Does Silicon Valley Have An Empathy Problem?

Yes it does

I live in Silicon Valley home of the $700 parking space, the $2.5 million two bedroom house, and where software engineers fresh out of college routinely get $160,000 or more comp packages (including bonus and equity) from Google and Facebook.

It’s also the place where most of the apps we spend our days on are created (Instagram, Facebook, Robinhood, Doordash, YouTube, etc.). But given that the designers, product managers, and engineers are all making several times ($150K plus, and sometimes much more) the U.S. median household income of $60,000, it’s fair to wonder whether all of us Silicon Valley techies are out of touch.

We are supposedly building software to improve the lives of the average Joes and Janes that make up our user bases. But how can people that haven’t experienced the life of an average Joe build apps for them? How can people with fully-stocked snack bars, lunch and dinner provided for free, and on-site gyms (and the time to actually use them) understand the daily juggling act that is say the life of a single parent?

They can’t. Entrepreneurs claim noble intentions, but their actions and the products they ultimately develop often show those claims to be false.

At the end of the day, apps and tech companies are all about user lifetime value. The people who build the apps we use get a lot of their comp via stock and stock options. The bigger the user base, and the stickier and higher spend each user is, the more valuable their company’s shares will be.

So when you wonder what the motivation is of the folks building your favorite apps it’s:

App builders don’t have your best interests at heart. They are thinking primarily about their own bank accounts. Facebook is a great example that when profits and…

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