Silicon Valley companies should just f*ck-the-shut-up about changing the world when they consistently haven't been able to change anything locally. For decades now, East Palo Alto remains a ghetto, the Tenderloin is still the poorest, most deprived neighborhood in San Francisco, and our public schools have only a 50% graduation rate. And the tech companies are willing to let things stay that way. Their techno-optimism doesn't require any techno-activism, it's as if the technology itself is the agent of change without any human direction or determination required.

It should be embarrassing to say, "Yes, we're inventing the future here" — but it looks the same as the past. But there is no embarrassment because there is no self-awareness.

Dan Primack of Fortune was asked, "why so many outside Silicon Valley vilify those within it." He replied:

The Valley's public figures often seem to exude a particularly insular narcissism – that so long as the tech biz is thriving then everything else is largely irrelevant…

It also probably doesn't help that so much of the local tech press is personally friendly with industry insiders — thus prompting outside media to be particularly harsh (as a counter-example, not as much NYC financial press spends its free time with bankers or PE execs — there's much more of a separation).