An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption • Hacker News Board

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#11

Post by overthemoon » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #9

How can someone write a whole article about disruption but not actually use the correct, well understood meaning of the term? They literally just made up their own strawman definition of what "disruption" means (tech people getting rich I guess?). Disruption has always been used to mean disrupting established market leaders via innovation. Guess what? That's exactly what has happened with Uber, AirBnB, Amazon... If a…

The author cycled through several ways it gets used, and it IS used differently in different contexts by different people, and that matters. Your appeal to a platonic usage is unconvincing.

Anyway this isn't a "whole article about disruption", it's an article about three books that reframe Silicon Valley's history.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#12

Post by malvosenior » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #10

malvosenior wrote: post #9

How can someone write a whole article about disruption but not actually use the correct, well understood meaning of the term? They literally just made up their own strawman definition of what "disruption" means (tech people getting rich I guess?). Disruption has always been used to mean disrupting established market leaders via innovation. Guess what? That's exactly what has happened with Uber, AirBnB, Amazon... If a…

> Uber, AirBnB, Amazon Amazon, sure, but Uber & AirBnB? Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again?

Uber disrupted taxi companies.

AirBnB disrupted the hotel industry.

Both used technology to get there (there were no apps to hail taxis anywhere near feature parity with Uber for instance). They also leveraged the distribution mechanisms of the app store to reach scale.

> Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again?

Whether you view it that way or not (I don't) it doesn't change the fact that these companies successfully disrupted established players. It doesn't matter if it was "innovative" (again I think it was), the end result was textbook disruption.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#13

Post by malvosenior » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

overthemoon wrote: post #11

malvosenior wrote: post #9

How can someone write a whole article about disruption but not actually use the correct, well understood meaning of the term? They literally just made up their own strawman definition of what "disruption" means (tech people getting rich I guess?). Disruption has always been used to mean disrupting established market leaders via innovation. Guess what? That's exactly what has happened with Uber, AirBnB, Amazon... If a…

The author cycled through several ways it gets used, and it IS used differently in different contexts by different people, and that matters. Your appeal to a platonic usage is unconvincing. Anyway this isn't a "whole article about disruption", it's an article about three books that reframe Silicon Valley's history.

"An Alternative History" would suggest that the actual history would be mentioned somewhere in the article. The Innovator's Dilemma book doesn't even get a mention.

It's totally fine to have a contrarian point of view but you have to accurately represent the opposing view point. That wasn't done here.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#14

Post by molticrystal » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #10

malvosenior wrote: post #9

How can someone write a whole article about disruption but not actually use the correct, well understood meaning of the term? They literally just made up their own strawman definition of what "disruption" means (tech people getting rich I guess?). Disruption has always been used to mean disrupting established market leaders via innovation. Guess what? That's exactly what has happened with Uber, AirBnB, Amazon... If a…

> Uber, AirBnB, Amazon Amazon, sure, but Uber & AirBnB? Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again?

>before regulation leveled the field again

Before regulation locked out any possibility of long term successful competition.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#15

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #12

rootusrootus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber, AirBnB, Amazon Amazon, sure, but Uber & AirBnB? Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again?

Uber disrupted taxi companies. AirBnB disrupted the hotel industry. Both used technology to get there (there were no apps to hail taxis anywhere near feature parity with Uber for instance). They also leveraged the distribution mechanisms of the app store to reach scale. > Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again? Whether you view it that way o…

Uber and airbnb outcompeted them by offering lower prices and disregarded obviously outdated laws. The phone was what actually disrupted the industry not the actual services.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#16

Post by tway2888888 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #5

> For instance, the same year the government loaned $535 million to solar-power company Solyndra, it also loaned Tesla $465 million. “Taxpayers footed the bill for Solyndra’s losses—yet got hardly any of Tesla’s” gains, she says. Solyndra has become “a byword for the government’s sorry track record when it came to picking winners,” a story that has helped keep regulators at bay, she says. I'm no Tesla fan, but that's…

>I don't think the program lost very much money overall.

It's not about whether it lost money. What were the risk adjusted expected rates of return? Was the interest rate sufficient? Was this the best way to invest that half-a-billion dollars? It certainly was not with Solyndra.

The fact that, in hindsight, Tesla paid back the loan doesn't determine whether it was "worth it" or not. The government may have gotten lucky. That's no way to run a lending business.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#17

Post by thoughtexplorer » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

> (One of the future Trump adviser’s least favorite words? “Politics.”)

What's with this unrelated off topic dig?

Secondly, what's the point they're trying to make? That Thiel is a hypocrite? If so, you can both hate politics/government and work to try to improve it. One strategy is to do so from within. Musk was trying to do the same for a while.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#18

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

plankers wrote: post #2

Can confirm, was a contractor in Silicon Valley. The "narrative" these executives sell is little more than an opiate for their fleets of highly-paid engineers to feel like they're justified in having a salary several times higher than the contractors they work with on a daily basis.

Huh don't self employed contractors make more in terms of $ to cover the extra costs 3x is norm in the UK.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#19

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

molticrystal wrote: post #14

rootusrootus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber, AirBnB, Amazon Amazon, sure, but Uber & AirBnB? Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again?

>before regulation leveled the field again Before regulation locked out any possibility of long term successful competition.

If you have to break the rules to succeed against competition that is playing by the rules, it may be a sign that your business is not sustainable.

Re: An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption

#20

Post by jalfresi » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:52 PM UTC

molticrystal wrote: post #14

rootusrootus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber, AirBnB, Amazon Amazon, sure, but Uber & AirBnB? Wasn't their "innovation" flaunting the law to gain a temporary advantage before regulation leveled the field again?

>before regulation leveled the field again Before regulation locked out any possibility of long term successful competition.

>Before regulation locked out any possibility of long term successful competition

from companies willing to exploit loopholes in hard won labour laws whilst putting the health of the general public in danger by exploiting the slow moving mechanism of governance for profit