Earlier quoted context omitted.
did you read the article? They showed that the economists are designing experiments that lead to new features.
Implicitly distrusting the beancounters is not a bad thing.
Hey, accountants aren't economists..
Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
41–50 of 87 posts
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#42Taleb would say it's time to short the whole SV tech market due to the wrong party being set up to be rewarded for economic disasters present and future. If you really want to understand economics, his books are a must read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb
I find that while he makes good points, he also misrepresents the views and histories of the people he attacks. It is the standard "The common knowledge is wrong, trust me" tactic for establishing yourself as an expert on a topic. For example, he got famous for picking on Black-Scholes. Claiming among other things that he was smarter because he was a trader before he became an academic. Conveniently not mentioning th…
Indeed, Myron Scholes was on the board of LTCM when they blew up and kicked off the Asian financial crisis. LTCM could be a poster child for fragile financial systems.
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really skeptical of your argument. To start with, you mention that many presidents majored in History-- but the prestige came from the law degree that followed, not the history B.A. (which maybe is popular due to history's focus on political events). Secondly, you suggest that the study of History centers around high level decision-making. I'm not really sure about that. Assuming you're right, this is also the ca…
The basic assumption of history being made by decision makers is wrong. Such history is made - under good circumstances, yes. If a surplus exists and no internal oppossition rears its head, due to economic stress. As soon as the economic limits of a system are reached though, leaders are just as the population under the influence of the "physics of the situation". Which is shaped by human instincts, retardations reac…
This is broadly correct - the truly great leaders of history are rarely studied, because they noticed the current situation well in advance and adjusted things to avoid it.
Same how the best ship captains are the ones who never entered the storm, not the ones that somehow survived.
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#44Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#45The time of innovation is over, the time of cashing in and preservation has come?
I think of the automotive industry.
Big tech will start to diversify, start banks, buy appliance companies, buy suppliers/vertical integration.
I believe that happened to Auto in the 60s and 70s, about 20-30 years after the boom.
If we (irresponsibly) use that timeline, we should expect dark days for the next 20 years. Most innovation will be outside the US. Then comes the 1990s where tech companies will sober up, cut the free food, and become competitive again. By 2010s they will be innovating again.... 40 years from now.
Sorry for the doom prediction, I just saw a pattern.
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#46> The prize, which this year comes with up to two years’ worth of university tuition and a $42,000 stipend, has gone to computer scientists, engineers, physicists and statisticians. Not much better than a PhD stipend in a lot of places.
Meta is effectively funding a top junior engineer to work on something the find interesting for 1/10th the in-house price. Not a bad deal for them.
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#47The time of innovation is over, the time of cashing in and preservation has come? I think of the automotive industry. Big tech will start to diversify, start banks, buy appliance companies, buy suppliers/vertical integration. I believe that happened to Auto in the 60s and 70s, about 20-30 years after the boom. If we (irresponsibly) use that timeline, we should expect dark days for the next 20 years. Most innovation w…
Nah, there is a ton of fantastic innovation going on, and more to come.
Consider that health insurers are now mandated to release their pricing.
Maybe the days of FAANG cool are sunseting, but the new availability of data sources (cubesats, etc.) gets the innovation synapses firing for this graybeard.
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#48I remember Marginal Revolution talking about this a while ago (2016):
For the moment, Amazon seems to be the most aggressive recruiter of economists. It even has an Amazon Economists website for soliciting résumés. In a video on the site, Patrick Bajari, the company’s chief economist, says the economics team has contributed to decisions that have had “multibillion-dollar impacts” for the company.
Another Amazon jobs site lists openings for economists. As of Friday, there were 34.
Seeing this emerging job market, the National Association for Business Economics held its first meeting for technology company economists in April in San Francisco. Another is set for October in Silicon Valley.
Here's the original NYT article:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/technology/goodbye-ivor...
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#49Thread comments are predictably doom and gloom about SV. I wish people wouldn't be so predicable, life would be more interesting.
Re: Economists are flocking to Silicon Valley
#50Economists are flocking to jobs because there isn’t one in economics is a more appropriate title.