A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

My mother was born a century ago in San Francisco; growing up I spent at least part of every summer vacation there; as an adult I lived there for 25 years starting in 1977.

One constant in all that time was the truth of the saying, “San Francisco is 49 sq miles surrounded by reality” (not original to 60 Minutes).

That was true when my mother was growing up and probably before that.

It is still true, only now it applies to the South Bay, as well as parts of the East Bay.

The Bay Area has always marched to its own, different drummer, but that drummer has lost its mind.

Or maybe it’s not the different drummer, but that the inmates really are running the asylum (pardon the mixed metaphors).

These days, tech is the drummer and the inmates are the billionaires enamored with their own visions of a world created for the 1%.

Elon Musk is a prime example as is Peter Thiel.

Talk about guys with a god complex.

Perhaps we should revive an old roman custom — no, not feeding the 99% to the lions; that’s already happening.

Rather the one that reminded the 1% that they were not gods.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Is making a difference important to you?

It should be, since most workers are happier and more productive in companies that give back.

That holds true no matter the age of the worker or the size of the company.

Companies, departments, teams or individuals can choose to make a difference.

Some go far afield and seek to mitigate the problems and tragedies of less fortunate countries.

Others focus on local problems, which makes sense since companies are usually urban.

That said, you don’t have to go overseas to third-world countries to find third-world problems to solve.

Tech could start less than 200 miles from San Francisco in Fresno, CA.

While Facebook wanted to wire India, it isn’t interested in doing the same in the US.

Though Central Valley harvests most of the country’s crops, tech workers often forget their neighboring region exists. In the Bay Area map according to Urban Dictionary, the Central Valley is jokingly referred to as “unknown parts.”

And consider this.

According to a recent Pew survey, approximately five million students still lack access to high-speed Internet. Experts have taken to calling it the “homework gap.”

Or turn your gaze to the other coast and some of the most beautiful countryside in America — Appalachia — home to some of the most grinding poverty and third-world living conditions to be found in the US.

And while you’re gazing, check out what’s being done to change that.

Crunching all the data imaginable won’t always yield a solution, since anomalies do happen (for an in-depth understanding of that read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, still brilliant/viable after 60+ years).

Back when I lived in San Francisco, it was often termed “49 square miles surrounded by reality.”

That’s expanded to 7,000 square miles (contained in the nine-county Bay Area) surrounded by the reality of places like Fresno.

Tech needs to understand that technology in and of itself is not a solution.

Tech is digital, while the world and the humans who inhabit it are, and always will be, analog.

So while technology itself isn’t a solution, the ways it can be applied may be.

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One more request.

School is starting soon and most kids are shopping, whether at Nordstrom or Walmart, while thousands of foster kids are facing school without even a backpack.

There are dozens of ways you can help them.

Skip a few Starbucks or Peets visits, choose a charity, check it out and donate the coffee money you saved.

Flickr image credit: Duck Lover