My first impression of Silicon Valley vs Uncanny Valley : A Memoir by Anna Wiener

Fresh off the boat, San Francisco Bay Area / Silicon Valley was my first home in the US of A. Above is a screenshot of an old blog post from my now defunct Live Journal describing my very first impressions, written 4 years after the said impressions were first registered. The static nature of the content is a tell-tale sign that it belongs to a prehistoric time when blog posts and not reaction videos ruled the day. 

Silicon Valley was and is a bubble, floating in an ether of its own making, far above in the exosphere and beyond the comprehension of the rest of America and the world. It is a strange place full of contradictions that questions its own existence. Is it for real? How could such a place exist where a roof over your head - the rent of a one-bed apartment could set you back $4-5K/month easily but you could get a filling burrito from a hole in the wall eatery for $5?

Anna Wiener calls it the uncanny valley in her memoir, "Uncanny Valley." Documenting her move from East coast to SFO after accepting a job at an eBook startup,  Wiener's memoir provides access to the inside track of the Silicon valley in 2010s populated with 20-somethings. Reflecting on the peculiar feelings that Silicon Valley evokes, the title could also be a play on words pointing to Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori's original concept of the uncanny valley. 

You know you have arrived in downtown San Francisco if you can spot homeless people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the logos of Silicon Valley companies taking a shit on the sidewalk. A city of opposites where the homeless junkie shares the streets with hoodied 20-something CEO of a startup, both probably wearing the same hoodies although most tech companies have a strict policy not to give away company merchandise to people who do not provide any value to the company.

As you walk/read/proceed across the (uncanny) valley in the shadow of meth, you will fear no evil, for Ms.Wiener walks among angels(investors), evangelists, CEOs, CTOs and brogrammers who would rather overdose on protein bars and vitamin D pills. Reading the 2010s version of the tech boom, I realize the Valley has not changed at all from the dotcom boom era of the late 90s-early 2000s that I briefly brushed against. It is still riding the roaring twenties. It will always be the roaring twenties in Silicon Valley. I am older and too tired to keep up. I am glad we got out of that forever young place while we were still nimble to make a break.

Most of Wiener's observations about San Francisco's tech industry elicit a sigh of relief from me. It is similar to the calm feeling you get after committing the premeditated murder of your Facebook account. You no longer have to play catch-up with your 500 'friends' posts and their photos living the high/lie-life. You can live at your own pace, stress-free.The tech-bros in Japanese denim can micro-dose and meditate on their next big disruption or take nootropics and bio-hack their way to being the pioneers of the better world they aim to create. 

But you are free. You are delighted to find that you are still in a world where you can be a wee bit evil and you are not pressured to think different all the time. You are no longer part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem. It could be a different planet for all you care. In case you still want to keep in touch, once in a blue moon, read inter-planetary dispatches like Ms.Wiener's. She does a really good job as an outsider looking in. The outsider who almost became an insider and bowed out before being sucked into the cult of the Valley.