are you high-agency or an NPC? - by Jasmine Sun

The AI gold rush has sparked a vibe shift in San Francisco. The city is flush with money again after the post-ZIRP recession of 2022. Cracked 22-year-old coders are telling the world they’re going to “solve hurricanes” and the "national debt.” Lurie is mayor, nature is healing, the technology brothers are back with a vengeance. Take a look—$100 million salaries, glitzy hype videos for fundraises, lavish parties with dress codes—Silicon Valley is swelling with Trump-era opulence—blustery, spendy, and male. It is easy to think from the outside that San Francisco is the one place on earth insulated from crisis. Everyone else is living in fear of political upheaval and mass job loss, while the rich nerds discovered suit jackets and now they’re the ones on top. “My mutuals run the world,” goes one Twitter refrain. For the tech industry as a whole, this may be true. But for most individual participants, the swagger is a gilded surface, paper-thin. To make an analogy: while most English-langu

The AI gold rush has sparked a vibe shift in San Francisco. The city is flush with money again after the post-ZIRP recession of 2022. Cracked 22-year-old coders are telling the world they’re going to “solve hurricanes” and the "national debt.” Lurie is mayor, nature is healing, the technology brothers are back with a vengeance. Take a look—$100 million salaries, glitzy hype videos for fundraises, lavish parties with dress codes—Silicon Valley is swelling with Trump-era opulence—blustery, spendy, and male. It is easy to think from the outside that San Francisco is the one place on earth insulat