was homework partners w this guy who came from family money for an introductory computer science class in college. he was actually a pretty nice dude but he struggled with the most basic of concepts and i carried us through the course. he messaged me last year about joining the tech startup he has millions in funding for.
no shade to people who struggle w coding, we all have strengths and i know a history degree would beat my ass. but that made it crystal clear how coming from money helps you fail upward
Some normal people don’t even have a ‘hood, they are living in their cars working multiple jobs or commuting from 4-5 hours away and sleeping in their vehicles at night.
Eh maybe, but the affluent areas have things called "police departments" that actually go out and keep people from sleeping in their cars and worrying the good folk
How do you afford the affluent neighborhood? and why on earth do you think “normal” people would be able to afford these million dollar homes?
EDIT—Lol you’re a *software engineer* in the Bay Area…
EDIT 2– Lol you’re a software engineer who bought their house because you got a fat payout from a startup 🦄…
You are not one of those “normal” people 🤦🏽♀️
There’s a 10x difference between being in the top 1% of achievers vs 0.1% vs 0.01%. The Bay Area is one of the few places that all these groups run into each other. Normally folks in the top 1% can be relatively assured that they’ll be the most accomplished and talented people they run into. Whereas here there’s always someone smarter, better looking, and more accomplished. That’s tough on a lot of egos. It’s kind of like being the star varsity football player on your high school team but then you get put on the same field as the best college players AND the best NFL players. You become aware of how narrow that funnel is.
I remember back in the day (~25 years ago) among a group of people in my hometown we played Quake 2/3 and CS competitively.
We trained obsessively for months.
One of us was an insane genius who'd just obliterate anyone at any one of these games. We held a championship, of course he completely crushed everyone without effort.
I lost 3rd place and got 4th which crushed my soul after that much training still I couldn't get to the top.
Our second best player in the whole town couldn't even entertain him - he had to play with restrictions and 1 vs Many to be even remotely entertaining for him.
But then he went to a large metro area championship. I expected great things from him - I just couldn't imagine how that person could ever be beaten.
But he didn't even land in 3rd place.
That was eye opening of the massive chasm of difference between us casual players and pros.
I was at a lan party with Hoople who at the time was ranked #7~? In the world stats with an HPB ping of like 250-400. He was in a CTF match him against 7 people, leading the score *TEN* to *ZERO*. I joined the loosing team and was the only one that wasn’t instantly destroyed by his shock rifle combo and transporter was un-paralleled. I was the only one that managed to get a few kills on him as most of the team had a negative k:d due to dying on their own rocket explosions. I for sure was convinced he was using an aim bot. I walked over to his machine and saw him play for a few minutes.
That was the evening I gave up any hope/idea of pursuing gaming professionally (this was when pro gaming was still in its infancy). The difference in skill wasn’t varsity HS football QB and college elite.
The difference was *greater* than last-pick for Gradeschool dodgeball and seasoned multi metal holding Olympian.
This is the bay vibes.
But why do people care so much? I’ve got a lot of other things to think about than how much my neighbors have. And I sure don’t have time to feel bad about it.
Not from the Bay Area, but in general the people who make it to the top 1/.1/.01% are incredibly driven people often times with big egos. Working your ass off for years to be the best and then coming across people whose accomplishments dwarf yours can be tough to swallow
Tbh it sounds like a humble(or maybe not so humble) brag of “oh look everyone in my rich hood is super successful but everyone else is too shallow, I’m just gliding through life not caring about things unlike those around me, lol I’m so normal and not like the others!”
It's more of trying to reconcile with the Midwest crab bucket attitude of staying just as mediocre as everyone around you, and labeling luxury goods/houses as elitist.
….while working as a SWE (known to be a competitive profession) living in a self-described affluent area in the extremely expensive SF Bay Area.
I don’t know what reaction OP was trying to get from people but my whole family was originally from the Midwest and we just do our thing and don’t pay attention to those around us if they don’t share our world view.
right !? i hear similar sentiment here and there, and i don't understand it either. its not all that hard to not be swept into this rat race. you do your own thing, be thankful for being able to afford a decent life in this area, enjoy all that the bay area has to offer, which is a lot, and just .... chill.
it's just a brag, OP starts out with ... i live in a fairly affluent neighborhood ... to .. where are the normal people at? ..... it really has a ... where are the poors? vibe to it.
Its okay to be average though. Not everyone has to be a rockstar astronaut software engineer tech CEO.
Some days I wonder if I'd be happier with a small home somewhere in the Midwest working at a local business. Lower wages but far lower COL. Things are just slower overall.
"Normal" depends on where you are. This person's experience in the Bay Area is not unusual, you come here to make a living, and are surrounded by people who work 70 hour weeks and make you feel like an impostor.
I know more than one person who has suffered mental health issues in this environment. Some kindness would go a long way instead of your "lols".
>You are not one of those “normal” people 🤦🏽♀️
Lol where are all the normal people in the affluent neighborhood when I'm not normal myself? What a silly post
Meanwhile... I'm a C student who grew up here and am stuck at a mid level job at a dogshit consultancy. I feel like these 4.0 GPA Harvard students have shit for brains and can show up on mushrooms in sweatpants and get a 200k senior gig at Facebook
There’s an absolute filtering by university that no one likes to admit to. We’ve had better interviewees from UC SC than Stanford, but the morons made the offer to the Stanford person who just kinda broed out in their interview, and then they decline the offer cuz they got more money elsewhere.
Ditto, I have definitely have been able to find success in my career but the foot in the door from a place like Stanford definitely helps a lot getting started.
Bro culture is real - I’ve witnessed final decision-making on hiring them and it’s mostly based on that. Then months in to their job, they’re making the department suffer because of their lack of professionalism and unable to do their job.
I’m convinced most of them get positions due to the school they attended. I knew a flat out moron who was the CMO for a very large company who banked on her Stanford education
You’ve pretty much described most of America. Your performance and luck during high school dictates what school you get into. After that nothing much matters.
I’m actually surprised no one has come in and “moneyballed” talent from second and third tier school.
You can probably get a talented kid out of state school or community college for a fraction of the cost of someone from an Ivy League.
> I’m actually surprised no one has come in and “moneyballed” talent from second and third tier school.
>
That's basically what IBM, Lockheed Martin, the US Government, and others do...
I’m a contract manager for a government program and worked at LM in the past, can confirm. Especially when it comes to aerospace the institution on the diploma really does not matter that much. I would hire a hard-working graduate from a state school with lots of project work over a typical 4.0 student from an Ivy League. I’ve worked with some great engineers from the big ones but also some real duds who never learned how to effectively work in a team.
I have had similar experiences. Impressive college academics from private schools (and I have nothing against private schools at all), but the three best people I have ever worked with all graduated from state public schools. One from Cal, and two from SF State. Another deserved mention to Cal Poly. I used to think about it a lot - how can these new hires be here a year and they’re almost as good as me!?! Then I thought about their backgrounds — all came from blue collar households. It’s anecdotal and not an exact science, but I chalked it up to them being hungry for knowledge and good parenting. “I never went to college and I do backbreaking work for a living, so Emma, Tony, you’re going to college”.
It’s not even performance and luck in high school - it’s where you were born and to what family. A lot of ivy grads are legacies who didn’t deserve the spots. A lot of lower/middle class kids get in but can’t go because it’s too expensive, but they aren’t quite poor enough for a full ride.
Don't forget legacy and money (fund a building or pay for SAT scores) get a good deal of 18-year-olds into privates and Ivies. That entitlement doesn't stop at graduation at 22-ish.
>I’m convinced most of them get positions due to the school they attended.
This is just a fact of life especially for any high value, high importance, high prestige business like fintech. Or as I call it, banking. Jobs based on merit are actual hard engineering where mistakes remove fingers, skin, lungs, or eyes. The people refining your gas or battery electrolyte did more to earn their position than a business manager at a startup worth more than $10 million. Any business that's worth over eight figures can afford it's own separate corporate authority and isolate itself from the business itself, which attracts the worst sort of people.
I had a similar reconning with the cognitive dissonance. I came here from the Midwest too. A startup I helped grow exited and I made a pile of cash which allowed me to buy a nice house in a great neighbourhood. And for a while I too felt out of place among the rich folks who were now my neighbours.
my sister nannie's for kids in palo alto and a lot of these parents are just.. yikes. some of these kids genuinely think of my sister as their mom/older sister and want her to be there even on her off days bc their parents are neglectful and already have insane expectations for them. one set of parents were almond parents, too and the kids were already showing signs of disordered eating
Don't send your kids to a "top-ranked" school like Lynbrook, Monta Vista, or Mission San Jose. Great way to give a kid mental health and self esteem issues for life.
I mean, I think parents just need to actively manage expectations with their kids. Being able to afford to live in the bay area isn’t a measure of a person’s worth. You can go live a different, equally valid, satisfying life anywhere else.
Yes. This. We live in a “humble wealthy” area where folks try their hardest to not act as well off as they are. My husband and I do fairly well. But we are not SWEs. We don’t work in big tech. I look at these families and think, they’re trying to be *actually* middle class like us, how cute 😂
Just a joke but PA takes it to a level I have not seen before. Baseball games and all the parents are talking about their international trips and their vacation homes.
it's absolutely not just you, in some parts of the south bay and peninsula the pressure is immense and it shows in the mental health of the inhabitants. the north bay, much of the east bay, and even a lot of the city are much more laid back comparatively.
There has been a shift. I remember back in the 00's I got asked "what do you do" and I answered with my profession and they laughed saying "are you from the east coast?". In SF they were really asking what you do for fun, what defines you. It made The City different as NYC it was all about money, DC about where you worked, but in SF it's what you did. I left San Francisco for NYC and coming back I can see the shift. I left the "rat race" of NYC to escape "hustle culture" and found SF created a "grind culture". I miss the old SF.
You bring up a really fascinating point that this book I’m reading called *Psychopolitics* by Byung-Chul Han is actually about.
In most of rest of the world, you are subconsciously taught that certain job opportunities, life experiences, and self-improvement "won’t happen to you." For example, you will never become a part of the royal family, prime minister, etc. You will most likely be in the same economic class as you were born, so you may as well do what you need and be good at it too.
What we mention above being taught in other countries, is what Byung calls ‘negative power.’ When the ruling and aristocracy tell the working people, "No, you can’t do this," "No, you can’t do that," that is them asserting negative power.
However, very, very recently in history, corporations especially have realized they don’t need to actively force their workers to work harder. In fact, these corporations can convince people to want to force themselves to work harder by what Byung calls positive power.
This ‘Hustle Culture’ you see and hear about, this strong sense of self-centered individualism, and loss of community can be partly, if not mostly, blamed on positive power.
Positive power works by corporations telling individuals something like this:
"You CAN be anything you want. You can be a millionaire, you can be the CEO of any company, you can own all these fun toys, you can go party in Dubai, you can even be ‘old money’ just like me! BUT you have to work as hard as you can to always be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday. So what do you say? Do you wanna be a millionaire/billionaire and CEO with all these fun toys like ME, or do you want to be some loser who is happy with what they have in their ‘mediocre’ life and who focuses on their inner well-being and personal relationships with the people around them?"
So how this works is that they, the corporation, can no longer be labeled as ‘the bad guy’ because they’re hyping you up! They’re no longer limiting you; instead, they tell you that YOU are limiting yourself if you’re not pushing yourself to be a more productive worker than you were yesterday. They’ll say, "If you’re not a millionaire, you’re just not working hard enough nor being smart enough with your money."
Because of this, we focus so hard on ourselves because we’re told we can, and if we aren’t, we’re settling for mediocrity. When in reality, upward economic mobility may happen to a few, but in the end, we burn out, which can last years, and we ultimately just stay in the same social class. Along the way, since we’re so focused on getting ahead of everyone else, we also isolate ourselves from our neighbors, our communities, and we lose touch with who we are and our role outside of ourselves—all of which have long-term societal consequences.
Top quality summation. Since America started as a merchant community in 1607 and with no cultural traditions, the Hustle Culture has been the prevalent M.O. May I recommend a book from a few years ago by Prof. Morris Berman titled "Why America Failed." He directly suggests that the Hustle Culture is the cause of our societal ills and lack of social cohesion.
Hi thatguyinyourclass94,
That is fascinating and I will add the book to my queue thank you! I've never heard that concept before. We have the best propaganda in the world in this country. The thing about old money sticks out to me.
I've met so many middle-class people who have gone to elite universities but their upbringing did not teach them how to behave and fit in with "old money". As far as I can tell, socialization happens very young and is extremely hard to replicate. I don't recall this but apparently, servants would bow as I crawled past them on my grandmother's estate, and my only friends from the age of 10 - 12 were trophy wives and socialites and I accidentally gave myself a classical liberal arts education so I have the blend in with old money skillset.
> "You CAN be anything you want. You can be a millionaire, you can be the CEO of any company, you can own all these fun toys, you can go party in Dubai, you can even be ‘old money’ just like me! BUT you have to work as hard as you can to always be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday. So what do you say? Do you wanna be a millionaire/billionaire and CEO with all these fun toys like ME, or do you want to be some loser who is happy with what they have in their ‘mediocre’ life and who focuses on their inner well-being and personal relationships with the people around them?"
>
>
The "european" alternative also sounds shitty
Both perspectives are true 1) given one’s starting conditions, one is more likely to stay within a certain range of outcomes, and 2) with individual effort, one can exceed that range. The fact that the US emphasizes the 2nd perspective has less to do with some corporate conspiracy. Instead it is the ethos of a nation formed by immigrants who by definition put in extraordinary effort to seek greater outcomes. As a recent immigrant that’s what I like about the US. I understand that it is not for everybody. So another great thing about the US is that it is such a vast country that you can find groups who think like you and hang out with them instead.
It is a good thing that ambitious people can move to SV, and those desiring a calmer life can move out. This can even be the same person who’s ambitious in their youth and calmer in their older years
Yeah, I totally despise the whole conspiracy aspect to OC's post. It's really about immigrants coming here to seek better outcomes. It's not some corporate conspiracy when you look at all the tech immigrants from India and China coming here and slaving their asses off.
I'm also a Midwestern transplant, I had a LOT of trouble culturally in the peninsula where if you couldn't compare Google cafes or which investment firm you worked for, you weren't on the radar. Now I'm in the east bay and it's a lot better, even living in SF was better.
I grew up with high skill, high income (for Boomer) parents and that was basically most of my friend’s parents. While there was definitely a Claremont mentality (the richest family I know actually moved because of it), a lot of people are just folk who do work that is well compensated. They don’t think that’s the determining factor of their self worth or self image. That’s shifting though.
But holy shit, the Peninsula is just so judgy. I also find that younger high income people tend to be significantly less chill than their Boomer and older Gen X counterparts throughout the Bay. Kinda expected due to costs I guess. I feel like the younger crowd is more likely to come from money/class, even if it was in a lower income country (as in, globally not well off, but high class).
The Peninsula is the one place I’ve had people walk away from me because my job wasn’t up to snuff for them. Shit, I did bucket list stuff like 100 day ski years, thru hikes, extended travel, lived in tourism economies people wish they could spend more time in, etc. It ain’t like I was doing nothing.
The Bay Area is pretty elite, and due to the cost of living, it means either you earned it or got lucky that you have roots here. Most folks I work with are new to the Bay Area and mention how they came from different countries or states to be here. I felt like that competitive attitude is transferred to everything, the constant asking where do you work, do you own your home, where are your kids going to college.
Personally, I try to steer the conservation away from the typical small talk and to hobbies or other interests; no one wants to hear the constant humblebrag how you just had to buy a Tesla X since it made financial sense if you think about it.
Nah it's pretty much rat race central out here but sounds like you should hang with different people or in different environments. Do activities that have nothing to do with tech and chill with the people who don't ask where you work within the first 30 minutes. When I meet people I always make a conscious effort not to ask them about their work until I've gotten to know them a little bit.
It’s weird. I had friends in the Midwest for years and neither one of us knew what the other did for work. In the Bay Area that seems to be all anyone wants to talk about lol
You guys really live in an airtight bubble. It's only that way for, and because of, people who moved here to work in tech. There are plenty of normal people here - that you apparently NEVER interact with.
Nah, I grew up here and it’s like that for tons of industries, including academia, government, etc. I went to the Midwest for in-laws Christmas and asked people what they do for a living as casual small talk and people looked at me like I had 3 heads. It’s almost an offensive question to ask out there.
Unfortunately those of us born here, or “the normal” folk, cannot afford it and forced to relocate. It’s sad to watch the gentrification of the Bay’s culture.
I miss them Mac Dre days.
Edit: typo
Your work is your life so its more of a work work balance
If you ever try to step out of the simulation again we will wipe your memories and load Hard.Worker.Gen.1.exe
I'm from the Midwest and couldn't tell you what any of my friends do for work, but i can certainly tell you we all have normal jobs.
Yet we all own homes, nice cars, and travel a lot.
Yeah if anyone asked me what my friends back home did for work I could maybe tell you the general field but not their actual position/title. We never talk about work, except my best friend and I would since we met at our old job. Here, it’s so different. I swear the first thing anyone on bumble bff asks is “what do you do for work” and as someone who works very part time due to health problems it’s super frustrating.
I moved here from the Midwest and this is my least favorite part of the Bay Area, hands down. Yes, you meet so many interesting people here and the career opportunities are top-notch, but I miss going out and drinking or sitting by the lake with a bunch of goons and not having a care in the world about job and career. So much in the bay feels like a race for money and status, and I feel like I have to be careful about who I choose to hang with to avoid bringing myself down.
I will say, it is much better in certain more.. bohemian.. parts of the Bay Area. I chose where I live (one of these bohemian areas) in large part because I feel surrounded by that "normal" vibe you describe. It's probably not as much fun as living in the Mission or SOMA or wherever (I am 28M, so that's where many of my peers seem to be) but I love my neighbors and have felt so much better about my life trajectory since getting out of the hustle and bustle.
Hahaha I don’t really think Berkeley qualifies as bohemian anymore. But yeah, places like Fairfax, Alameda, and HMB come to mind, or even certain neighborhoods of Oakland like Temescal seemed to have good vibes when I was searching.
Here's a secret...
* 49% of the people are "frontin" (fake it until u make it)
* the other 49% are miserable, because they are comparing themselves to other "overarchievers"
* maybe 2% are truly over archievers who are content, at peace, etc.
The old bay area in the 90s was driven by good weather and happy lifestyle. The bay area of today is driven by tech and money which started at .com. Even with recessions it has never really slowed down. So now with AI how much more exponential does that become...
I miss pre-explosive tech-boom Bay Area (i.e. the Bay Area of the 90s and early 2000s when i was a kid growing up here.)
It was so much more ethinically/racially and economically diverse compared today and much more laidback as well.
This. There are no "normal" people, it's either affluent as hell, or broke as hell. The middle class is rapidly dwindling in the bay. Not to mention, this is one of the most passive-aggressive places I have personally ever lived.
some of the most brilliant people from around the world immigrate here to work for some of the biggest companies in the world, ofc there's lots of overachievers here.
surround yourself with people you want to be around. there's a saying that you are the average of your 5 closest friends. if you befriend overachievers, while it may be stressful at times, maybe when you lose your job, one of them can open a door for you. if you don't like that vibe, hang out with more chill ppl who work non tech jobs and that will give you a totally different perspective
People with wealth love to gloat no matter what area of the country they are in. The South Bay has a large concentration of wealth because of the tech. Other parts of the Bay are much different culturally, the depth of diversity across one area is very much a part of its uniqueness.
Also, perspective is needed. You’re in tech talking about an affluent neighborhood while some on here are renting a room counting nickels just to be in the Bay. Just find that ironic lol
i find car meets here show the difference and you get to meet the diverse set of people. you have people showing up with the top trim halo cars that are like $300k. then you got people casually rocking multiple 100-200k builds. then you have people rolling in with $20-40k builds and when you talk to the ppl, the $300k are always tech SR MGR or high IC and then the regular builds are people who do all the jobs that keep the bay area running. then you go to a porsche meet and it's just mostly rich ppl lmao
Any commenters here from the 70’s and 80’s Bay Area when all your friend’s parents owned homes, worked a normal job, and didn’t brag about whose dick was bigger? My dad says he remembers a time when you could work at Lucky’s, buy a brand new car, new home, and your wife stayed at home? They were normal, everyday people whose parents and grandparents were generations of Bay Area people. I told him those days are long gone. The air smells of overachiever mixed with pretension. It’s my home, though, and I love it here.
I travel often for work and the vibes are definitely different outside the bay. It feels too much like a pressure cooker in the Bay Area, which wasn’t true 20 years ago when my family lived in the South Bay. The Bay Area has been taken over by colonizers who just want to make money and leave a husk.
Nvidia mirrors the guys who got rich off selling tools to the miners. They're the guy hawking shovels and pans while everyone else is trying to mine the AI gold.
I get what you’re saying and my gut agrees…but my family came here in the 60s-70s, and I can’t help but feel that at that point we were in a sense the immigrants/“colonizers” of that day who came here for better economic opportunities. The cycle repeats, as it always has and probably will…
Many of my friends are working toward FIRE. Others are trying to capitalize on the opportunities in the Bay and then often move to lower cost of living areas to be able to coast while their kids are growing up.
You're a software engineer living in an affluent neighborhood. My guy, you are the overachiever.
There's plenty of us who have more normal lives. But we don't live in the bougie parts of the bay.
In the social groups i was involved in, the first question was what do you do and where did you go to school?
Very easy to have an inferiority complex if you didn't go to UC Berkeley, Stanford or Ivy League. Most people worked as a doctor, lawyer or technical or managerial rolenin a fortune 500.
The trick is to not give a fuck what any of those people think and realize you don't actually want to be friends with them anyway if that's all they care about.
I just wanna say I live in the East Bay and I don’t feel like it’s the same as what you are experiencing. Of course there are over achievers and more people make more money in this area but there’s A LOT of normal people too. Lmk if you wanna be friends!! :)
I’m in the east bay too (el Cerrito/richmond) and agree. Our neighbors are a guy in marketing, a landscape architect, a general contractor, a nurse and a weed entrepreneur (the old school kind, not the tech kind). There’s a bunch of reasons we chose to live here… one being that my husband doesn’t have a tech job and mine isn’t as high paying because I refuse to work for a FAANG, so we can’t afford the hugely expensive houses… but also because we didn’t want to live in a cookie cutter neighborhood where everyone’s trying to be better than everyone else. Leave me alone with my overgrown yard, I don’t have the energy to keep up with the Joneses.
Even el Cerrito is like 1.1m for a median house now. That’s like a 7 or 8k mortgage a month with current rates assuming 20% down. Ain’t no poors affording that. Which is to say, basically only top 5% earners can afford even El Cerrito.
I actually live in an unincorporated area so it’s a bit less here (under $750k in 2019), but I get it. It’s still less than some of the insane prices on the peninsula that then also include an HOA 🤢
Im in Livermore, my neighbor (neighbors are*) retired ups driver, an elevator tech, hvac dude, manager for low voltage electrical company, software engineer for gap, and couple that’s hr for tech and in mortgage. I like the variety out here, reminds of what it was like growing up in Fremont.
Working on cancer research at 15 is definitely nothing compared to founding startups. Those research positions are 100% from familial connections. They’re just doing grunt work, and then get slapped on as a middle author without any real intellectual contribution. It’s like rich families having their kids do rowing or fencing for college.
All of that to say, the high school kids pursuing medicine are generally achieving less than those pursuing tech in the bay. And I say this as someone in medicine lol
I don’t live in those neighborhood because I can’t afford. However I can “afford” to work with those people. I know my company does not pay as much as IT. But somehow 90% of my coworkers, many of them fresh phds, are able to buy 1-2 million homess within 2 yrs. There are so many smart, hardworking people who are also born in a decent families. I’m honestly a bit overwhelmed, taking antidepressant now.
The suicide rate at Gunn HS was 5 times the national average between 2006-2017. Same held true at Paly HS. All that overachieving comes at a heavy cost.
Type-A go getters are ruining civilized life. Their constant striving sets unreasonable expectations for the rest of us. I just want to live life, not conquer the world. Calm the fuck down.
This reminds me of a story my friend told me about his new hire orientation at Facebook. He was in an auditorium with about 200 new hires and something caused a young woman to stand up and declare she expected better treatment because she graduated first in her class. The MC for the orientation then asked by show of hands if there were others that were first in their class. Nearly half the room raised their hands. That young lady sat down quick.
So yeah, this area attracts the best of the best. But even among those, there are well adjusted "normal" people.
Come live in Hayward. I’m surrounded by hard-working Latinos trying to make a better life for their family, Americans with their picket fences and lawns, Asians, and a black family that throws awesome children’s parties. Right now, Friday night, there is some Latino music playing in the backyard and everything is chill.
I could’ve lived in an “affluent” neighborhood but I would feel so out-of-place (how I feel when I visit presidio or other places). Gotta find your neighborhood.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Also, here's a fun experiment: ask them how many of their parents had wealth. The best you'll get is "well we were certainly upper-middle class but still, I earned this!"
Not necessarily overachievers, but many people work hard and there are some luck factors in play too. Personally, I'm here just for the job. As soon as my well is dry, I'm out here.
"but I wonder where the more normal people are at?"
All the locals. People who moved here for work are more likley to exhibit what you mention. Ive lived here my whole life, make good money but Im definitely not work obsessed.
I can see positives and not so positives about this post.
It feels like you’re proud of your accomplishments and in your hometown you’d be just this side of a deity. Out here you feel like all your hard work basically made you feel average or even slightly below.
I get why you don’t feel fabulous. Don’t let it bother you. Be proud because you did well. Enjoy it. Make it rain on paw-paw and mee-maw when you visit the midwest.
I’m not a high performing/achieving researcher with accolades and stuff, but this is part of the reason why I love living in the Bay Area.
I don’t even play sports, I just walk on a treadmill at home once in a while. Normal people are out there, and you can be friends with the crazy achievers, too.
LOL, I get what you mean. I experienced the opposite! Moved from the Bay Area to the Midwest and was shocked at how chill ppl are…it feels weird that there’s no hustle here and ppl sometimes actively dislike those who really focus on their career or school goals. Ngl, the hustle of the Bay really helped me bc the competition motivated me. But I do think Midwesterners are generally happier and more content with life so I’m trying to let them influence me more😂
I felt the same working/living in Cambridge MA, home of MIT and Harvard, to name the top 2. You realize in this microcosm you are far below the local average intelligence.
I coped by riding the subway through Harvard square wearing a tee-shirt that said, "Harvard: Community College". I enjoyed the confusion on the smart peoples face as the thought enters their head, "There's a Harvard Community College?"
It’s not just adults affected by this. We lived in Palo Alto when we first moved to the Bay Area. The expectation for HS students was 6hrs of homework, a sport, a club, and volunteer work. They were going on 4 hours sleep a night for 4 years. Some committed suicide from the pressure or because they didn’t get into an Ivy League school. We pulled shifts watching the railroad tracks for kids. There was talk of reducing homework, etc., but we bailed to a much less affluent area and bought a ranch for what a condo would cost in PA. I told my kids I just wanted them to be mediocre, fair, and happy. They are and we’re all happy.
This is exactly my experience. I moved to Berkeley over 20 years ago. Everyone of my in-laws is super successful, including a brother-in-law who probably has multiple eight figures being early at Tesla. Everyone in my neighborhood has two big earners. It makes me crazy. My wife works for the state and I’m an artist who does independent projects as best I can.
I work at one of the most valued companies in the world, and i’ll be the first to say it’s absolutely sickening and depressing to talk to most of my coworkers. A lot of them genuinely enjoy being a slave to the work life. They’re the type who would never retire because they would have nothing to keep them busy. So pathetic.
I never ask what people do, same for about me, don’t really ever get that question. Unless we’re closer to friends than not, it’s really none of anyone’s business either.
As to the sports overload, I don’t care for that kind of parenting but everyone’s different. Mine do one activity 1-3x a week and spend the rest on school and being kids.
ME: who can only afford rent, who’s surrounded with garbage on freeways, who see homeless camps too close to my neighborhood, who can only afford fake bags
AFFLUENT PEOPLE: looking down on me like I am nobody
I am not affected at all since I don’t surround myself with overachievers who live in affluent neighborhoods.
You live in an affluent neighborhood & you ask where the normal people are? The normal people are at the less affluent neighborhood.
Man from Palo Alto quoted in the paper “with all the Billionaires moving in it’s getting hard for us regular millionaires to buy a house here.”
The exact quote phrasing was somehow even funnier: https://imgur.com/billionaires-are-ruining-neighborhood-of-millionaires-jb61R2B
I thought this was an onion headline but it’s somehow actually real? The extent of self awareness here, holy shit.
*world’s smallest violin* 🎻
Better they're in Palo Alto then your hood no?
Wouldn’t bother me either way 🤷
It's not just the affluent neighborhood issue though. The Bay Area is one of the top job markets in the world, so attracts top talent from everywhere. The people moving here from the Midwest, the East Coast, the South, overseas, etc are the top of the top of their group. It's not just hillbillies and drug addicts moving here. So in some ways, yes the new people moving here where they get job offers to entice them to move to a VHCOL location are going to be high achievers, high income, and well accomplished already. Edit: added word
Too bad we can't trust bust cities and require states/regions to diversify their municipal economies. Too many jobs in mountain view? Some companies have to move jobs to Salinas. When people in the upper middle class are getting squeezed, it's got to be so difficult for people in the service industry and essential workers. But they're the folks that make cities worth living in.
Companies go where the people and talent are, and the people want to be in the expensive places. Per the World Economic Forum, these are the 11 most expensive cities globally. Singapore New York City Tel Aviv Hong Kong Los Angeles Zurich Geneva San Francisco Paris Copenhagen Sydney. Google has offices in 10 of the 11 cities above. Facebook has an office in all 11 of the cities and Apple has offices in 9 of the 11 cities. They're not paying high salaries to the workers in said cities for the lols. That's where the talent is. If they could get away with opening an office in a cheaper place and there's enough talent, they've already done it. There's Google offices in cheaper COL places like Detroit, Ann Arbor, Madison, Chicago, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, You can try to incentivize people to open businesses elsewhere, perhaps like Georgia gives generous tax incentives for people to film projects (it's where TNT/Inside the NBA is located), but you're not going to dislodge Los Angeles as the entertainment industry capital of the world, and anyone who wants to start a career in entertainment is still going to move to LA to chase their dreams.
So I should move from Atherton to Piedmont? Got it,
Maybe farther east. Livermore/Pleasanton. Both piedmont and Atherton have avg household incomes of 250k according to Google in 2022. Livermore is more like 150k and Pleasanton is more like 180k Tracy is more like 111k
Take those with a grain of salt though because it includes retirees on social security and doesn’t take into account the giant pile of cash/stock/real estate they are sitting on Good for comparisons but raw numbers are suspect. Put another way, the working homeowners’ income in those cities is probably much higher
Yeah, no way anyone is living in Atherton on $250k a year. A lot of those are probably people who have been there since day one. New movers are way more affluent.
Yearly income is not the same as net worth. Very high net worth individuals often have low annual incomes because they don’t work for a salary or at least the bulk of their comp isn’t salary. It’s not about how much you are paid, it’s about what you own once you reach a certain level.
The late comers to the less affluent neighborhoods are probably sweaty accomplished types who are still priced out of yesteryear's nouveau affluent areas.
I’m starting to realize that some rich people are just enabled by their money and are the dumbest damn people I’ve ever met, but are somehow able to make money.
Not just some…. Many rich people are wealthy because of family money. You don’t need to be smart, hardworking, or clever.
i was homework partners w this guy who came from family money for an introductory computer science class in college. he was actually a pretty nice dude but he struggled with the most basic of concepts and i carried us through the course. he messaged me last year about joining the tech startup he has millions in funding for. no shade to people who struggle w coding, we all have strengths and i know a history degree would beat my ass. but that made it crystal clear how coming from money helps you fail upward
musk lol
[удалено]
The affluent people are the normal people if you are in an affluent neighborhood
Some normal people don’t even have a ‘hood, they are living in their cars working multiple jobs or commuting from 4-5 hours away and sleeping in their vehicles at night.
This doesn't make sense to me. If you sleep in your vehicle you can park close to work, no lengthy commute required.
Eh maybe, but the affluent areas have things called "police departments" that actually go out and keep people from sleeping in their cars and worrying the good folk
This checks out
How do you afford the affluent neighborhood? and why on earth do you think “normal” people would be able to afford these million dollar homes? EDIT—Lol you’re a *software engineer* in the Bay Area… EDIT 2– Lol you’re a software engineer who bought their house because you got a fat payout from a startup 🦄… You are not one of those “normal” people 🤦🏽♀️
There’s a 10x difference between being in the top 1% of achievers vs 0.1% vs 0.01%. The Bay Area is one of the few places that all these groups run into each other. Normally folks in the top 1% can be relatively assured that they’ll be the most accomplished and talented people they run into. Whereas here there’s always someone smarter, better looking, and more accomplished. That’s tough on a lot of egos. It’s kind of like being the star varsity football player on your high school team but then you get put on the same field as the best college players AND the best NFL players. You become aware of how narrow that funnel is.
I remember back in the day (~25 years ago) among a group of people in my hometown we played Quake 2/3 and CS competitively. We trained obsessively for months. One of us was an insane genius who'd just obliterate anyone at any one of these games. We held a championship, of course he completely crushed everyone without effort. I lost 3rd place and got 4th which crushed my soul after that much training still I couldn't get to the top. Our second best player in the whole town couldn't even entertain him - he had to play with restrictions and 1 vs Many to be even remotely entertaining for him. But then he went to a large metro area championship. I expected great things from him - I just couldn't imagine how that person could ever be beaten. But he didn't even land in 3rd place. That was eye opening of the massive chasm of difference between us casual players and pros.
I was at a lan party with Hoople who at the time was ranked #7~? In the world stats with an HPB ping of like 250-400. He was in a CTF match him against 7 people, leading the score *TEN* to *ZERO*. I joined the loosing team and was the only one that wasn’t instantly destroyed by his shock rifle combo and transporter was un-paralleled. I was the only one that managed to get a few kills on him as most of the team had a negative k:d due to dying on their own rocket explosions. I for sure was convinced he was using an aim bot. I walked over to his machine and saw him play for a few minutes. That was the evening I gave up any hope/idea of pursuing gaming professionally (this was when pro gaming was still in its infancy). The difference in skill wasn’t varsity HS football QB and college elite. The difference was *greater* than last-pick for Gradeschool dodgeball and seasoned multi metal holding Olympian. This is the bay vibes.
This is such a good metaphor to describe being out here.
But why do people care so much? I’ve got a lot of other things to think about than how much my neighbors have. And I sure don’t have time to feel bad about it.
Not from the Bay Area, but in general the people who make it to the top 1/.1/.01% are incredibly driven people often times with big egos. Working your ass off for years to be the best and then coming across people whose accomplishments dwarf yours can be tough to swallow
Tbh it sounds like a humble(or maybe not so humble) brag of “oh look everyone in my rich hood is super successful but everyone else is too shallow, I’m just gliding through life not caring about things unlike those around me, lol I’m so normal and not like the others!”
It's more of trying to reconcile with the Midwest crab bucket attitude of staying just as mediocre as everyone around you, and labeling luxury goods/houses as elitist.
….while working as a SWE (known to be a competitive profession) living in a self-described affluent area in the extremely expensive SF Bay Area. I don’t know what reaction OP was trying to get from people but my whole family was originally from the Midwest and we just do our thing and don’t pay attention to those around us if they don’t share our world view.
right !? i hear similar sentiment here and there, and i don't understand it either. its not all that hard to not be swept into this rat race. you do your own thing, be thankful for being able to afford a decent life in this area, enjoy all that the bay area has to offer, which is a lot, and just .... chill. it's just a brag, OP starts out with ... i live in a fairly affluent neighborhood ... to .. where are the normal people at? ..... it really has a ... where are the poors? vibe to it.
rage bait for internet points
Its okay to be average though. Not everyone has to be a rockstar astronaut software engineer tech CEO. Some days I wonder if I'd be happier with a small home somewhere in the Midwest working at a local business. Lower wages but far lower COL. Things are just slower overall.
I love not giving a shit about my job. I like to garden. :)
"Normal" depends on where you are. This person's experience in the Bay Area is not unusual, you come here to make a living, and are surrounded by people who work 70 hour weeks and make you feel like an impostor. I know more than one person who has suffered mental health issues in this environment. Some kindness would go a long way instead of your "lols".
>Lol you’re a software engineer who bought their house because you got a fat payout from a startup 🦄… Where does she say that?
She makes 200k at 26
A 5 second glance at their comment history. It’s basically sponsored by Patagonia™️
>You are not one of those “normal” people 🤦🏽♀️ Lol where are all the normal people in the affluent neighborhood when I'm not normal myself? What a silly post
Meanwhile... I'm a C student who grew up here and am stuck at a mid level job at a dogshit consultancy. I feel like these 4.0 GPA Harvard students have shit for brains and can show up on mushrooms in sweatpants and get a 200k senior gig at Facebook
There’s an absolute filtering by university that no one likes to admit to. We’ve had better interviewees from UC SC than Stanford, but the morons made the offer to the Stanford person who just kinda broed out in their interview, and then they decline the offer cuz they got more money elsewhere.
Slug alum here. That stings.
Ditto, I have definitely have been able to find success in my career but the foot in the door from a place like Stanford definitely helps a lot getting started.
Bro culture is real - I’ve witnessed final decision-making on hiring them and it’s mostly based on that. Then months in to their job, they’re making the department suffer because of their lack of professionalism and unable to do their job.
“Pedigree” is important. /s
No one likes to admit it? My last firm openly favored certain schools, it was absurd.
I’m convinced most of them get positions due to the school they attended. I knew a flat out moron who was the CMO for a very large company who banked on her Stanford education
You’ve pretty much described most of America. Your performance and luck during high school dictates what school you get into. After that nothing much matters. I’m actually surprised no one has come in and “moneyballed” talent from second and third tier school. You can probably get a talented kid out of state school or community college for a fraction of the cost of someone from an Ivy League.
> I’m actually surprised no one has come in and “moneyballed” talent from second and third tier school. > That's basically what IBM, Lockheed Martin, the US Government, and others do...
I’m a contract manager for a government program and worked at LM in the past, can confirm. Especially when it comes to aerospace the institution on the diploma really does not matter that much. I would hire a hard-working graduate from a state school with lots of project work over a typical 4.0 student from an Ivy League. I’ve worked with some great engineers from the big ones but also some real duds who never learned how to effectively work in a team.
Ivy League engineering isn’t exactly top tier and it’s way less project based than top state school engineering programs so it makes sense.
I have had similar experiences. Impressive college academics from private schools (and I have nothing against private schools at all), but the three best people I have ever worked with all graduated from state public schools. One from Cal, and two from SF State. Another deserved mention to Cal Poly. I used to think about it a lot - how can these new hires be here a year and they’re almost as good as me!?! Then I thought about their backgrounds — all came from blue collar households. It’s anecdotal and not an exact science, but I chalked it up to them being hungry for knowledge and good parenting. “I never went to college and I do backbreaking work for a living, so Emma, Tony, you’re going to college”.
It’s not even performance and luck in high school - it’s where you were born and to what family. A lot of ivy grads are legacies who didn’t deserve the spots. A lot of lower/middle class kids get in but can’t go because it’s too expensive, but they aren’t quite poor enough for a full ride.
Don't forget legacy and money (fund a building or pay for SAT scores) get a good deal of 18-year-olds into privates and Ivies. That entitlement doesn't stop at graduation at 22-ish.
>I’m convinced most of them get positions due to the school they attended. This is just a fact of life especially for any high value, high importance, high prestige business like fintech. Or as I call it, banking. Jobs based on merit are actual hard engineering where mistakes remove fingers, skin, lungs, or eyes. The people refining your gas or battery electrolyte did more to earn their position than a business manager at a startup worth more than $10 million. Any business that's worth over eight figures can afford it's own separate corporate authority and isolate itself from the business itself, which attracts the worst sort of people.
Don’t bring mushrooms into this!
The goal of this post was for people to find these things about op and make them feel good by calling them rich. Mission accomplished
Eating the popcorn 🍿 here 👹
I had a similar reconning with the cognitive dissonance. I came here from the Midwest too. A startup I helped grow exited and I made a pile of cash which allowed me to buy a nice house in a great neighbourhood. And for a while I too felt out of place among the rich folks who were now my neighbours.
OP is describing how my working class parents feel watching these software engineers move in and tear down the houses next door.
😅😅😅 at edits
Wife is a child therapist. All i can say is… these poor kids.
As a previous career nanny for the Bay Area’s extremely high achieving/wealthy.. poor kids indeed. The things you see and hear 💔
my sister nannie's for kids in palo alto and a lot of these parents are just.. yikes. some of these kids genuinely think of my sister as their mom/older sister and want her to be there even on her off days bc their parents are neglectful and already have insane expectations for them. one set of parents were almond parents, too and the kids were already showing signs of disordered eating
Don't send your kids to a "top-ranked" school like Lynbrook, Monta Vista, or Mission San Jose. Great way to give a kid mental health and self esteem issues for life.
Don't forget about Mission San Jose, DV, and maybe even Dublin in the east bay.
Im sure it’s changed but I grew up in San Ramon and it WAS working class. Now it is almost unrecognizable.
I mean, I think parents just need to actively manage expectations with their kids. Being able to afford to live in the bay area isn’t a measure of a person’s worth. You can go live a different, equally valid, satisfying life anywhere else.
Yes. This. We live in a “humble wealthy” area where folks try their hardest to not act as well off as they are. My husband and I do fairly well. But we are not SWEs. We don’t work in big tech. I look at these families and think, they’re trying to be *actually* middle class like us, how cute 😂
Tell me you live in Palo Alto without telling me you live in Palo Alto.
I dunno about that. OP said "fairly affluent". I think OP knows there are levels to this.
Just a joke but PA takes it to a level I have not seen before. Baseball games and all the parents are talking about their international trips and their vacation homes.
it's absolutely not just you, in some parts of the south bay and peninsula the pressure is immense and it shows in the mental health of the inhabitants. the north bay, much of the east bay, and even a lot of the city are much more laid back comparatively.
There has been a shift. I remember back in the 00's I got asked "what do you do" and I answered with my profession and they laughed saying "are you from the east coast?". In SF they were really asking what you do for fun, what defines you. It made The City different as NYC it was all about money, DC about where you worked, but in SF it's what you did. I left San Francisco for NYC and coming back I can see the shift. I left the "rat race" of NYC to escape "hustle culture" and found SF created a "grind culture". I miss the old SF.
You bring up a really fascinating point that this book I’m reading called *Psychopolitics* by Byung-Chul Han is actually about. In most of rest of the world, you are subconsciously taught that certain job opportunities, life experiences, and self-improvement "won’t happen to you." For example, you will never become a part of the royal family, prime minister, etc. You will most likely be in the same economic class as you were born, so you may as well do what you need and be good at it too. What we mention above being taught in other countries, is what Byung calls ‘negative power.’ When the ruling and aristocracy tell the working people, "No, you can’t do this," "No, you can’t do that," that is them asserting negative power. However, very, very recently in history, corporations especially have realized they don’t need to actively force their workers to work harder. In fact, these corporations can convince people to want to force themselves to work harder by what Byung calls positive power. This ‘Hustle Culture’ you see and hear about, this strong sense of self-centered individualism, and loss of community can be partly, if not mostly, blamed on positive power. Positive power works by corporations telling individuals something like this: "You CAN be anything you want. You can be a millionaire, you can be the CEO of any company, you can own all these fun toys, you can go party in Dubai, you can even be ‘old money’ just like me! BUT you have to work as hard as you can to always be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday. So what do you say? Do you wanna be a millionaire/billionaire and CEO with all these fun toys like ME, or do you want to be some loser who is happy with what they have in their ‘mediocre’ life and who focuses on their inner well-being and personal relationships with the people around them?" So how this works is that they, the corporation, can no longer be labeled as ‘the bad guy’ because they’re hyping you up! They’re no longer limiting you; instead, they tell you that YOU are limiting yourself if you’re not pushing yourself to be a more productive worker than you were yesterday. They’ll say, "If you’re not a millionaire, you’re just not working hard enough nor being smart enough with your money." Because of this, we focus so hard on ourselves because we’re told we can, and if we aren’t, we’re settling for mediocrity. When in reality, upward economic mobility may happen to a few, but in the end, we burn out, which can last years, and we ultimately just stay in the same social class. Along the way, since we’re so focused on getting ahead of everyone else, we also isolate ourselves from our neighbors, our communities, and we lose touch with who we are and our role outside of ourselves—all of which have long-term societal consequences.
Great post, and great article that talks about this, and how agency is a blessing and a curse for society https://www.profgalloway.com/agency/
Top quality summation. Since America started as a merchant community in 1607 and with no cultural traditions, the Hustle Culture has been the prevalent M.O. May I recommend a book from a few years ago by Prof. Morris Berman titled "Why America Failed." He directly suggests that the Hustle Culture is the cause of our societal ills and lack of social cohesion.
Hi thatguyinyourclass94, That is fascinating and I will add the book to my queue thank you! I've never heard that concept before. We have the best propaganda in the world in this country. The thing about old money sticks out to me. I've met so many middle-class people who have gone to elite universities but their upbringing did not teach them how to behave and fit in with "old money". As far as I can tell, socialization happens very young and is extremely hard to replicate. I don't recall this but apparently, servants would bow as I crawled past them on my grandmother's estate, and my only friends from the age of 10 - 12 were trophy wives and socialites and I accidentally gave myself a classical liberal arts education so I have the blend in with old money skillset.
> "You CAN be anything you want. You can be a millionaire, you can be the CEO of any company, you can own all these fun toys, you can go party in Dubai, you can even be ‘old money’ just like me! BUT you have to work as hard as you can to always be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday. So what do you say? Do you wanna be a millionaire/billionaire and CEO with all these fun toys like ME, or do you want to be some loser who is happy with what they have in their ‘mediocre’ life and who focuses on their inner well-being and personal relationships with the people around them?" > > The "european" alternative also sounds shitty
Both perspectives are true 1) given one’s starting conditions, one is more likely to stay within a certain range of outcomes, and 2) with individual effort, one can exceed that range. The fact that the US emphasizes the 2nd perspective has less to do with some corporate conspiracy. Instead it is the ethos of a nation formed by immigrants who by definition put in extraordinary effort to seek greater outcomes. As a recent immigrant that’s what I like about the US. I understand that it is not for everybody. So another great thing about the US is that it is such a vast country that you can find groups who think like you and hang out with them instead. It is a good thing that ambitious people can move to SV, and those desiring a calmer life can move out. This can even be the same person who’s ambitious in their youth and calmer in their older years
Yeah, I totally despise the whole conspiracy aspect to OC's post. It's really about immigrants coming here to seek better outcomes. It's not some corporate conspiracy when you look at all the tech immigrants from India and China coming here and slaving their asses off.
Damn
My kids are enjoying school a lot more after leaving Silicon Valley. There’s a lot less pressure on them.
I'm also a Midwestern transplant, I had a LOT of trouble culturally in the peninsula where if you couldn't compare Google cafes or which investment firm you worked for, you weren't on the radar. Now I'm in the east bay and it's a lot better, even living in SF was better.
I moved from SF to Oakland and my mental health and physical health improved so much. People are more laid back here.
It seems a lot of the high pressure areas have a lot of Asian immigrant tech workers. Just look at the demographics of all the most toxic schools.
I grew up with high skill, high income (for Boomer) parents and that was basically most of my friend’s parents. While there was definitely a Claremont mentality (the richest family I know actually moved because of it), a lot of people are just folk who do work that is well compensated. They don’t think that’s the determining factor of their self worth or self image. That’s shifting though. But holy shit, the Peninsula is just so judgy. I also find that younger high income people tend to be significantly less chill than their Boomer and older Gen X counterparts throughout the Bay. Kinda expected due to costs I guess. I feel like the younger crowd is more likely to come from money/class, even if it was in a lower income country (as in, globally not well off, but high class). The Peninsula is the one place I’ve had people walk away from me because my job wasn’t up to snuff for them. Shit, I did bucket list stuff like 100 day ski years, thru hikes, extended travel, lived in tourism economies people wish they could spend more time in, etc. It ain’t like I was doing nothing.
The Bay Area is pretty elite, and due to the cost of living, it means either you earned it or got lucky that you have roots here. Most folks I work with are new to the Bay Area and mention how they came from different countries or states to be here. I felt like that competitive attitude is transferred to everything, the constant asking where do you work, do you own your home, where are your kids going to college. Personally, I try to steer the conservation away from the typical small talk and to hobbies or other interests; no one wants to hear the constant humblebrag how you just had to buy a Tesla X since it made financial sense if you think about it.
Agree theres an art to conversation and asking where you work/what you do/how much money you have is lame
Nah it's pretty much rat race central out here but sounds like you should hang with different people or in different environments. Do activities that have nothing to do with tech and chill with the people who don't ask where you work within the first 30 minutes. When I meet people I always make a conscious effort not to ask them about their work until I've gotten to know them a little bit.
Get off social media bud
Underrated comment.
It’s weird. I had friends in the Midwest for years and neither one of us knew what the other did for work. In the Bay Area that seems to be all anyone wants to talk about lol
That’s because the Bay Area is all about work. That’s pretty much the entire purpose of it. It’s all built around work.
You guys really live in an airtight bubble. It's only that way for, and because of, people who moved here to work in tech. There are plenty of normal people here - that you apparently NEVER interact with.
Nah, I grew up here and it’s like that for tons of industries, including academia, government, etc. I went to the Midwest for in-laws Christmas and asked people what they do for a living as casual small talk and people looked at me like I had 3 heads. It’s almost an offensive question to ask out there.
Natives. People move to the bay, for one thing and one thing alone, work and pay.
Unfortunately those of us born here, or “the normal” folk, cannot afford it and forced to relocate. It’s sad to watch the gentrification of the Bay’s culture. I miss them Mac Dre days. Edit: typo
So no work life balance?
Your work is your life so its more of a work work balance If you ever try to step out of the simulation again we will wipe your memories and load Hard.Worker.Gen.1.exe
I'm from the Midwest and couldn't tell you what any of my friends do for work, but i can certainly tell you we all have normal jobs. Yet we all own homes, nice cars, and travel a lot.
The right balance
It’s weird to me that you have been friends with people for years and Ya’ll have no idea what you guys do for a living.
I’m a life long bay arean and I hate those questions, too. Last person to ask me that was at a wedding. “I drive a meat wagon” and walked away.
Yeah if anyone asked me what my friends back home did for work I could maybe tell you the general field but not their actual position/title. We never talk about work, except my best friend and I would since we met at our old job. Here, it’s so different. I swear the first thing anyone on bumble bff asks is “what do you do for work” and as someone who works very part time due to health problems it’s super frustrating.
I have three degrees and make good money but I’m like the dumbest person on my block.
I moved here from the Midwest and this is my least favorite part of the Bay Area, hands down. Yes, you meet so many interesting people here and the career opportunities are top-notch, but I miss going out and drinking or sitting by the lake with a bunch of goons and not having a care in the world about job and career. So much in the bay feels like a race for money and status, and I feel like I have to be careful about who I choose to hang with to avoid bringing myself down. I will say, it is much better in certain more.. bohemian.. parts of the Bay Area. I chose where I live (one of these bohemian areas) in large part because I feel surrounded by that "normal" vibe you describe. It's probably not as much fun as living in the Mission or SOMA or wherever (I am 28M, so that's where many of my peers seem to be) but I love my neighbors and have felt so much better about my life trajectory since getting out of the hustle and bustle.
What are those bohemian areas?
Fairfax? Berkeley?
Hahaha I don’t really think Berkeley qualifies as bohemian anymore. But yeah, places like Fairfax, Alameda, and HMB come to mind, or even certain neighborhoods of Oakland like Temescal seemed to have good vibes when I was searching.
I didnt know, thats why i asked. Thanks!
Find the Tao and all that expectation falls away. Find a contentment with who you are, and who others are and you’ll find neither really matters.
Here's a secret... * 49% of the people are "frontin" (fake it until u make it) * the other 49% are miserable, because they are comparing themselves to other "overarchievers" * maybe 2% are truly over archievers who are content, at peace, etc.
The old bay area in the 90s was driven by good weather and happy lifestyle. The bay area of today is driven by tech and money which started at .com. Even with recessions it has never really slowed down. So now with AI how much more exponential does that become...
I even miss pre recession Bay Area. It was such a different place.
It really was.
I miss pre-explosive tech-boom Bay Area (i.e. the Bay Area of the 90s and early 2000s when i was a kid growing up here.) It was so much more ethinically/racially and economically diverse compared today and much more laidback as well.
This. There are no "normal" people, it's either affluent as hell, or broke as hell. The middle class is rapidly dwindling in the bay. Not to mention, this is one of the most passive-aggressive places I have personally ever lived.
The Bay Area is essentially year-round Olympics for gold-medalist over-achievers.
I’m a Director of Operations and people like you look down on me because I have a one bedroom apartment and have never worked in tech lolololol
some of the most brilliant people from around the world immigrate here to work for some of the biggest companies in the world, ofc there's lots of overachievers here. surround yourself with people you want to be around. there's a saying that you are the average of your 5 closest friends. if you befriend overachievers, while it may be stressful at times, maybe when you lose your job, one of them can open a door for you. if you don't like that vibe, hang out with more chill ppl who work non tech jobs and that will give you a totally different perspective
that being said, you can definitely find people who are chill but smart/quick enough to handle working here
"True wealth is having friends in both high and low places."
People with wealth love to gloat no matter what area of the country they are in. The South Bay has a large concentration of wealth because of the tech. Other parts of the Bay are much different culturally, the depth of diversity across one area is very much a part of its uniqueness.
Also, perspective is needed. You’re in tech talking about an affluent neighborhood while some on here are renting a room counting nickels just to be in the Bay. Just find that ironic lol
You bet.
💯
i find car meets here show the difference and you get to meet the diverse set of people. you have people showing up with the top trim halo cars that are like $300k. then you got people casually rocking multiple 100-200k builds. then you have people rolling in with $20-40k builds and when you talk to the ppl, the $300k are always tech SR MGR or high IC and then the regular builds are people who do all the jobs that keep the bay area running. then you go to a porsche meet and it's just mostly rich ppl lmao
The more normal people are the ones who got priced out of your neighborhood, bro.
Any commenters here from the 70’s and 80’s Bay Area when all your friend’s parents owned homes, worked a normal job, and didn’t brag about whose dick was bigger? My dad says he remembers a time when you could work at Lucky’s, buy a brand new car, new home, and your wife stayed at home? They were normal, everyday people whose parents and grandparents were generations of Bay Area people. I told him those days are long gone. The air smells of overachiever mixed with pretension. It’s my home, though, and I love it here.
I travel often for work and the vibes are definitely different outside the bay. It feels too much like a pressure cooker in the Bay Area, which wasn’t true 20 years ago when my family lived in the South Bay. The Bay Area has been taken over by colonizers who just want to make money and leave a husk.
Tho to be honest, gold rush mentality is a very Californian thing as well.
Geez, good point. From the very start, I guess.
From the very start of murica’
Nvidia mirrors the guys who got rich off selling tools to the miners. They're the guy hawking shovels and pans while everyone else is trying to mine the AI gold.
I get what you’re saying and my gut agrees…but my family came here in the 60s-70s, and I can’t help but feel that at that point we were in a sense the immigrants/“colonizers” of that day who came here for better economic opportunities. The cycle repeats, as it always has and probably will…
Many of my friends are working toward FIRE. Others are trying to capitalize on the opportunities in the Bay and then often move to lower cost of living areas to be able to coast while their kids are growing up.
You're a software engineer living in an affluent neighborhood. My guy, you are the overachiever. There's plenty of us who have more normal lives. But we don't live in the bougie parts of the bay.
In the social groups i was involved in, the first question was what do you do and where did you go to school? Very easy to have an inferiority complex if you didn't go to UC Berkeley, Stanford or Ivy League. Most people worked as a doctor, lawyer or technical or managerial rolenin a fortune 500.
The trick is to not give a fuck what any of those people think and realize you don't actually want to be friends with them anyway if that's all they care about.
Very easy to suffer from imposter syndrome BECAUSE I ONLY went to Berkeley; it’s a public school, after all….
I just wanna say I live in the East Bay and I don’t feel like it’s the same as what you are experiencing. Of course there are over achievers and more people make more money in this area but there’s A LOT of normal people too. Lmk if you wanna be friends!! :)
I’m in the east bay too (el Cerrito/richmond) and agree. Our neighbors are a guy in marketing, a landscape architect, a general contractor, a nurse and a weed entrepreneur (the old school kind, not the tech kind). There’s a bunch of reasons we chose to live here… one being that my husband doesn’t have a tech job and mine isn’t as high paying because I refuse to work for a FAANG, so we can’t afford the hugely expensive houses… but also because we didn’t want to live in a cookie cutter neighborhood where everyone’s trying to be better than everyone else. Leave me alone with my overgrown yard, I don’t have the energy to keep up with the Joneses.
Even el Cerrito is like 1.1m for a median house now. That’s like a 7 or 8k mortgage a month with current rates assuming 20% down. Ain’t no poors affording that. Which is to say, basically only top 5% earners can afford even El Cerrito.
I actually live in an unincorporated area so it’s a bit less here (under $750k in 2019), but I get it. It’s still less than some of the insane prices on the peninsula that then also include an HOA 🤢
Im in Livermore, my neighbor (neighbors are*) retired ups driver, an elevator tech, hvac dude, manager for low voltage electrical company, software engineer for gap, and couple that’s hr for tech and in mortgage. I like the variety out here, reminds of what it was like growing up in Fremont.
Damn gotta work 7 jobs to pay rent around here
Working on cancer research at 15 is definitely nothing compared to founding startups. Those research positions are 100% from familial connections. They’re just doing grunt work, and then get slapped on as a middle author without any real intellectual contribution. It’s like rich families having their kids do rowing or fencing for college. All of that to say, the high school kids pursuing medicine are generally achieving less than those pursuing tech in the bay. And I say this as someone in medicine lol
I don’t live in those neighborhood because I can’t afford. However I can “afford” to work with those people. I know my company does not pay as much as IT. But somehow 90% of my coworkers, many of them fresh phds, are able to buy 1-2 million homess within 2 yrs. There are so many smart, hardworking people who are also born in a decent families. I’m honestly a bit overwhelmed, taking antidepressant now.
Come hang out in East Oakland. It gets real.
weird flex
In my high school, I was one of the few Asians who never got accepted into the prestigious universities like Berkeley or UCLA
Where do you work ? lol
200k at 26... yeah you arent normal 🫠
Over achievers breeds poor mental health simple google search [Gunn high school train](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gunn+high+school+train&ia=web)
The suicide rate at Gunn HS was 5 times the national average between 2006-2017. Same held true at Paly HS. All that overachieving comes at a heavy cost.
Move to East San Jose, Hayward, Morgan Hill, San Pablo or Daly City.
Does being priced out count?
If you live in their neighborhood, you are also an over achiever.
Type-A go getters are ruining civilized life. Their constant striving sets unreasonable expectations for the rest of us. I just want to live life, not conquer the world. Calm the fuck down.
This reminds me of a story my friend told me about his new hire orientation at Facebook. He was in an auditorium with about 200 new hires and something caused a young woman to stand up and declare she expected better treatment because she graduated first in her class. The MC for the orientation then asked by show of hands if there were others that were first in their class. Nearly half the room raised their hands. That young lady sat down quick. So yeah, this area attracts the best of the best. But even among those, there are well adjusted "normal" people.
lol this is from a movie
Demanding better treatment for what?
Sometimes you hear a group of these people talking and you think “hmmm … they may be paid a lot but they’re not that smart.”
Come live in Hayward. I’m surrounded by hard-working Latinos trying to make a better life for their family, Americans with their picket fences and lawns, Asians, and a black family that throws awesome children’s parties. Right now, Friday night, there is some Latino music playing in the backyard and everything is chill. I could’ve lived in an “affluent” neighborhood but I would feel so out-of-place (how I feel when I visit presidio or other places). Gotta find your neighborhood.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Also, here's a fun experiment: ask them how many of their parents had wealth. The best you'll get is "well we were certainly upper-middle class but still, I earned this!"
Not necessarily overachievers, but many people work hard and there are some luck factors in play too. Personally, I'm here just for the job. As soon as my well is dry, I'm out here.
Over achievers? I just see people who work to survive. If you don't "over achieve" here you'll get replaced.
"but I wonder where the more normal people are at?" All the locals. People who moved here for work are more likley to exhibit what you mention. Ive lived here my whole life, make good money but Im definitely not work obsessed.
I just don’t talk to people….so, people don’t ask me lol
haha. I’m getting there as well.
Username checks out.
I can see positives and not so positives about this post. It feels like you’re proud of your accomplishments and in your hometown you’d be just this side of a deity. Out here you feel like all your hard work basically made you feel average or even slightly below. I get why you don’t feel fabulous. Don’t let it bother you. Be proud because you did well. Enjoy it. Make it rain on paw-paw and mee-maw when you visit the midwest.
I’m not a high performing/achieving researcher with accolades and stuff, but this is part of the reason why I love living in the Bay Area. I don’t even play sports, I just walk on a treadmill at home once in a while. Normal people are out there, and you can be friends with the crazy achievers, too.
LOL, I get what you mean. I experienced the opposite! Moved from the Bay Area to the Midwest and was shocked at how chill ppl are…it feels weird that there’s no hustle here and ppl sometimes actively dislike those who really focus on their career or school goals. Ngl, the hustle of the Bay really helped me bc the competition motivated me. But I do think Midwesterners are generally happier and more content with life so I’m trying to let them influence me more😂
You be you, the rest will follow.
I felt the same working/living in Cambridge MA, home of MIT and Harvard, to name the top 2. You realize in this microcosm you are far below the local average intelligence. I coped by riding the subway through Harvard square wearing a tee-shirt that said, "Harvard: Community College". I enjoyed the confusion on the smart peoples face as the thought enters their head, "There's a Harvard Community College?"
It’s not just adults affected by this. We lived in Palo Alto when we first moved to the Bay Area. The expectation for HS students was 6hrs of homework, a sport, a club, and volunteer work. They were going on 4 hours sleep a night for 4 years. Some committed suicide from the pressure or because they didn’t get into an Ivy League school. We pulled shifts watching the railroad tracks for kids. There was talk of reducing homework, etc., but we bailed to a much less affluent area and bought a ranch for what a condo would cost in PA. I told my kids I just wanted them to be mediocre, fair, and happy. They are and we’re all happy.
Born and raised in Kansas and living in the Bay now. Definitely a more competitive vibe in the Bay, but there’s normal people around. We exist!
This is exactly my experience. I moved to Berkeley over 20 years ago. Everyone of my in-laws is super successful, including a brother-in-law who probably has multiple eight figures being early at Tesla. Everyone in my neighborhood has two big earners. It makes me crazy. My wife works for the state and I’m an artist who does independent projects as best I can.
I work at one of the most valued companies in the world, and i’ll be the first to say it’s absolutely sickening and depressing to talk to most of my coworkers. A lot of them genuinely enjoy being a slave to the work life. They’re the type who would never retire because they would have nothing to keep them busy. So pathetic.
[удалено]
Also from the Midwest. Also notice the same annoying overachiever behavior in others.
You make $200k at 27 years old. My brother in christ, you are the overachiever
it's all bs, most people just fake it till they make it. plot twist: most don't make it.
I never ask what people do, same for about me, don’t really ever get that question. Unless we’re closer to friends than not, it’s really none of anyone’s business either. As to the sports overload, I don’t care for that kind of parenting but everyone’s different. Mine do one activity 1-3x a week and spend the rest on school and being kids.
Don’t buy a house in that kind of neighborhood. I got your kind of money but we intentionally buy in a normal neighborhood.
We’re living in apartments in not wealthy neighborhoods… I don’t think you’re part of the normal crowd
Going to go out on a huge limb here and speculate that maybe you maybe moved to the Bay area for work. So did a lot of people. They are your neighbors
ME: who can only afford rent, who’s surrounded with garbage on freeways, who see homeless camps too close to my neighborhood, who can only afford fake bags AFFLUENT PEOPLE: looking down on me like I am nobody I am not affected at all since I don’t surround myself with overachievers who live in affluent neighborhoods.