Let’s take a minimally critical look at Palo Alto’s history. Simply enough, if there was any tide of social consideration amongst these tech communities, Palo Alto, Bay Area, etc. would not have turned into the dystopia it now is. There would be less wealth and more humanity. Theee’s nothing complicated about this unless you insist on disbelief.
The “start-up space” is a misnomer of progressivism.
“Start-ups” are technocratic race-to-the-bottom capitalist entities; precisely the enemy of social concern since the advent of social concern. There’s nothing in Karl Marx’s works that does not apply to start-ups. You’d do best to just call them businesses because this term “start-up” apparently has an addictive element that causes some people’s eyes to glaze over giving a sense of unmitigated positivity. And maybe the hope is positive for themselves but not for others, and that is the problem.
That wasn't a criticism of free software at all just a note that it hasn't materialized into any sort of career enforcement or fencing in contrast to existing professional movements and demands. Free software is for the software's sake more than levers of power. It shouldn't be expected to really in the same sense that one wouldn't expect to see doctors kidnapping unvaccinated children to immunize them - even if it would technically help with the problem it misses the primary purpose and causes other issues.
I was trying to detach my analysis from my own viewpoints for concern of tooting my own horn.
I had considered pride and exceptionalism as motivations but decided not to delve into them as too speculative and spinny in the same sense of "Did he become a firefighter to impress women, for the pension, or desire to save lives." The why is ironically immediately irrelevant when it comes to society - they are just glad to have someone fighting fires. The relevance only comes in when trying to calibrate numbers.