Venkatesh Rao

I think I stopped tapping into SV ley lines shortly after I published Breaking Smart S1 (the software eating world essays)... 2015 maybe? I still work in tech as far as consulting work goes (I’d guess ~50% of income is still SV) but it’s no longer the spiritual Mecca it once was.

In a way it was a supernova that exploded. The heavy elements are streaming across the world. What’s left behind is a very pretty nebula and a rapidly spinning neutron star. Still interesting to engage in other ways, but no longer the most vital source of writing-energy around.

I don’t think I’ve found alternative collective unconscious energies to tap into since 2015. I’ve become more self-sustaining/self-contained. Kinda like how space missions tend to switch from solar power to onboard nuclear power beyond Jupiter.

There are no big, public, external psyche energy sources now. Since SV went supernova (what was the precipitating event?) the world’s cultural energy landscape has become a lot more diffuse. SV pre-2015 was pretty unique. It was a huge ball of solutionism fusion energy.

It’s still financially thriving and the deal-making goes on even more furiously, but it now more of a New York style financial energy. A superego/ego energy. Not the more id-like solutionist energy that is great for writers to tap into.

SV will remain a finically center for a long time. It’s been a century or more since New York and London went though similar phase transitions and they’re still citadels of high finance. Sandhill Road has merely joined the ranks of Wall Street and the London financial district.

Cultural energy landscapes go through cycles of being plugged into a late-stage supergiant stars versus being unplugged/out in the cold. You can see that reflected in writing. Lost Generation and Bloomsbury Set both show signs of a great unplugging from Robber Baron economy.

The thought of Silicon Valley as a spiritual Mecca makes me laugh out loud.