The reason that old canard doesn't carry a lot of weight around SV and the other tech hubs is that a lot of rank-and file, non-manager techies actually _are_ millionaires.
All the rampant stupidity on here and elsewhere about how well tech employees are supposedly paid is simple to vanquish: divide by the median home price within a 30 minute commute of the office.
Why settle for this?
You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar business[0] for all to see? It should be rather self-evident why tired, old classist rhetoric doesn't get taken very seriously, particularly on a startup-oriented site like HN.
"Why settle for this?" I ask you in turn: why would anyone in SV settle for the stifling mediocrity and onerous rules of a union when millions are out there to be had for any with the courage and drive to try for it?
[0] "Including more than 400 active companies–Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe, Twitch, Homejoy and more–the market capitalization of Y Combinator startups exceeds $30 billion, according to the accelerator's president, Sam Altman." -- https://www.fastcompany.com/3033215/the-value-of-y-combinato...
Of course. Why preach to the converted? And if you think "classists arguments" are outdated in an era of inequality unseen in the US since the 19th century, perhaps look more to history.
>why would anyone in SV settle for the stifling mediocrity and onerous rules of a union when millions are out there to be had for any with the courage and drive to try for it?
Because under the conditions of contemporary Capitalism, believing in venture capital as your ladder to the moon is as mythically fictitious as your description of unions.
Don't get me wrong - technology and its impact on society is as revolutionary as was industrialization. But it's also obvious that a similar class of robber barons is attempting to subvert this revolution into a new Gilded Age. In that era, the laboring classes, through their solidarity and protest, stopped their children and families from being worked to death, their land being poisoned, and generally having their futures stolen from them. What you have the privilege of calling "stifling mediocrity" is only because of their sacrifice.
