The Three Bay Areas

The elites, the bohos, and the working class

Keith A. Spencer
The Bold Italic
Published in
10 min readMar 13, 2017

Photo: edwardhblake/Flickr; altered by the author

One

You grew up in one of these five counties: Marin, Santa Clara, Orange, Loudoun or Westchester. You went to a private high school that cost $40,000 a year to attend, yet when you mention it, you emphasize that it “almost bankrupted your parents,” one of whom is an engineer, and the other of whom is a clinical psychologist who has written two best-selling self-help books.

You attended an Ivy League school (or Stanford) and majored in either computer science or business with an emphasis in sustainability. You had no student debt — or if you did, you paid it off within 18 months of graduating. Your first post-college job had a salary of $85,000. You feel somewhat bitter about this fact because one of your acquaintances from your alma mater made $240,000 straight out of college working at Google, and you know you’re smarter than them.

When you first move to San Francisco, you rent a room in a contemporary condo complex across the street from the 4th and King Caltrain station to facilitate an easy commute to Silicon Valley. This room costs $2,200 a month — a steal. Your three housemates, who all have JD degrees, work 90 hours a week, eat only Blue Apron meals and Whole Foods hot-bar boxes, and always leave the granite kitchen counter dirty and covered in IPA…

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Written by Keith A. Spencer

Senior Editor, Salon.com. Previously Editor-in-Chief of The Bold Italic. “A People’s History of Silicon Valley” is out now: https://bit.ly/2vIe6fG