I feel like some of this may be more pronounced in areas like SV. Specifically, areas of the highest competition. The personality traits that correlate most strongly with success are: high conscientiousness, high stress tolerance, and low agreeableness. Of course it makes sense that the people in the areas of stiffest competition in tech are in an environment of high stress and are generally really disagreeable to be around. This is going to be the case at the top of any field with stiff competition.
I live in a 2nd tier city (not NY, SF, LA, etc) and these depictions of the "tech industry" are unfamiliar to me. Sure, there's the odd asshole, but those are everywhere. I feel like people around SV and other high competition big cities are generalizing about the industry in a way that doesn't reflect my day to day life.
It's hard to generalize but I don't think it's true for the kinds of things Valerie Aurora cares about. My experience is that those competitive SV companies have the most supportive culture when it comes to marginalized minorities, while software companies that aren't in SV and aren't run like SV tech companies are closer to non-tech companies, both in terms of sensitivity towards minorities and political orientation of their people.
Running around yelling from the mountaintops about how many minorities you have, treating them like trophies, is not the same as sensitivity. Further, I don't know how you could suggest Google/Twitter/etc. have a sensitivity towards differing political orientations given the ongoing scandals of demonetization, censoring, etc. and the now famous DaMore memo. "Minority political orientation" doesn't mean the same thing in rural Mississippi as it means in San Francisco.
You misread - I was saying "software companies that aren't in SV and aren't run like SV tech companies are closer to non-tech companies, both in terms of (sensitivity towards minorities) and (political orientation of their people)". You can take that however you want but whatever the merits of your criticism, it has nothing to do with what Valerie Aurora is saying. She's not saying the political progressivism of tech companies is toxic. All I'm saying here is that SV tech companies are rare in the corporate world in that they take her concerns seriously and have lots of people in leadership that are highly sympathetic to her views.
I live in a 2nd tier city (not NY, SF, LA, etc) and these depictions of the "tech industry" are unfamiliar to me. Sure, there's the odd asshole, but those are everywhere. I feel like people around SV and other high competition big cities are generalizing about the industry in a way that doesn't reflect my day to day life.