WSJ: Tech Workers ‘Feel Alienated’ by Left-Wing Silicon Valley Echo Chamber

Like Peter Thiel, who recently moved from Silicon Valley to Los Angeles after facing repeated attacks from far-left activists, many tech workers are starting to “feel alienated” by Silicon Valley’s left-wing echo chamber according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Several tech workers and entrepreneurs also have said they left or plan to leave the San Francisco Bay Area because they feel people there are resistant to different social values and political ideologies.”

Angel investor Tom McInerney, who fled Silicon Valley “a decade ago,” claimed to the Journal that “the politics of San Francisco have gotten a little bit crazy.”

“The Trump election was super polarizing and it definitely illustrated — and Peter [Thiel] said this — how out of touch Silicon Valley was,” he continued, while investor and 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss moved to Austin, Texas, last year, claiming that people in Silicon Valley “openly lie to one another out of fear of losing their jobs or being publicly crucified.”

Following his relocation, Ferriss declared that the people in Texas were “much friendlier.”

Startup entrepreneur and blockchain engineer Preethi Kasireddy also departed San Francisco last year, noting that those in Silicon Valley “have a certain way of thinking, and if you don’t fit into that way of thinking you’re not in the cool club,” while former Google software engineer Dan Hackney, “who describes his political views as adhering to Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy,” quit his job at the company in January, “after growing frustrated with what he saw as a lack of tolerance for conservative views at the company.”

In their report, the Wall Street Journal explains that though Hackney “doesn’t support Mr. Trump,” he is worried “that Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who attended the [post-election] meeting, were setting a tone that it was OK to exclude certain types of political views from the dialogue in the workplace.”

“In that meeting it felt very much like, if you are a Trump supporter, you are out in the cold,” Hackney expressed.

Even other tech CEOs, such as Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia, are leaving San Francisco over the lack of ideological diversity.

“I would meet someone for coffee or dinner or drinks, and I felt like I was just having the same conversation over and over again,” proclaimed Lavingia, who relocated to Provo, Utah.

According to a recent lawsuit filed by former Google engineer James Damore, who was fired from the company after publishing his viewpoint diversity manifesto, Google’s definition of diverse was just “women or individuals who were not Caucasian or Asian,” and those who were considered “diverse” were more likely to be hired and promoted.

Last year, it was reported that even Silicon Valley leaders had started to become worried over political correctness culture, which FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called out Twitter, YouTube, and other major tech companies for censoring conservatives and libertarians.

in 2016, Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey and his girlfriend were viciously harassed after it was revealed he had donated money in support of an anti-Hillary Clinton organization.

Luckey left both Facebook and Oculus VR just six months after being attacked, while his girlfriend was harassed off of Twitter.