The document is a safety audit report on Alif Garments Ltd conducted by Mallik Shaheed Hussain. The summary identifies several non-compliances at the factory including the lack of a sprinkler system, smoke/heat detectors, dedicated employees for emergency response, and proper ventilation. It recommends installing these systems, training employees in emergency response procedures, and conducting regular safety drills to improve safety conditions at the factory.

1. A Safety Audit Report on Alif Garments Ltd.
Oct 4, 2014
• 146 views
• 0 Likes
•
0 Comments
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
A Safety Audit Report on Alif Garments Ltd.
Submitted to: Dr. Md.Mamunur Rashid, Management Counselor
Submitted by:
Mallik Shaheed Hussain .
ID: 14DH174,
Bangladesh Institute of Management
Batch: Evening 03(2014), PGD-HRM
Dated: 26 July, 2014
Dr. Md.Mamunur Rashid
Management Counselor

2. Bangladesh Institute of Management
Dhaka.
Subject: A Safety Audit report on Alif Garments Ltd”
Dear Sir,
With due respect, I am pleased to present you this report on A Safety
Audit report on Alif Garments Ltd, 21/22, Babar Road Block-B,
Mohammadpur , Dhaka, Bangladesh, . as an appropriate requirement of
the subject on “Industrial Safety, Health and Welfare”. Working for this
audit has been an interesting and informative experience for me. I have
learnt many unidentified facts about Garments Industry, the Factory
Environment, Factors that must be analyzed for existing Manufacturing
plant in terms of Safety & Health scenarios which I believe will be
infinitely useful in my professional career in the near future.
I have immensely enjoyed working on this report and hope that my work
will meet the level of your expectations.
Thanking you.
Sincerely yours,

3. Mallik Shaheed Hussain
PGD-HRM
ID: 14DH174
Batch: Evening 03
Acknowledgement
In preparing this assignment the enthusiastic cooperation from theAlif
Garments Ltd Address: 21/22, Babar Road Block-B,
Mohammadpur Dhaka Bangladesh, employees as well as
Management and the Insightful, Consistence, Diversified and Creative
guidance of Dr. Md.Mamunur Rashid, were the two most notable and
remarkable points. It was a pleasant experience conducting the safety
audit in a working factory without much encumbrance. I feel proud of
myself to be a part of this Safety Audit.
Table of Contents
Sl.Contents Page No
01Abstract , Introduction 05
02Origin, Objective, Specific Objective08
03Methodology, Scope, Drawback 09
04Paraphernalia/Equipment 10
05Job based Analysis 11

4. 06Location based Analysis 12
07PPE and Others 14
08Electrical Wiring, Machine Safety 15
09Summary of Fire Safety Report 20
10Observations & Recommendations: 21
11Executive Summary 22
12Appendix: 23
Abstract
Readymade garments are the most important export item from
Bangladesh, yet the working conditions and fire safety records in the
factories are often not up to the standard. Despite a number of initiatives
to curb fire accidents in the garment industry, there are still a significant
number of fire occurrences in this industry. Unfortunately, there is no
comprehensive statistics on the current status of fire provisions and
management practices in the readymade garment factories in
Bangladesh. Given the management practices (soft issues) are often as
important as structural fire safety measures, yet difficult to regulate, this
paper develops a Fire Risk Index (FRI), the first of its kind in
Bangladesh, for soft parameters in the garment industry. FRI for 60
random garment factories are developed through surprise inspections to
understand the current status of fire risk due to inadequacies in the soft
parameters. Results show that the mean FRI is 2.8 on a scale of 5.0,
which indicates an alarming condition. Locked exit doors, lack of

5. emergency announcement system and lack of fire drills are the three
worst performers among the 24 investigated parameters and require
immediate attention from the regulators and stakeholders. We also
observed a U-shaped relationship between FRI and factory size.
Factories that are members of the industry’s trade lobby generally have
better fire safety practices than the non-members. Given the importance
of the readymade garment sector in many developing countries, poor fire
safety record and lack of information of fire safety, our approach of
developing an FRI for the industry can be very useful to understand the
immediate concerns and thus to curb fatalities and injuries from fire
accidents in this sector.
1. Introduction
Readymade garments are the largest export sector in Bangladesh, with
more than 78% of the country’s total foreign earnings generated from
this sector. Bangladesh is also the second largest apparel exporter in the
world with a total export of USD $17.91 billion in the fiscal year of
2010-11 (BGMEA 2012). The garment sector has enjoyed a significant
growth in Bangladesh for the last three decades. From a humble
beginning of 12 enterprises in 1978, the garment industry currently
consists of 4,500 factories of various

6. sizes (Muhammad 2011), although around 3,500 are currently operating
(Prothom Alo 2013). Almost all of these factories are distributed
primarily in the two of the largest cities – Dhaka, the capital and
Chittagong, with Dhaka hosting over 70% (Muhammad 2011). Since
this is a highly labor intensive industry (hence Bangladesh's competitive
advantage through its abundant supply of unskilled cheap labor) the
sector is also the largest industrial employer in the country with around
3.6 million people directly working in these factories. Inclusion of
backward and forward linkages would further increase the number of
employees dependant on this sector. Unfortunately, given the labor
intensive nature of the industry, the density of workers on factory floors
is very high. This high density of workers results in a large number of
injuries and fatalities in the event of an accident.
The readymade garment industry is a highly competitive industry and
cost-saving is highly valued, but, given the lack of a safety culture in the
country in general, cost-cutting measures often affect the health and
safety of the workers. Clothing is easily flammable and as such fire is
one of the most frequent and damage inducing accidents in these
factories in Bangladesh. Fire is also purported to be the largest cause of
on-the-job injuries and fatalities in this sector.1 Each new incident of
fire and related damage adversely affects the reputation of the industry
abroad, especially since the working conditions in the manufacturing

7. sectors in the developing countries is a general cause of concern in many
developed countries. Given the importance of fire safety in the garment
sector, there have been concerted efforts from the government, the
industry lobby (Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters
Associations, BGMEA) and the international buyers of the apparel
products, to improve the fire safety culture and this has indeed reduced
the fire incidents and losses significantly.
However, the battle has not been fully won yet. Despite the various
measures, rules and regulations implemented in the past decades, there
are still several instances of fire outbreak in the garment factories every
year, resulting in significant losses of lives, livelihoods (through
injuries), equipments and materials (Ahmed and Hossain 2009). These
incidents raise questions about the effectiveness of existing fire
prevention and fire fighting rules, regulations and practices and whether
more could be done to limit fire occurrences and fire induced losses of
lives and injuries. Especially, enforcement of the rules and regulations
and day-to-day health and safety management practices on factory floor
is a major issue. In order to improve the fire safety in this industry, it is
important to understand and quantify the current state of affair in fire
safety of the garments factories in the country. As is common in any
developing country, there is a lack of data on fire safety in Bangladesh,
and, although there are a few studies on fire safety status in general (e.g.

8. Islam and Adri 2008), no comprehensive fire safety assessment of the
garment factories were undertaken before. In the wake of a recent fire
disaster at a garment factory that killed more than 100 factory workers
(BBC 2012a), fire safety evaluation of the industry became even more
important.
Accordingly, this research investigates a 'random' sample of garment
factories from two regions within Dhaka city to assess their current fire
safety status. We develop a fire safety index (first of its kind in
Bangladesh) based on various parameters which are weighted using
experts’ opinion in order to rate the factories. Special emphasis of the
current work is on understanding the status of the ‘soft’ parameters in
fire safety management (e.g. whether there is water in the dedicated
water tank for firefighting at the time of inspection) rather than on the
‘hard’ parameters (e.g. whether there is a dedicated water tank for
firefighting), which is often the focus of the fire safety certification
process.
We are also interested in understanding if any of the soft parameters are
uniformly poor across all factories and if there is a relationship between
the fire safety/risk status with the size or location or other characteristics
of the factories. Knowledge about such parameters or potential

9. relationships will allow regulators and policy makers to narrow their
focus on the specific Ready made garment Factory.
Ensuring fire safety in this industry. To our knowledge, such a
relationship was not addressed in fire safety literature before. Also,
given the poor working conditions in the garment sector in many other
developing countries and the importance of fire safety in improving the
working conditions, this research has practical implications and
applications beyond Bangladesh.2
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the background
and importance of fire safety in the context of garment industries in
Bangladesh. Section 3 presents the research methodology, describing the
choice of parameters, development of the fire safety index and data
collection process. Section 4 presents the results, while section 5
concludes.
Origin:
This report has been prepared for Dr. Md.Mamunur Rashid, as an
appropriate requirement of the subject “Industrial Safety, Health &
Welfare”.
Objective:

10. Broad Objective: Prepare a report on the safety audit on an industry or
factory, identifying the areas of improvement on safety through
Audit/Observation.
Specific Objective:
1. Risk/Hazard Assessment and analysis
1. Equipment based analysis
2. Job based analysis
3. Location based analysis
4. Identifying the presence of resources including PPE(Personal
Protective Equipment) etc.
5. Checking on factory premises including factory access,
weigh bridge area, roads, lanes and cleanliness related to Health Hazard.
6. Preparing Accident record register in MS Excel
7. FactoryBuilding design review & recommendation
8. Electrical Safety assessment & recommendation
9. Machine Safety assessment & recommendation
10. Identification and recommendation for occupational health

11. 11. Evaluation of Fire fighting training & Drill
Methodology:
This safety audit was conducted on Alif Garments Ltd at 21/22, Babar
Road Block-B, Mohammadpur Dhaka Bangladesh,. The Data Collection
process was through primary sources (Face to Face interviews,
Department wise Team meeting, and random sampling of the factory
staffs) and physical observations of the factory premise. No secondary
data was used.
Scope:
The scope of the report is to analyze the safety awareness and safety
condition of a Ready made garment Factory resulting in finding non-
compliance issues and recommendations for correcting those issues to
elevate or upgrade the safety scenario in working and operating the said
Ready made garment Factory.
Drawback:
Comparing the industry was difficult resulting in vague determination of
the probability of implementing the recommendations for improving the
safety of the Pharmaceutical Company.

12. The findings of the safety audit are listed below. Only the non-
compliance issues are mentioned with suggested recommendations to
improve the issues with further relevant comments.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Factory Name: Alif Garments Ltd
Address: 21/22, Babar Road Block-B,
Mohammodpur, Dhaka
Country:
Bangladesh
City:
Dhaka
Zip Code: 1207
Audit Duration: 1 Days

13. Re-Audit: Re- Audit After 0 Months
Draft Report Date: 12/07/2014
Final Report Date: 12/08/2014
Are all Action Items
From Previous
Assessment
Completed? Yes
Buildings in Complex: There is only one building in the premise used
for production.
Is the building(s) owned
or rented by the Factory: Owned
Number of Building

14. Levels (Stories):Main Building/Production building:- Height from
ground level to roof: 21 m (69 ft), Highest occupied floor level:
18.29 m (60 ft), Stories above grade: 6 Stories below grade: 0 Occupied
levels: 6
Approximate
Building Area (SF): Main Building Area: 20500 sft.
Date of Building
Construction: 22.06.1983
Date of LastBuilding April, 2014
Renovation/Addition:
Ancillary Structures in
Complex: No ancillary structures in complex.
Approximate Ancillary

15. Structures Area (SF): No ancillary structures in complex.
Number of Occupants: Total occupant: 350, Main building ground floor:
11,1st floor: 66 , 2nd floor: 95, 3rd floor: 95, 4th floor: 27, 5th
1. 1. Paraphernalia/Equipment
SLNon Compliance Action Plan Comment
1.
No Sprinkler
System
Installment of
Sprinkler System
covering the Pharma,
binding and end
product storage areas.
Only Firefighting
equipment present fire
extinguish
2.
No Smoke or Heat
Detector
Installment of inter-
zone smoke detector in
all areas including raw
material storage
specially paint and
lubricant storage. NA
3. No high quantity
fire prevention
instrument
Installment of water
hose for emergency
fire fighting. Already
Even though it can be
inconvenient for raw
materials (pharma), it is

16. present(i.e Water
hydrant or water
hose coil)
there is a water hose of
small quantity which is
not sufficient for full
coverage.
recommended that at
least two point to be
installed as front and
back point for water
output.
4.
Secondary
Equipment for
chemical fire or
chemical hazard
which is not
sufficient as per
standard bench
mark.
-Installment of Sand
bucket( Minimum
requirement)
- Already have
sufficient storage of
Rubber Boot and
gloves for chemical
handling(As a safety
measure)
Only fire extinguisher is
avialble as a primary
prevention equipment.
5. No fire alarm
Installment of Fire
Alarm for each zone
including emergency
lights. NA
1. 2. Job based Analysis

17. SL
Non Compliance Action Plan Comment
1.
No Dedicated
employee role &
responsibility for
emergency fire
fighting.
Training and assigning
dedicated employee for
rescue, medical & fire
fighting awareness
among employees.
Regular Drill should
be conducted.
2.
No defined
employee role and
responsibility for
emergency escape
assignment or
schedule.
Training and assigning
dedicated employee for
rescue, medical & fire
fighting awareness
among employees.
Regular Drill should
be conducted.
3.
No rescue and
medical detail
among employees in
case of emergency.
Training and assigning
dedicated employee for
rescue, medical & fire
fighting awareness
among employees.
Regular Drill should
be conducted.
4. No emergency Should implement
emergency prevention
Implementation of
Health & Safety

18. prevention plan
plan including:
1. Major work place
hazards
2. Personnel
responsible for various
emergency procedures
3. Housekeeping on
flammable or
combustible raw
materials and waste
4. Regular training &
Drill on emergency.
committee is highly
Recommended
5. No emergency
response procedure
Should implement
emergency response plan
including:
i. Personnel responsible
for various emergency
procedure.
Implementation of
Emergency response
committee is
recommended

19. ii. Regular training &
drill on emergency
procedures.
6. No First aid training
Conducting regular first
aid training and
designation of primary
responsible for First Aid.
A well experienced
Training Manager
(First Aid) should be
appointed as contact
basis.
1. 3. Location based Analysis:
SlNon Compliance Action Plan Comment
1.
Exit: Collapsible
Gate with down
sliding shutter
Installation
of “Outward Opening
Door” will be optimum
even though the gates
are always open while
operation goes on.
Two collapsible gate with
shutters: One front, One
back
2.Ventilation: No big
ventilation fan for
proper air flow(only
small ventilators
with small exhaust
Installation of big
exhaust fan at window
height(it will reduce
heat while operation
and reduce chemical
Only possible place in the
wall for exhaust fan is the
wall adjacent to the road,
the second wall is blocked

20. fans on walls
adjacent to the roof)
fumes from ink &
thinner from inhaling). by another building).
3.
Space: Placement of
raw and output
material (paper)
often hinders
movement and
evacuation route.
Enlargement of storage
for season of high
output so that paper
can mainly be stored in
storage, not in the
production area or
beside the machines.
NA
4.
Space planning:
Space is used way
over the limit of
optimal use,
resulting congested
space because of
machineries.
Thinning out the
machines and acquiring
additional space for
more spacious storage
place.
It will reduce accident,
free up space for
emergency pathways and
reduce heat.
5.No secondary
containment
procedure or
separate place for
Implementation of
proper containment
procedure with
different types of
Separation & minimal
divider between chemical
types will suffice.
Separation of chemical,

21. chemicals.
chemicals as well as
separate storage place.
machineries and papers is
mandatory.
6.
Building integrity:
No approval by
concerned authority
for building
construction for this
particular
production facility.
No occupancy
certificate either.
It is recommended that
the company arrange
an inspection by the
relevant authority for
the premise and take
necessary steps to
ensure building
integrity.
Major Re-Engineering
works is strongly
recommended.
7.
No environment
clearance certificate.
Acquisition of
environmental
clearance certificate.
Day to
day ETPmonitoring and
compliance with DoE.
1. 4. PPE and Others:
SLNon Compliance Action Plan Comment

22. 1.
No accident/incident
report is maintained,
very Few
found(only)
Maintenance of
chronological
accident/incident register
NA
2.
Deviation report
found but none
consistently. Should maintain as daily
routine basis. NA
3. Insufficient of
PPE(Personal
protective
equipment) not
maintain up to the
Mark
Implementation of
regulation on all times
usage of Rubber Gloves
while handling
chemicals and wearing
Rubber boots while
handling large quantities
of it.
i.Even though the sound
level is not above
tolerance, usage of noise
reducing ear plug is
Employees should be
made aware of the
necessity of the
personal protective
equipment through
regular training and
implemented standard
operating procedure
(SOP).

23. preferable.
ii. Similarly, usage of
metal gloves in cutting
machine is advisable.
4.
No sufficient backup
light
Installment of More
Backup light.
Several charge lights
are used as instant
back up light, back up
generator line comes
from outside supplier
which supplies power
for several lights
only(No Generator for
machines).
5.
No Safety
cell/Committeeor
awareness activity
Formation of safety
committee and
conducting regular
safety awareness
campaign.
Regular training and
drills will work
greatly in this aspect.
1. 5. Electrical Wiring:
Electrical connection, quality & placement of switch boards are barely
satisfactory. Each machine has separate line & switch. Most lines are

24. jacketed with plastic pipes and placed above head on the wall. There are
some new electrical lines added outside of the jacketed lines which
increases the fire risk even though they are bound the jacketed lines with
twines or tape. There are no crises-crossing below the roof & no lines on
the ground. Only placement of several pedestal revolving fan encroach
on unsafe placement.
1. 6. Machine Safety:
Machines are mostly safe with regular maintenance. The Heat producing
machines has separate exhaust pipe to outside. Additionally some wall
mounted revolving fans circulate the excess heat produced while in
production. The possibility of work hazard includes cutting machine and
various motors running in the press.
Safety Provision:
1. 1. Identifying the “Areas of Improvement” on Safety through
Audit/Observation:
1. Risk/Hazard Assessment & Analysis on
1. Equipment based analysis.
2. Job based analysis.
3. Location based analysis.

25. 1. Identifying the presence of the resources including “PPE”
(Personal Protective Equipment) etc. & developing a useable PPE
Matrix and recommending for immediate arrangement of the equipment
to implement the Safety Management Program.
1. Factory Premises including Factory Access, Weigh bridge area,
roads, lanes & cleanliness related health hazard.
1. Preparing Accident Record Register in MS Excel :
Must Provide an Excel Sheet….
1. Factory Building Design Review & recommendation(subject to
availability of the original building architectural layout plan in soft copy
in AutoCAD only)
2. Electrical “Safety Assessment & Correction” where possible as per
recommendation of our Electrical Engineer.
3. Machine Safety Assessment & recommendation
4. Identification & recommendation for “Occupational Health”
5. Working “Uniform/Dress”, Safe for work_ awareness campaign
among the first line workers.
6. Recommendations for “Awareness Campaign Materials”.

26. 7. Formation of “Safety Cell” (Safety Committee) for self Inspection
& carrying out safety events at a regular/scheduled interval.
8. Giving Complete Guideline to establish an “Emergency Safety
Clinic”.
9. Formation of “First Aid Team”
10. One day “First Aid Training” by Qualified Medical Professional
(On Additional Payment).
1. 16. Fire protection Equipment & PPE :
1. Fire Fighting Training & Drill
1. Formation of “Fire Safety Cell (Team)” & Preparing Yearly Fire
Safety Drill Schedule(FSDS) :
Summary of Fire Safety Report
The Alif Garments Ltd was assessed by Mallik Shaheed Hussain
identify significant fire safety issues and to provide recommendations
for remediation based on BNBC-2006, Alliance/Accord, NFPA, Boiler
Act, etc. The scope of this initial fire safety inspection was limited to
review and identification of Highly Hazardous, Medium Hazardous and
Hazardous for Fire safety issues.
SLWeight ageImportance
1. 3 Highly Hazardous

27. 2. 2 Medium Hazardous
3. 1 Hazardous
Detail findings/observations and recommendations of fire safety issues
have been mentioned already. CAP time line will start from the report
submit day.
Observations & Recommendations:
SLCategory Observation Weight
1.
Documentation
Boiler license 2
2. Documentation Boiler Operator license 2
3. Documentation Fire License 2
4. Documentation HVAC System permission 1
5. Documentation Previous Assessment Report 2
6. Fire Protection Generator Room & Generator control3

28. Construction room is not fire rated
7.
Fire Protection
Construction Uncovered light in the stored area 1
8.
Fire Protection
Construction
Fire barriers are provided to separate
boiler rooms. 2
9
Fire Protection
Construction
Fire rated separations between Diesel
tank and Generator are not found 2
10
. Electrical Substation
establishment
Permission from REB(Rural
Electrification Board) 3
11
.
Means of Egress
Some of the Exit signs have no
illumination system 3
12 Means of Egress Insufficient emergency light 2
13
. Means of Egress Day Care location 3
14 Fire protection Fire pumps accessibility 2

29. .
systems
15
. Fire protection systems
Fire department connections are not
provided 2
16
. Fire protection systems
Inspection, maintenance and testing
records for hose pipe system not
found.
Executive Summary
Alif Garments Ltd is a Garments factory among many in
Mohammodpur and Shaymoly area. In terms of machineries, it is a
medium to small garment and other related factory dealing with ready
made production. As a safety precaution equipment it has fire
extinguishers, which act as the preliminary fire fighting unit. The
Chemical handling & storage situation is dismal & the ventilation
scenario is barely acceptable. Usage of space is far above optimal level
resulting congested space with very limited space for storage and almost
non-existent evacuation corridor in the workplace. Electrical wiring
nearly sufficient in terms of safety protocol with jacketed wiring and
separate switch boards for the machines.
Appendix:
1. Class note of Dr.Md.Mamunur Rashid

30. 2. Documentation slide collected from Dr.Md.Mamunur Rashid
3. Book: Industrial Safety & Health by Dr.Md.Mamunur Rashid
4. Book: Industrial Safety & Health by William Hardley(Online
Version)
5. Alif Garments Ltd Safety Manual & Library
6. Different web sources for Safety Audit related report
•
Written by
Dr. Engr. Md Mamunur Rashid ; Faculty @ bim.org.bdLikeComment
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
0 comments
Be the first to comment and start the conversation!

31. Andrew Yang
Follow
What's Eating Silicon Valley
Jan 8, 2016
• 111,658 views
• 1,096 Likes
•
190 Comments
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
This article originally appeared in Quartz

32. Like most people, I look up to and admire the heroes of Silicon Valley
(the real ones, not the ones from the TV show). They’ve given rise to
services (e.g., Google, Facebook, Uber, LinkedIn, Airbnb) that we use
every day and make the world a better place. They’ve created value,
wealth, and opportunity at unprecedented historic levels.
I’ve also had the chance to meet some of the leading CEOs and
entrepreneurs of the Valley and they are, by and large, good-natured,
brilliant, and thoughtful people. They’re earnest and committed to
building positive things. Some of them are donors to my organization,
for which I’m immensely grateful. It’s clear that Silicon Valley is today
more than ever the center of innovation and technological progress.
That said, there are a few things about it that are starting to make me
nervous.
I’ve had several friends tell me that they’re leaving the Valley because
they want to rejoin the real world. A successful entrepreneur told me he
fantasizes about leaving because he wants to raise his kids the way he
was raised in Rochester, and that his money would effectively triple as
soon as he left. Another successful entrepreneur who moved to San
Francisco said he felt like “just another cow in the pen,” and that he
enjoyed spending time in other parts of the country because it made him
feel more like he was making a difference.

33. What are these people talking about? What are the things that are
starting to freak people out about Silicon Valley? There are a few
themes that come up again and again:
The epicenter of wealth and young money
There are a lot of young people, generally from very good colleges,
making more money than most people will ever see. These are summer
college interns (non-engineers) who are being paid $7,000+ a month and
getting perks like free flights home to visit on weekends. Bidding wars
and five and six-digit signing bonuses are being paid out for freshly
minted engineering grads, particularly from Stanford. Average salaries
are now close to $200,000 in the Valley, to say nothing of the upside of
equity-based compensation, which can be dramatically higher.
All of the above makes business sense—I’d offer the same thing to a
young person whom I thought could potentially be a difference-maker.
But it’s a lot relatively early in people’s careers.
Supercompetitive
Technology companies tend to operate in winner-take-all spaces and
thus adopt a very high-commitment culture. That is, if there are 10 or
100 mapping apps or social networks, the one company left standing is
worth billions, and the rest are worth a very small fraction of that

34. (probably only what people will pay for the talent on hand). As a result,
the organizations are ultra-efficient and expect long hours and constant
availability. It’s either win or lose big for a lot of companies, and there’s
not much in-between.
Hard work is awesome. But when you see an army of people staring at
their computer screens in the evening post-dinnertime, it’s a little eerie.
War for talent
If you want to win big, you have to get the best troops. Well-resourced
tech companies are now on the hunt for talent like never before, building
massive recruitment pipelines to hoover up top prospects and engineers.
Google recruits the heck out of Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon,
MIT, and other top schools offering six-figures to start, plus bonuses.
Facebook sponsors hackathons at the top schools, stays in touch with
professors, and invests tons of resources in order to be the most visible
and obvious employer.
Don’t think that the smart kids haven’t noticed—the proportion of
Stanford students majoring in the Humanities has plummeted from over
20% to only 7% this past year, prompting wails among History and
English professors whose classes no longer have students. One
administrator joked to me that Stanford is now the Stanford Institute of

35. Technology. In 2014, more Harvard Business School Grads went into
technology than into banking for the first time since the dot-com era.
Again, I’d do the same thing. But is this the optimal assignment of our
best and brightest? And is it a good thing that one of our nation’s top
universities seems to be going vocational?
Insular culture/Not awesome at diversity
The corporate campuses and workplace amenities of Apple, Google,
Facebook, etc. are legendary. They’re insider tourist attractions. For the
average employee, you wake up and drive from a leafy suburb to a
grounded spaceship. You stay there and eat the subsidized gourmet
dinner with someone who’s a lot like you. Or maybe you take the dark-
windowed company bus from San Francisco and tap out emails with
headphones on. Even smaller companies are competing on rock
climbing walls and ping-pong tables.
This way of life doesn’t generally expose you to people who are living
different ways of life. And the people on the bus and spaceship aren’t
representative of most of society based on gender or race or education or
age. “Silicon Valley is a bubble” doesn’t refer to valuations or money—
it refers to the fact that you live in a bubble.

36. Crazy high cost of living
Simply put, it will blow your mind what things cost in terms of housing
in the Bay Area right now. Modest houses for well over a million
dollars. Little apartments the same. One bedroom apartments start at
over $3,000/month. The average home in Santa Clara county sold for
$1.25 million in August of 2015, up 9% from last year. How is a teacher
or just about any regular person going to live there?
Even if you can afford to live in a neighborhood, the elevated costs
make it easy to compare yourself to others and say, “Well, sure I’m
richer than anyone I grew up with, but I’m not that rich, because look at
that guy I work with or went to school with or who lives down the block.
That guy’s really rich.” It’s not an environment of plenty, but one of
keeping up with the Joneses.
These are some of the things that are making people uncomfortable both
in and about the Valley. None of these issues are anyone’s fault. It’s just
the market at work—the capital market, the market for talent, the real
estate market.
It reminds me a fair amount of Wall Street. Wall Street’s public image
took a hit post-financial crisis in part because they were bailed out by the
government, in part because they contributed to the crisis, and in part

37. because they don’t produce tangible goods and services (no one got as
mad at Chrysler, for example).
But another reason Wall Street had trouble maintaining goodwill was
because of some of the attributes above—hard-charging, too much too
soon, parallel reality, money flowing everywhere, rich white guys, etc.
To use a sports metaphor, it’s like the Yankees or Duke University or
the Patriots—they start getting hard to root for, unless they’re your home
team.
Solve the big problems
Perhaps the biggest critique of Silicon Valley comes from a technologist
quoted in Vanity Fair’s recent article by Nick Bilton—“SF tech culture
is focused on solving one problem: What is my mother no longer doing
for me?”
Getting a car on demand, finding something online, business
productivity tools, connecting with people—these are solutions that the
market demands and rewards. They make money. Silicon Valley is like
Wall Street in that it will fill and pursue market opportunities to their
logical extremes.

38. If there’s one way that Silicon Valley can lead and distance itself from
critiques of insularity and out-of-touchness, it’s to tackle the big, thorny,
difficult problems that would improve the state of the world. Problems
that are messy, protracted, and involve the prospect of failure and
embarrassment. They don’t have a ready market. They affect rich and
poor alike. They touch flawed systems. They’re less “What did Mom do
to make my life better?” and more “What would make Mom proud?”
They require you to do more than cut a check, and instead hunker down
and grind away for years.
What problems do I mean? Here are a few that come to mind that would
give Silicon Valley the moral leadership to match its economic and
intellectual might:
Water
We all know that California is stuck in a multi-year drought. It’s the
great equalizer. The Bay Area has been hit less hard by water rationing
than Southern California, but the dry spell is finally starting to impact
people’s ability to water their lawns and take out the Slip ‘N Slide, not to
mention its influence on the epic wildfires that are destroying homes all
over the state.

39. Imagine if the resources of Silicon Valley were to tackle this challenge.
How about building a water pipeline from Canada to northern
California? Megascale desalination, Israeli-style? Large-scale
conservation technologies? If there’s something that would get everyone
in California declaring companies as heroes it’s this. Water is free in
California, but not really—so be the water bringer.
Traffic/infrastructure
One CEO commented that it took him about an hour to make a 15-mile
commute in the morning to Palo Alto. I found myself shaking my head
at the thought of all of these millionaires inching along in standstill
traffic twice a day, even those that did their best to engineer a short
commute. While some of their Teslas can drive themselves so the driver
can send emails and whatnot, commute length is the single biggest
determinant of day-to-day happiness according to psychologists. What
use is being a mega-baller if you’re stuck in traffic every day?
I know, Google self-driving cars will go mainstream by 2030 and greatly
reduce traffic (and potentially eliminate hundreds of thousands of
driving jobs). In the meantime, how about dynamic tolling? Staggered
commute times? Jetpacks? A public-private partnership to add four lanes
to widen Route 101? Again, whoever did this would be a hero, and could
probably name the new lanes after their company.

40. Diversity and social issues
America is bifurcating fast. Social mobility is down, technological
unemployment is rising, and we’re heading toward a country where the
non-white majority in 2043 will have lower levels of income, wealth,
education, physical freedom, and political participation than the white
minority. That’s the country kids are growing into.
Technology companies are starting to focus on getting more diversity in
their own organizations, which is a great place to start. But there’s much
more that can be done.
Take the current controversy over policing. You’re telling me that the
best non-lethal weapon we can give an officer in 2016 is a Taser with a
range of 25 feet that was developed back in 1974? Or that I can have a
video camera on my phone but we can’t stick one on every badge?
Is there really no better system than to rely on overworked guidance
counselors and standardized testing at age 16 to identify talented
minorities in inner cities?
Technologists could do a lot to lead in the right direction.
Education

41. National SAT scores are at their lowest points in a decade. Online
education is ubiquitous, yet we don’t seem to be getting any smarter. If
anything, it’s kind of the opposite. We have decades of research on
effective education that isn’t being implemented nationwide.
Meanwhile, we plow millions of kids through a factory system that was
designed in the agrarian era.
I love Altschool, Minerva Project, and the Khan Academy, but we’re
still just scratching the surface of both the opportunity and the need
around the country. So many people want this, it’s unreal. There’s even
money in this one—the US spends $621 billion on public education,
with uneven results.
Is filling out bubbles with a pencil on a test designed in 1901 still the
best we can do to measure human potential?
I’m optimistic because this generation of techies is starting to have kids.
Nothing motivates you to figure out what’s going on with a system more
than when your kid has to enter it (even private schools).
Government
When technologists interact with government, they tend to focus either
on things that are good for their business interests (immigration, internet

42. access) or libertarianism (stay out of the way). Otherwise, money gets
lost in a maze. It’s a swamp, another world. The operating system of the
government is out-of-date and needs an update—only it’s not capable of
updating itself.
Don’t let the system scare you off. Look at Lawrence Lessig—he’s a law
professor who’s trying to get money out of politics and crowdfunded
$11 million dollars to do it. That’s how much Google spent on lobbying
last year.
Or Jen Pahlka and Code for America, which sends coders and designers
to save cities money by showing them what a lean, talented team can do.
Or Megan Smith who left Google to become CTO of the US, along with
the wave of heroes who moved to Washington DC to save
Healthcare.gov.
It’s still your country. Don’t give up on it.
Unsexy entrepreneurship
For Silicon Valley denizens, this is the golden age of entrepreneurship.
But if you look across the country, entrepreneurship is at a 24-year low
and most young people are not starting businesses, online or otherwise.

43. They’re looking for jobs in Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland,
St. Louis, Providence, Cincinnati, San Antonio, upstate New York, and
wherever else to pay back loans and maybe start a family.
Entrepreneurship in these other cities looks quite different than it does in
the Valley. It’s unsexy and gritty, measured in credit card debt rather
than VC meetings, by getting customers instead of visitors or users, by
changing the neighborhood instead of changing the world. Companies
are started not with a desire to be huge, but because there’s a problem to
be solved.
These entrepreneurs look up to the people in the Valley for inspiration.
You wouldn’t believe how big a difference it would make to have tech
rockstars spend time in these cities and commit to making them better. It
would make these entrepreneurs think all things were possible.
These are just problems that come to mind for me. The truth is that you
could choose just about anything under the sun that you felt strongly
about, as long as it came from a good place.
When I ran a company, I didn’t have time for much else. I thought that
the work that I was doing represented the most profound impact and
good I could make in the world. I was focused. I wanted to be rich. If

44. someone asked me for help I would make a small contribution, but I felt
my greatest contribution was my day job.
After we got acquired, I thought about joining or starting another
company. Instead I wound up founding a non-profit to make
entrepreneurship more accessible and distributed throughout the US.
That decision has driven the last five years. It’s been a struggle and a
massive education. The market’s fuzzier. Nothing is as clean as you
want it to be. The humanity of it can be overwhelming.
But underlying the humanity is the conviction that the problem you’re
addressing is worth solving. It challenges you in ways similar to having
a child—you grow up or you quit, only quitting would make you a loser.
Here’s the plea to Silicon Valley: we’re worried you’re losing your soul.
Please take on challenges that are worthy of you, that demand your
heart, reputation, treasure, commitment, conviction, and values—not just
what the market’s asking of you. You’re the builders of this era. It’s not
enough. We need you to lead.
• Education
• Entrepreneurship
• Start-Ups

45. • Featured In
o Entrepreneurship,
o Technology,
o VC & Private Equity,
o Editor's Picks
•
Written by
Andrew YangFollow
LikeComment
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
1,100 likes
192 comments
Add your comment
Newest
•
LinkedIn MemberInformative write up from an insider perspective.
o Like
o Reply
3 minutes ago
• Show More

46. Image by Richard Giles, licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0
Aileen Gallagher
Assistant Professor at Syracuse University
Follow
2016: The Year Tablet Magazines Get to Die
Jan 8, 2016
• 40,411 views
• 211 Likes
•
37 Comments
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

47. Magazine editors from around the country (or, really, New York City
and a couple other places) met on January 6 at Columbia University to
determine the winners of the 2016 National Magazine Awards. And for
the first time since 2012, they did not have to pretend that tablet
magazines are worthy of celebration.
The American Society of Magazine Editors, the professional
organization that administers the National Magazine Awards (known as
ASMEs or Ellies), first gaveNational Geographic the Calder elephant in
the Tablet Edition category in 2012.National Geographic won the
category, re-named “Tablet Magazine,” in 2013, 2014, and 2015. This
year, ASME retired the category.
To be fair, ASME reviews and changes its award categories regularly.
For example, ASME reduced the coveted General Excellence award,
which recognizes magazines in different verticals, to four categories
from six in 2016. (Farewell, “Active Interest.”) It makes sense to
reconsider how a changing industry honors its best.
But something about the end of the tablet category feels more
significant, like a quiet acknowledgment of the industry’s failure to
innovate. Yes, tablets didn’t sell like smartphones, but there are still a lot
of them out there. According to the Pew Research Center, 45 percent of
U.S. adults owned a tablet in 2015, compared to the 68 percent who

48. owned a smartphone. Apple’s Newsstand ghetto didn’t help, either. But
blame the magazine industry for tablet magazines’ failure to launch.
ASME’s call for entries in 2015 said that “tablet magazines need not
duplicate the frequency of content of sibling print editions.” But in
reality, tablet magazines didhave to duplicate print editions. The
Alliance for Audited Media sets the rules for how magazines report
circulation (copies distributed) and rate base, the average circulation
level that determines ad rates. Tablet magazines, AAM determined,
could be included in the rate base — and therefore be counted for
advertising purposes — only if they included “all the same editorial
content [as] in the print.” Magazines could include enhanced content
suitable for tablets, such as videos or interactive elements, but only on
top of the magazine’s original editorial, art, and ads “presented in a
manner consistent with the print issue.”
The magazine industry, desperate to bolster flagging circulation, utilized
this exciting new platform by … offering mostly replica versions of the
print magazines. Innovation, costly to begin with, was bad for business.
Titles likePopular Mechanics, Wired, and National Geographic, whose
editorial missions seemed a natural fit for tablets, could do little more
than tack on multimedia shackled to the format and presentation of a
print editions. And to access this content, the user had to remember to
open the newsstand once a month and download a giant file. For that
kind of content, why bother?

49. The audience had little use for consuming magazines this way. National
Geographic, whose tablet magazine was the only winner of a National
Magazine Award in the history of the category, had a total circulation of
3.5 million in 2014 (the most recent data publicly available). The digital
replica circulation: 164,408. Editors have to make difficult financial
choices these days. Expending resources on a product that comprises
only 5 percent of the readership is an easy cut. If a title doesn’t outright
abandon its tablet edition soon, look for scaled-back, PDFish versions
like the kind carried by Texture. There’s zero incentive to try anything
else.
So goodbye, tablet magazine. CueCat can’t wait to meet you.
***
(This article was originally published on Medium.)