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Abstract

Capitalism in the United States encourages entrepreneurs to participate in the food system with prospects of amassing wealth. However, starting a food company is no easy task given the limited access to resources and the social inequities and oppression that serve as barriers of entry. This thesis investigates Silicon Valley's food and technology (tech) culture in its current state, asking whether and how it is upholding social inequities and injustices through neoliberalism and oppression. Using critical inquiry and content analysis, I examine how Silicon Valley maintains power among elites by controlling or influencing the conditions of production necessary to produce food and tech. In addressing the social issues that condition opportunity in Silicon Valley's food and tech culture, I turn to food democracy as a means to distribute power and voice back to the people by decreasing barriers of entry into food entrepreneurship. My findings show there is some success among current efforts to engage with food democracy in various formats. I suggest the positioning of social entrepreneurship in discourse and practice as creating a community that strives for social equity through the redistribution of resources. The hope of this thesis is to encourage more research and development in finding new innovations that enhance food democracy and construct a new culture in the food and tech landscape that addresses social inequities and oppression.

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