This seems to be a recurrent theme throughout the article. All of the sideways conversations he hears and lamenting how we've become slaves to the data, and how all the people around him fit this stereotype or that stereotype.

It's interesting to note my father worked for Control Data in the 70's and 80's during its heyday. He spent a lot of time in SV during those formidable years of the valley. When I got older, I asked him why we never moved out there, and why he never took a job in the Valley if it was the coolest place to be for tech.

He said a lot of the same things mentioned in this article - about the suffocating culture, people "faking it until they make it", the tons of businesses being built on what he called, "bullshit and blue skies". He said it wasn't a place he wanted to raise his family, so we stayed in the Midwest instead. He's always maintained he was fine living as a passive participant in how technology took off and where it is today.

I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same huh?