Tech Workers Are Relocating to Los Angeles Because Silicon Valley Is Too Liberal

Tech workers following the lead of Peter Thiel, a President Donald Trump-supporting venture capitalist and bolting Silicon Valley for Los Angeles. Not that LA is all that much better. But pushback is good and it’s happening.

Tech Workers Are Relocating to Los Angeles Because Silicon Valley Is Too Liberal

Western Journalism, February 19, 2018:

A number of workers in Silicon Valley are planning to leave the tech hub due to a discomfort stemming from a uniform way of thinking in the industry and region, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The workers already are or plan on indirectly following the lead of Peter Thiel, a President Donald Trump-supporting venture capitalist.

The billionaire entrepreneur recently announced he is leaving Silicon Valley for the slightly less liberal Los Angeles area to escape an allegedly pervasive discrimination against conservatives and some libertarians.

Citing a number of influential investors, and a couple of tech workers and startup entrepreneurs, the WSJ reports Thiel’s geographic “defection” is emblematic of an apparently larger trend.

“I think the politics of San Francisco have gotten a little bit crazy,” Tom McInerney, an angel investor who now resides in Los Angeles, told The Wall Street Journal. “The Trump election was super polarizing and it definitely illustrated–and Peter (Thiel) said this–how out of touch Silicon Valley was.”

A large majority of conservatives said they are in some way uneasy in the area due to their political and personal beliefs, according to a study published earlier in the month by the Lincoln Network. Roughly 89 percent and 74 percent of people who identified as “very conservative” or “conservative,” respectively, said they are hesitant of being themselves while working in Silicon Valley. Additionally, more than two-thirds of libertarians, which were the largest portion of respondents in the survey, said the same.

Only 30 percent and 36 percent of Silicon Valley employees who identify as “very liberal” or “liberal” are reluctant to be their true selves, according to the study.