Listen, we understand the desire to reside in a big ol’ tech bubble. It’s so warm and cozy here, with beanbags for office chairs, free lunches prepared by gourmet chefs and cashed-out friends lending you spare Burning Man costumes. Why would you ever want to leave?
But sometimes the need for a reality check burns a hole in your chest, just beneath your hand-sewn, perfectly tailored Everlane shirt. While whipping through the city in an Uber expensed to your corporate card, you might grow a little wistful, hot tears fogging your Warby Parker specs. As you listen to MGMT on the iPod you got as a company Christmas gift, you might become nostalgic for a time when “pitching” referred to baseball and you could easily relate to How The Other Half Lives.
Thus was the case for one poor Quora user, who admitted that they had become so entrenched in the tech climate that they needed to poke their head out from behind the Macbook and ask, “What are some things I’d be shocked to learn about the outside world?”
Oh. You, sir or madame, are in for a treat.
For example, did you know that 50 percent of the population is female? In fact, as one Susan Wu put it, “Most of the world is not 16-29 year old males. There’s a whole range of perspectives that go underrepresented in Silicon Valley. There are a lot of women out there. Older folks. Also, it might be hard to imagine, but there are a lot of kids not growing up on video games.”
Take a deep breath. We understand if you need another swig of that artisan lager you’re allowed to drink any time you damn well please because every day is a summer Friday at a startup.
But wait–there’s more.
“Most people have never heard of Instagram, Square, Dropbox, AirBnB. Most people don’t live on Coke or organic green tea drinks. Most people don’t ‘calendar in’ their friends.”
Still there, poor Quora questioner?
…Hello?
