Mr. Mathewson-

I am writing regarding your article "Geo-bias is bad for business" (August 2000). I think you are totally off, and actually a lot of your article is quite offensive. I think your problem lies in your prejudices toward people from Silicon Valley and not their issues with outsiders. I work in Pleasanton, Calif., and just about any job is like what you described, not just in the Web world. It's a matter of simple logic. If you can get paid more and get treated better elsewhere, why would you stay with a company that pays your less and treats you poorly? Your article is typical of company management: Keep overhead low and talent high. That's all I ever hear. But what you really care about is keeping overhead low and profits high. Don't try and write an article complaining about Silicon Valley workers. Just say that you're upset because it costs more to employ Silicon Valley workers because of the high cost of living out here in the Bay Area. It's not our fault we demand more; we need it to live! I'm not saying it's right, but that's the truth. So don't make it seem as though we're the bad guys; we're not. We're just trying to make a living, same as you.

Philip Tep
tep_philip_o@bns.att.com

Philip,

I want to take this opportunity to apologize to our Bay Area and Silicon Valley readers. The column was at best insensitive towards them and at worst offensive. In fact, I have a great deal of respect for a lot of people in that area and I like the area itself. How could I not? It is the birthplace of the digital revolution and still the center of the tech universe. My comments were not intended as a personal affront to Bay Area readers and I take full responsibility for phrasing them in a way that made that interpretation easy. Suffice to say if I had to do it over again, I would write that article very differently.

But, just as I'm sure Al Gore wishes he could take back his "I invented the Internet" comment, I will have to live with this column probably for the rest of my tenure as editor. In lieu of being able to take it back, please accept my apology and let me explain what I was trying to say.

Areas like Silicon Valley, Billville, Route 128, etc., enjoy a certain status that is creating a digital divide between technohubs and the rest of the country. Don't get me wrong. They deserve their status. But this status has two related negative consequences. First, as you point out, growth in these areas is driving up costs of living to the point where tech workers need much more in order to live comfortably than they would in other areas of the country. This drives up costs for businesses. If businesses choose to pay those costs, that's their choice. But they don't need to. They could get by with some of their operations in areas outside of the technohubs if they opened their minds to that possibility.

Second, the resistance to thinking outside the "technohub or bust" box is more fundamental--what I call geo-racism, an elitism that maintains if you're not doing tech business in a technohub, you're not worth partnering with, investing in, etc. Until this bias is removed from the minds of tech-management and venture firms, we will have continuing skyrocketing costs in IT; beautiful places like the Bay Area will continue to be more choked by traffic and smog; and areas like the Midwest will continue to languish economically.

James Mathewson, editorial director