Silicon Valley’s solution to the global tech-lash is starting to sound strangely like the old model of Quaker capitalism popular in 19th-century Britain. Here’s Apple boss Tim Cook talking this year about the company’s pledge to address the housing crisis on the US west coast: “Affordable housing means stability and dignity, opportunity and pride.”
And here’s George Cadbury in 1893 describing the buying of land for company-owned housing as a way to “alleviate the evils of modern, more cramped living conditions”.
Difficult to argue with either. A record number of people in California now live in vehicles — unable to rent or buy a home. Apple is not the only company that thinks it’s a good idea to wade into the state’s property market and try to alleviate the situation. In total, tech companies have now promised to spend $5bn on the problem.