Remove Silicon Valley and California's economy is nowhere near that level. Remove Big Tech from Silicon Valley and you're removing about 33% of that sector. Silicon Valley grew because the state was once a Golden Land to start up businesses and do research. It is neither of those today, but Silicon Valley is too firmly entrenched to easily move (though some are). The California of today would never attract a fledgling industry as it once did on a regular basis. Those who can are leaving. Those who cannot live with the crap. Those who make excuses for the crap need to own it. Michael Shellenberger has the guts to look at his worldview and see what was right and what was empirically wrong. If you're living around thousands of homeless, thousands of illegal immigrants, school results that would not be accepted anywhere else on earth, a government planned energy shortage, and crime so bad that mass shoplifting is the norm- and you accept all of it as 'better than Conservatives'- you are the problem. Objectively- it's not better than anything. It's a failed society. Either get with changes to improve or get out of the way of those with the guts to do it.