NPR.

There is a paradox going on in Silicon Valley right now.

There is this absolute fire hose of cash pouring into the AI buildout from companies

like Amazon and Microsoft.

But at the same time, young tech workers are finding it hard to land a job.

Jasmine's son is a tech writer who's been following this trend.

She used to work for Substack and various tech companies.

And one thing she's observed is a new dialect among tech workers in San Francisco

that reveals a dog-eat-dog mindset.

If the world is going to split into the techno-kings and the techno-peasants,

I better prove that I'm going to stay on top because I am high agency enough,

I have the taste, I am 9-9-6ing hard enough that I'm going to make it.

High agency, 9-9-6ing? What do these terms mean?

Jasmine's essay on the way Bay Area developers talk went viral recently, not just as a curiosity,

but because many of these workers believe what they're experiencing could be a preview

to what's coming for the rest of us.

This is The Indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Darien Woods.

Today on the show, San Fran's slang.

We combed through the jargon, the argo and the etymology of Silicon Valley in the AI era, and what it says about our present

and our future.

Jasmine's son calls her writing about the Bay Area Tech community an anthropology of disruption.

...