When you get down to it, Silicon Valley is just a company town. Let's call the company "Technology Inc". Pretty much everybody works for the company, just like in Rochester they all work for Kodak and in Armonk they all work for IBM. Total employment in the Bay Area is 1.3 million, with an increase in employment of 200,000 since 1992. But all of them don't work for Technology Inc. There are (shock!) other things going on here. What's it like not to work for Technology Inc? What does "the company" look like from the outside?
The company Ron Marsh works for doesn't even need electricity, let alone silicon, to demo its products. Mr Marsh is a national account manager for The Scotts Company, producer of Miracle-Gro, Weedol and other garden essentials. He's based in the Bay Area and looks after huge Scotts customers such as Home Depot. Mr Marsh is married to a partner in one of the Valley's hottest Web design firms, so a lot of his socialising is with technology types. "I can't participate in about half of the conversations at events we attend," says Mr Marsh. "That used to bother me, but it doesn't any more. It's just another person's job, in a different industry. But everybody always talks shop."
Although Mr Marsh says he sometimes feels like a "pariah" at such events, when he travels to Scotts's headquarters in Ohio he gets a totally different treatment. "They see me as a technology guru," he says, "as if I picked up all the technology knowledge in the Valley by osmosis." He gets asked questions about spreadsheets and presentations, email and electronic data interchange (EDI is a hot topic among Scotts's retail customers). He's even been approached to participate in the further development of Scotts's Web presence, but declined, preferring horticulture to almost certain geek-hero status at the company.
Another Valley inhabitant who doesn't work for Technology Inc is Mika Younce, who left a hectic career and travel schedule as a producer/director for corporate videos and events to become a groom at the Stanford University Equestrian Centre. Ms Younce, also married to a high-flying Valley executive, doesn't miss her former lifestyle. "I watch the stressed-out executives as they race in here at the last minute for their riding lesson," she says, "and I think `I've been that person' and I'm so grateful to be with my horses instead." Ms Younce also notices that technology people only want to talk shop. "They're almost condescending to me when they realise I am not in their business." Ms Younce can provide a sympathetic ear to her harried riders, but she notices that they find it hard to move out of their work mode. "Riding demands full attention," she says, "accidents happen when you're distracted." She can easily tell when someone's not concentrating in the ring. One of her charges, a biochemist, regularly tumbles from his horse during his sessions. "We shout `leave it at the lab' at him!" she says.
Both Ms Younce and Mr Marsh feel they can't avoid all the tech talk around them, but they are dismissive of the obsessive nature of tech executives. They also both worry about the lifestyles of the Valley people they know.
"They never switch off," according to Mr Marsh. "They see it as a badge of honour to work 60- or 80-hour weeks, and they'll always tell you how hard they are working. When I say I'm proud to be working just 40 hours a week, they look at me as if I'm crazy."
Frank O'Mahony can be contacted at frank@liffey.com
