Zackly, Pete. Your opinion is colored by your inexperience. You won't care where and when I've worked and who I've seen in whatever capacity, so I won't go there. ...
Wow, so angry.
IRL, my Dad was a farmer, who did the planting, drove the tractors, did the irrigating using siphons (balancing pump capacity with the number of rows and diameter of the siphons), operated the combines, and dried the corn he raised. During irrigation season I helped change the section being irrigated - changing where the sheets were set up and starting scores of siphons. It was not the career I chose, but if you've every noticed the strong respect I express for farming people particularly and rural people generally, that was my parents' and many of my aunts' and uncles' life, and mine before heading off to college. Not that I think you care about realities that contradict your image.
I had jobs in high school and college, like many students in that time. Field worker in summer with a seed company, hoeing weeds and bagging safflower flowers so they would self-pollinate rather than be pollinated by bees (possibly from another safflower variety). Fast-food cook, including filtering and changing the fry oil. Rental center (chairs and plates for banquets, lawn and garden care equipment, etc.), cleaning and gassing equipment, putting party stuff in storage areas, loading up and delivering equipment or party stuff, taking customers' orders, IOW, whatever. Bookstore and tape library, assisting customers, stocking shelves and racks, and making masters and duplicating tapes. I ran sound (basic stuff, not fancy) at gigs for several garage bands (unpaid), including unloading, setting up, tearing down and loading the equipment. Nothing spectacular, but realities not consistent with the image you seem to have of me.
Bullshit, Pete. Tech companies have been going gangbusters since Slick Willie's reign of terror in the mid-to-late-90s. ...
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Complete nonsense by a guy who lives in and supports Silicon Valley. Sorry to say, Pete, but your opinion doesn't count for much for me. 
Take your experience and come work in say, Ohio, or Missouri, or Arkansas, and let's see how far your "experience" goes.
If you actually knew something of Silicon Valley, you'd know it's been going strong, with some economics hard times, since at least the 1950s. Heard of Hewlett-Packard? They started in 1939. Heard of Litton Industries? Thomas Litton Sr. started it in 1932, and after acquisitions is a division of L3 Communications. In 2017 it was split between a facility in PA and a facility in SoCal. Heard of Varian Associates? It was founded in 1948. Heard of Eimac, founded in 1934? Litton, Varian, and Eimac sold/sell klystrons and TWTs to the military and radiology companies. Heard of IBM? Hard drives were invented at IBM's San Jose facility. Silicon Valley's roots predate Clinton and also predate the semiconductors industry.
BTW, from W'pedia's article about Eimac:
A union organizing drive in 1939-40 by the strong Bay area labor movement was fought off by adoption of a strategy of welfare capitalism which included pensions and other generous benefits, profit sharing, and such extras as a medical clinic and a cafeteria. An atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration was established,
"Welfare capitalism" was probably the unions' name for the strategy. Be that as it may or may not, when I came into Silicon Valley in the late 70s, the only employer I knew of that was unionized was Lockheed. I assume the benefits-instead-of-unions strategy was started outside of tech, but has been used by many tech companies in varying degrees, because the costs of the extra compensation are lower than the costs in $$ and productivity of being unionized.
Back to my personal experience you so ignorantly denigrate, my first job in tech was at a start-up in an industrial park near the Scottsdale Airport. I was a junior tech, paid slightly high than minimum wage and the company had a medical and a dental plan. Employee gyms were unheard of at the time, and the company didn't have a cafeteria or coffee machine (a "roach coach" came by at break time ... the nickname was apt).
My next tech job, first job in Silicon Valley, was at Kaiser Electronics, a company founded in the 1960s that made displays for military aircraft. My wage was somewhere between 50% and 100% higher than minimum wage, and the company had a medical and a dental plan. The lunch room - not a cafeteria - had, wowzers!, two microwaves ... for hundreds of employees (lunchtimes were staggered some; the smell of fish sauce was almost overwhelming to me at the time). I think we had a Mr. Coffee in our work area, but I'm not sure if it was provided by the company or by our supervisor.
Moving along, a power supply company founded by an engineer who went from being a consultant specializing in power supplies to being a company that designed and produced power supplies. Bennies were medical, dental, and a lunch room with coffee and a couple of microwaves (for just ~100 people). Very Spartan and warehouse-like in the engineering side of the building.
Next, a computer company founded in 1975 by people who proposed an architecture to HP that HP declined. Usual compensation plus vision and Friday "Beer Busts" in our lunchroom - after hours, variety of common bottled beers, a keg, and peanuts.
Next, a power supply company whose first facility was almost warehouse-like and whose next facility was a little nicer, but not fancy. Wage, medical, dental, vision, and a lunchroom with coffee (in the mid 90s, BTW).
Next, a computer company with the usual bennies plus a subsidized cafeteria that was very decent the one time I used it. I think we had a coffee and microwave area. Next, a power supply company with usual bennies and lunchroom, and a luncheon to celebrate a Taiwanese holiday or two. Next, a power supply company with "usual" (= not very good) bennies, lunchroom, coffee, and a monthly lunch (employee ordered and picked up, company paid). The facility was warehouse-like, had multiple roof leaks, and, in 2002 used test equipment that was obsolescent in the 1970s.
There are a few luxurious places like Twitter and FB and Google, but those companies are not typical in Silicon Valley, not that I think you care about realities that contradict your image. As for "Tech companies have been going gangbusters since Slick Willie's reign of terror," IRL, tech has gone through economic bad times in the mid 70s, late 80s, early 2000s, and late 2000s. In 2000-2002, layoffs were common, and months of fruitless job searching was normal (my search was 9 months). The latter two economic hard times were nationwide, and Silicon Valley was hit at least as hard as any other region.
As for work ethic, I've spent time at tech facilities in Connecticut, North Carolina, and Taiwan. The only place among those whose work ethic was stronger than what I've lived in Silicon Valley was in Taiwan. But don't let reality - what I've lived for almost 45 years in Silicon Valley - disturb your fantasy image of lazy spoiled brat Silicon Valley people.
Eupher, you are in love with your stereotypes of tech people as much as DUpipo are in love with their stereotypes of conservatives. Unlike them, you should be smarter.
