The transformation the tech boom has wrought upon the Bay Area stands in sharper and sharper relief as years of out-migration by those who are priced out cements social inequality. If the Bay Area is no longer for them, who is it for?

The easy reply is that the Bay Area is being remade by and for tech workers against the interests of the poor. This idea animates a general antagonism towards tech workers, which manifests in several ways. The protests blockading employee buses in 2013 centered on private usage of public bus stops and lanes, as well as gentrification and tax breaks for tech companies, which undermine public transit — but they contained an undeniable dose of techie hate.

A culture war of sorts simmers today. Some on the Left see techies as a rich invasive species that is causing gentrification and deepening inequality. In Rebecca Solnit’s analogy, tech workers are to landlords evicting tenants what ivory buyers are to poachers killing elephants. What’s more, these same tech workers are responsible for creating platforms and services that disrupt the livelihoods of taxi drivers and turn scarce housing stock into hotel rooms.