Silicon Valley and the myth of cool

There is a myth of coolness that has perpetrated the very essence of Silicon Valley culture — a solid, binary assumption of what’s in and what’s out.

Silicon Valley has become a place where ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’ comprise a Venn diagram with two circles miles and miles apart.

Binary definitions

I was branded uncool last Friday at a technology startup nestled in San Francisco’s Financial District. This office was constructed to house just a few hundred people, there were snacks in the kitchen, and everyone owned standing desks. Yoga balls were just bouncing around.

It was in this kitchen where I met a male executive of the company.

“You work at *?” he says, “That’s super stodgy.”

“I can see what you mean.”

“There’s no innovation. And you live in San Francisco? How do you get to work?”

“The shuttle takes me to South Bay.”

“* provides shuttles? They’re cooler than I thought. It’s just kind of funny that you commute from San Francisco to San Jose; it’s like going from somewhere cool to somewhere not cool.”

A little background…

Silicon Valley has been the epicenter for the media’s concept of geek chic for a few years now — mythic tales of genius kids who create startups and become billionaires. It’s the Zuckerbergs, Spiegels, and Musks who have become the mascots of the technology that’s revolutionized the world.

Many have flooded to the area in hopes of achieving the same status. Silicon Valley’s oft-sited motto of “wanting to improve the world” has steadily changed into something more like “wanting to help myself”.

Rooting for the underdog

Older startups were characterized by engineers and business kids coming to the city straight out of college and building a company on their own. Their no-rules, wear-what-you-want attitude have helped breed a culture where rebellion and fighting the man is rewarded with the sought-after brand of cool.

It’s Apple’s humble garage beginnings being touted as legend and the Facebook origin story marking its place in American folklore with David Fincher’s The Social Network.

Role change

After years of the most talented and innovative coming into Silicon Valley, prices in the Bay Area have skyrocketed and the industry has become saturated and incredibly competitive.

It turns out that folks who come to make it in Silicon Valley startups today are some of the most privileged people in the world — while there’s no real doubt of their intelligence or creativity, education and wealth do play a huge factor.

Because of this, the startup exec finds the ability to live in one of the most expensive metropolises is “cool”, but living just an hour south of there is not. Similarly, having commute shuttles like the Googles and Facebooks of the world is “cool”, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the company providing the shuttles still remains stodgy.

Perhaps what defines cool in Silicon Valley today is less about a company’s roots and more about the innovation its money can bring.

Either way, it seems like the underdog radicals that defined the area just a few years ago have been replaced by the very entitled people they were working against. And that’s not very cool.