A VC’s viral tweet has people debating if $500K in San Francisco means you’re destined for the ‘permanent underclass’

• AI is rapidly building wealth for some techies, but others think that a “permanent underclass” is coming.
• VC Deedy Das sparked debate with an X post about the wealth divide, with critics arguing “underclass” fears are overblown.
• “The anxiety everyone feels is real, both in the Bay or outside of it,” Das said in a text to BI, and the lesson is to “be patient.”

One user posted a clip of ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s commencement speech, where graduates booed his reference to AI.

“These kids are embracing the permanent underclass,” they wrote.

It may also be localized in San Francisco (and its famously high cost of living) — and San Francisco alone. One X user wrote that the permanent underclass was real, but that non-tech people should ignore it.

“What SF people consider ‘permanent underclass’ means something very different than in the rest of the country,” they wrote. “But it means ‘relative permanent underclass,’ and it is real.”

In his text, Das wrote that many San Francisco residents had been supportive, and that the common reaction he’d heard from those in the city was: “Thank you for stating plainly the anxiety from conversation we’ve all been having behind closed doors but too afraid to say out loud.”

you are in the permanent underclass if you can’t afford the AI subscriptions

— shafu (@shafu0x) May 10, 2026

Another user wrote that AI was both minting checks and threatening the “safe path” — something they said didn’t happen during previous technology booms. “You could sit out the dot-com boom & keep your accounting job,” they wrote.

Kierra Dotson, author of The Data Digest, suggested there is a middle ground to the discourse.

“I think there’s a lot of room between believing you’re free of money from money problems and about to be in the permanent underclass(severe). Homes being expensive in the Bay Area is nothing new(esp during the COVID peak) and the median salary is $136k,” she wrote.

“Has the goal post moved? Absolutely. Are these people in golden handcuffs? Probably,” she added. “But I think they have many more options than they think they do and expectations will have to be reworked…which is something we are all waking up to.”

Das wrote in his text that the lesson was to “be patient.”

“If you look at the people who were the biggest beneficiaries of the AI era, it is people who were diligently doing research since 2013/4, when their skills weren’t ‘hot,'” he wrote. “Patience is underrated.”