Atha Fong, 22, has trouble explaining to her mother exactly what she does as a product manager at iSkoot. ?Basically, her understanding is that I work with engineers to make mobile phone applications, but more than that, not really,? she said. Her more than $70,000 salary, stock options and personal investment portfolio, though, go a long way to alleviate any parental concerns.
Ivan Lee, 25, turned down a lucrative offer from Microsoft to start his own company, developing location-based games that he hopes will eventually dominate the industry. Bansi Shah, 23, picked up her undergraduate diploma, then took a job at Lattice Engines, a small San Mateo startup, where she makes ?near the top? of the company?s $80,000 to $1,30,000 range for an entry level product manager, plus equity.
These are the latest high-tech migrants to Silicon Valley, in their 20s and fresh out of college, drawn by a surge in start-ups and investment money that in the last year and a half has created more jobs than companies can fill, and eager to help shape the technology that infuses their lives.
Their peers in other parts of the country ? indeed, in many other parts of the state ? may be struggling to find jobs, their independence stunted by financial crisis. But these recent college graduates are, at least for the moment, snugly protected from any hint of the recession.
Still emerging from their student years, most have yet to translate their earnings into material tokens of success. In San Francisco?s expensive housing market, they tend to rent rather than own, often sharing quarters. They drive Hondas and Fords and maybe a Mini Cooper or two. In the tradition of start-ups here, they dress in casual attire, augmented by the occasional pair of Bonobos.
Boom and bust cycles are endemic to Silicon Valley. But buoyed by the frenzy of entrepreneurship around them, many young newcomers exhibit an optimism and confidence no economist could dampen. The temples of the valley ? Facebook, Google, Twitter, Zynga ? loom large in their conversation. Some have already founded companies; nearly all have toyed with the idea.
To some this latest crop seems brash, with short attention spans and a video-game approach to life. Others see in them a social conscience and maturity that set them apart from the gold diggers of the 1990s.