A welcome distraction for Valley of fears

NET RESULTS:Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has brought some light relief to a gloomy Silicon Valley, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

I REALISED I had truly entered the strange dark hole that is the recessionary United States last week when I watched an advertisement for Hyundai cars at my parents’ house in Silicon Valley.

It started as usual for car advertisements – sexy shots of a driving vehicle – but the voiceover was extraordinary. We realise times are hard so we are offering you x, y and z to help you buy your new Hyundai, it ran. But if you lose your job – yes! the man in the ad actually said “lose your job” – Hyundai will take back the car without your credit record being affected.

I was gobsmacked. Is this really how they are flogging cars these days? I wasn’t sure if it was pure brilliance and a generous consumer offer in difficult times or terrifying evidence of how bad things are going.

The Valley itself isn’t immune either. I kept thinking about how quickly the financial circumstances and general mood have changed since a visit out here last September.

Then, the papers and the chats over morning lattes were still full of general optimism. While everyone agreed the economy looked like it was going to hit some hard bumps, the amazing financial machine that is the world’s technology hub seemed ready to ride it out.

Now, it really, really hurts. One example: the quiet discussion is that Valley venture capital firms are being hammered. The companies are still there waiting and hoping for investments and the VCs are ready to make them, but when they go to their fund partners to try and draw down funds, the cash is not forthcoming. Rumour is that some big names are on the verge of going under.

Whether or not that will turn out to be the case, the evidence that people are struggling is everywhere. That includes some very wealthy people, too.

Witness a full-page advert in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, so discreet that it at first seemed to be for a posh jewellery company called Circa.

Two-thirds of the page featured an image of an elaborate piece of diamond-studded bling. Underneath, in large print, was the slogan “Worth its weight in . . . well you know.”

I kept reading on to the small print because, even in the world of obscure trendy jewellery advertisements, I couldn’t figure out what this one was about.

“Today your reasons may be different but our service remains the same; immediate payment, expert service, discretion and unprecedented pricing. As the sole international buying house for previously owned jewellery, Circa continues to offer fair weather pricing in these stormy times.”

Good grief, a high end pawn shop for the wealthy wishing to offload some spangly stuff!

But then, there’s always something happening in Silicon Valley to cheer you up, too.

Top of my list was reading that the quieter and shyer of the Two Steves, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (or as he is universally known across the Valley, Woz) was back in a tech company as the chief scientific officer at storage start-up Fusion-io.

But wait – it gets even better. Woz is also going to hoof it on the US dance competition show Dancing With the Stars. That is not a joke; there are already 699 articles on Google News confirming the announcement by US broadcaster ABC.

And yes, the mind does boggle at the thought of this shy bearded mountain of a man doing the cha- cha-cha. I liked Techradar.com’s reaction: “Could we get [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer to go on, too?”

They also wonder if there’s anything Woz wouldn’t do for a laugh, listing six of this famous prankster’s best pranks, which included pretending to be Pavarotti at a restaurant. One reader recalls that he also got Steve Jobs’s Merc towed by police from the company car park back in Apple’s early days.

Maybe the decision to dance is Woz’s way of making people smile in hard times. If so, it worked for a lot of people – the news made my mother laugh and she rang me to tell me about it, knowing I would laugh, too. So pass the news on – it may not solve the world’s woes, but a bit of a giggle might lift the gloom a tiny bit.

klillington@irishtimes.com

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