rant · moment 2 of 14
Tech's Coming Rust Belt Fate (Austin, San Francisco, Kodak Factory)
from Please Behave | The Tim Dillon Show #338 · #338
9 min
He argues tech workers deserve to suffer the same manufacturing-town collapse as Rust Belt America, riffing on Austin possibly becoming like Flint Michigan, a Kodak factory turned blood-testing facility in Rochester, and homeless encampments next to tech propaganda posters.
- Silicon Valley Bank is a bad investment because nobody knows what tech companies will actually succeed.
- The Saudis understood Live Nation as a sure bet because they recognize live events, unlike the mystery of tech startups.
- Tech is becoming the new manufacturing, and tech workers will be forced to live in the same hollowed-out conditions as displaced factory workers.
- Will Austin one day become like Flint, Michigan, a city that once thrived but now shows signs of decay?
- The old Kodak Factory in Rochester, New York—once a center of photography innovation—is now a blood testing facility.
- Tim envisions Austin's future where he's elderly, surrounded by taxidermied comedy legends, observing the city's transformation from tech hub to ruin.
- If tech is so good for humanity, why does every place where tech concentrates look like the apocalypse?
- In Austin, a homeless encampment sits next to a poster advertising 'the rise of virtual communities'—a stark irony.
- Tech companies set up on the periphery of cities, making real estate expensive while the urban centers themselves decay.
- It might be fun to see former tech workers, once comfortable in hoodies, dealing with crippling generational poverty and addiction instead.
San FranciscoAustinLive NationKodakSilicon Valley BankmanufacturingFlint, MichiganMark ZuckerbergElizabeth HolmesRon WhiteRoseanneJoe Rogan