January 2, 2026
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2025 Letter
Tech billionaires vs punchlines—Bay Area gets weird while commenters yell “duplicate”
TLDR: Dan Wang’s letter says Silicon Valley and China’s ruling party share a humorless vibe while SF gets weirder. HN replied with meta snark—“duplicate” warnings and eye-rolls—debating if AI doom talk is insight or self-importance, which matters because this culture shapes the tech and policies that affect everyday life.
Dan Wang’s new “2025 Letter” drops the spicy claim that Silicon Valley and China’s Communist Party share one big trait: zero chill. He paints a moody SF where AI (artificial intelligence) prophets deliver end-times speeches and folks joke about building “God in a Box,” with a dash of Xi Jinping’s dry one-liners (“PM250,” anyone?). The vibe is Gothic tech cult meets start-up smoothie bar. And the community? Cue the Hacker News meta police. The thread opens with “It’s online!” and immediately slams into a wall of “Duplicate”—like a sign that says “No fun allowed.”
That small burst of comments lit up a familiar internet drama: Is Silicon Valley humorless on purpose, or just allergic to self-awareness? Some readers chuckled at Sam Altman’s deadpan apocalypse bit. Others rolled their eyes and said comparing tech lords to party bosses is edgy cosplay for people who love TED talks. A mini-meme bubbled up that HN is humorless too—proof being the instant duplicate tag. A softer crowd nodded at Wang’s East vs West media critique and his defense of SF’s weirdness (driverless cars are here, whether the East Coast believes it or not). Verdict: the essay went poetic; the comments went procedural. Honestly, kind of perfect.
Key Points
- •The author compares Silicon Valley and the Chinese Communist Party as serious, humor-averse forces with similar public registers.
- •A Sam Altman quote and official Xi Jinping jokes illustrate each side’s public tone.
- •The author moved from Yale to Stanford and finds the Bay Area culturally stranger than a decade ago.
- •AI now dominates San Francisco, whereas 2015 focused on consumer apps, cryptocurrencies, and business software.
- •Driverless cars are widely visible in the Bay Area, contrasting with skepticism from some East Coast observers.