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This is a slap in the face to everyone who tries to get ahead in life by, you know, learning stuff (like programming) and improving their skills.

The gangster route is for people who don't like the modest work to reward ratio that ordinary work brings - they want to risk more to get more. And by doing that, they make other people's life miserable.

Malcolm Gladwell has just lost every respect I ever had for him. The way he argues is like saying: "Yeah well, they were bad guys back then, but only because weren't rich yet, so they kind of had to be gangsters".

3 comments

Please elaborate on how Mike and Chuck were realistically going to become coding experts in a situation where they were 13 years old and their mom was addicted to crack, not bringing food home, and selling random household items or prostituting herself for petty cash.

I have to agree that this is a different situation.

Still, I'm not convinced that all those guys selling crack on the corner are trying to help their poor mother - its the draw of easy money.

Or more accurately, the draw of money. What other realistic options do people have coming from certain inner-city environments.

If you've ever tried to succeed during a busy week at work when there's a massive loud construction project outside your window and felt a little under capacity, imagine living in the same one room apartment with a crack addict for 15 years.

Of course it's the draw of easy money. Isn't that the whole point? If you want to cut down on crime, make legitimate money easier to obtain (and/or make criminal money harder to obtain).

Did you read the article? In almost every instance, most good jobs were unavailable to immigrants and members of a cultural or racial minority.

These criminals only wanted respect and the same things other Americans had a birthright to. They believed organized crime was the only way to achieve the same standard of living.

Perhaps he's a part of the "meritocracy" of Silicon Valley's start-up culture?

The ~99% white male meritocracy, apparently they're the only ones who are where they are due to merit.

Hmm, I think there are two possible meanings of meritocracy:

a) those who can compete, succeed by merit b) everyone can compete, and those who compete, succeed by merit

It's clear that Silicon Valley doesn't fit the latter definition, but it's possible that it fits the first definition.

Even if 100% of American citizens could compete in the Silicon Valley's start-up culture and it would be a 100% perfect meritocracy, it still wouldn't necessarily be a global meritocracy. Just being born in the United States increases one's probability to gain access to this market.

I'm from Europe, and let me say we had very little money in our family. Software devs in the US are apparently well paid and in high demand - are people that racist they they wouldn't hire black devs? Of all lines of work, I have the impression that IT is one of the most open and socially conscious fields there is.

> Software devs in the US are apparently well paid and in high demand - are people that racist they they wouldn't hire black devs? Of all lines of work, I have the impression that IT is one of the most open and socially conscious fields there is.

The problem would be two fold: there are numerically few black developers due to problems with the pipeline for education, which disproportionately affects black people, and in general hiring practices have a bias against black people.

The impression that IT is more open and socially conscious is just that, an impression. There is nothing that demonstrates IT as a profession or as individuals are more socially conscious than any other group of people. In fact, many of the current problems with regards to IT culture mirror the same problems in other aspects of business in society.

I also have the impression that "IT is one of the most open and socially conscious fields there is", but I think it's only a temporary situation that is happening only because the field can't afford to be less open.

IT sector is in a golden age, the times where there's more demand for programmers than people available for the job. The field so desperate for even mediocre workers that it gets its recruiters to keep cold-calling and spamming people in hope someone will change a job. It's extremely hard to find talent, even harder to retain it, so companies just can't afford stupidities like discrimination. Being socially conscious is actually a signalling method - "yes, we don't discriminate; yes, we're that awesome! yes; you should come to work at our place".

But wait a generation or two, when there will be more talent than jobs available - IT will start looking like every other sector. Recruiters will stop calling and we'll all be subject to the same amount of discrimination, politics and overall workplace-abuse as everyone else.

Based on my impression (as an outsider) of the tech scene in Silicon Valley you are probably more likely to be discriminated against for having socially conservative views than liberal ones.

Yeah, the startup culture "meritocracy" - that is, as long as you don't completely suck, your position is proportional to your activity on local meetups, particularly the ones frequented by investors.

I have, from start to finish. Everyone wants respect, that doesn't mean its ok be a gangster. What about the loan shark victims that could never repay their debt? What about the little store owners that had to pay protection money?

Now running a little store by yourself will not get you the same respect as having your daughter ride horses in some rich part of town, but seriously - does that make it suddenly ok to become a criminal?

Only suckers help the ungrateful.