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The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

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Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#101

Post by bart_spoon »

natch wrote: post #47
yardie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider Rice and UT-Austin as two of the best universities in a conservative, red state. But they don't get a lot of respect from coastal elites because they aren't in NYC or SF.

I don't know that those two universities don't get a lot of respect. I have always heard good things about them, here in my elite coastal bubble. As a counterexample, MIT is not in NYC or SF, and it gets respect. For the universities you mention, maybe the (perceived?) sense of lower respect comes from picking up on outsider's suspicions that a Texas university may draw from the state, and thus may have a higher perc…

Boston is very much in the category of "East Coast megacity".

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#102

Post by bitmover »

mister_tee wrote: post #57
farisjarrah wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The billboards in San Francisco off Hwy 80 and Hwy 101 never cease to surprise me. I'll ask my wife, who was a middle school teacher, what a "Datadog" or "Salesforce" is and she never knows (or cares, which is fair enough). The tech culture is so ingrained that even the non-techies are oblivious to how deeply rooted it is.

I remember flying into San Jose airport for the first time and the posters weren't advertising restaurants, hotels, and tourist destinations but enterprise routers and firewalls.

Barracuda!

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#103

Post by closeparen »

thraway3837 wrote: post #46

This has been predicted for decades now, but always misses a key point for SV being so successful. The SF Bay Area is one of the most diverse places to live and work in the US. Your managers, colleagues, and the area are from very different backgrounds, and when you bring together this diverse set of people, you end up creating things that 99% of the world uses. Outside of LA and the NY metro area, diversity drops dr…

Immigrants are pursuing advanced degrees because a) the immigration system incentivizes it and b) specific immigrant populations have specific experiences in living memory where education was the only path from medieval subsistence farming to modern industrialized life in the cities, and/or the only asset that Communists couldn’t effectively seize.

I don’t think it’s at all the case that CS PhD programs are causally responsible for Silicon Valley’s progress, except to the extent that brilliant people were also incentivized by immigration authorities or their families to be in PhD programs at some point.

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#104

Post by jelliclesfarm »

Immigrants who are the cream of the crop in their countries is the success of Silicon Valley. We just skim the top of the best from everywhere. And reward them.

Sadly, the next generation of these immigrants become Americans and will be raised in American public school system. It shows. Sad, but true. That’s why we keep importing immigrants to keep running faster to stay in the same place. Hint: make schools centers of academic learning again for little humans.

The only way to emulate Silicon Valley is to aggressively pursue merit and academic excellence of relevant subject matter. At the end of the day, the stock in trade of tech is IQ. The rest is just entertainment.

Ruthlessly discourage and weed out all the distractors and hobby degree pursuers(like phD in history of social justice wars or post grad degree in open air drug den architecture etc). A hard core tech valley should focus on STEM, value high achievers and reward them while simultaneously protecting them from the turkeys who want to bring the elephant down.

We better get the formula right in SV too because that culture is disappearing. There is shame in the valley for being too successful thanks to the hoard of foxes that jumped and jumped…couldn’t reach the sweet sweet inviting grapes..and hence found them too sour.

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#105

Post by bart_spoon »

tlogan wrote: post #95
bart_spoon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically 1 and 5. Plenty of places have 2, 3, 4 (despite what people on the West coast tell themselves), and I'm not even sure what 6 is supposed to mean. For all the soul-searching about why Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley, the overwhelming reason is because once you have a successful base for an up and coming industry, you will win by default moving forward. Once Silicon Valley became the initial bed for…

Can you please tell me which places have 2, 3, and 4? Im just trying expland my views and maybe visit them.

North Carolina easily fits the bill. Great outdoors, proximity to good universities, fairly diverse, at least in some of the major metros. A lot of places in the Great Lakes region are similar. Some of the nations best universities are in and around Chicago, Michigan, Pittsburgh, etc. Particularly in the cities, diversity is fair to high (Chicago, Minneapolis, etc). And much of the Great Lakes region is highly underrated from an outdoor perspective, particularly Michigan, and support year-round outdoor activities like beaches, hiking, skiing/snowboarding, sailing, biking, etc.

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#106

Post by juve1996 »

bart_spoon wrote: post #98
juve1996 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pittsburgh politics are not midwest conservative, unless you include the heavy suburban regions which are not where the tech companies are.

No city is "midwest conservative", even in the heart of the midwest. Pittsburgh is 100% a Midwestern city.

It 100% isn't, born and raised. It's nothing like or Indianapolis. The topography and history are completely different.

Not northeastern != midwest. Pittsburgh has far more in-common with Baltimore than it does Indy.

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#107

Post by jeffbee »

gxiv wrote: post #58
pyrito wrote: post #17

I think it's really as simple as having a big company hitting a giant IPO that creates wealthy individuals who go on to invest in smaller up and coming startups. E.g. Seattle has Amazon and Microsoft, Bay Area has Meta, Google, etc.

This is what happened in Waterloo, Ontario with Blackberry. Of course the tech scene there is no where near as large as a SV and a couple others, but it's still weirdly big and concentrated given the size of the surrounding city. Every mid to large tech company in that area has a decent size cohort of ex-blackberry people.

Is it possible that the cause and effect are reversed? I thought RIM was established in Waterloo because Waterloo was already by that time a Silicon-Valley-like (or at least Pittsburgh-like) tech hub.

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#108

Post by bart_spoon »

juve1996 wrote: post #106
bart_spoon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No city is "midwest conservative", even in the heart of the midwest. Pittsburgh is 100% a Midwestern city.

It 100% isn't, born and raised. It's nothing like or Indianapolis. The topography and history are completely different. Not northeastern != midwest. Pittsburgh has far more in-common with Baltimore than it does Indy.

The topography and history are closer to Baltimore than Indy? It's historically been part of the Rust Belt. It's considered part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis [0]. It's on the Western side of the Appalachian divide. Culturally it has far more in common with Cleveland or Columbus than Philly or NYC. The only reason it's even a question is because its in Pennsylvania, which contains Philly which is clearly East Coast. But cultural, geographic, and economic regions aren't defined by stat borders. If instead of being a part of Pennsylvania, there was a "Western Pennsylvania" and "Eastern Pennsylvania", no one would question lumping Western Pennsylvania in with the rest of the Midwest.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_megalopolis#/media...

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#109

Post by juve1996 »

bart_spoon wrote: post #108
juve1996 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It 100% isn't, born and raised. It's nothing like or Indianapolis. The topography and history are completely different. Not northeastern != midwest. Pittsburgh has far more in-common with Baltimore than it does Indy.

The topography and history are closer to Baltimore than Indy? It's historically been part of the Rust Belt. It's considered part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis [0]. It's on the Western side of the Appalachian divide. Culturally it has far more in common with Cleveland or Columbus than Philly or NYC. The only reason it's even a question is because its in Pennsylvania, which contains Philly which is clearly East Coast.…

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/neighborhood/2018/08/08/P...

A good read, or you can come ask the locals what they think - be prepared for a big argument :).

From your link "Map of the emerging American-Canadian megaregions as defined by America 2050."

Emerging - not historical.

Pittsburgh is not 100% midwest. We are not like Nebraska, at all. The further you go from Pittsburgh the divide grows starker. There is some in common with some great lakes rust belt cities. That's it. In any case, it's not 100%.

Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case

#110

Post by jelliclesfarm »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #104

Immigrants who are the cream of the crop in their countries is the success of Silicon Valley. We just skim the top of the best from everywhere. And reward them. Sadly, the next generation of these immigrants become Americans and will be raised in American public school system. It shows. Sad, but true. That’s why we keep importing immigrants to keep running faster to stay in the same place. Hint: make schools centers…

Of course, there is a flip side to this. The tech bros should stay in their lane. Just because they have a structural engineering degree doesn’t make them experts on housing policy. There are people who studied that. VCs and investors should stop trying to meddle with local politics. Bro, you can’t solve homelessness because you can train an AI. Also..AI art is NOT art. That’s making a mockery of the artists who spent years honing their craft.

There is an almost borderline selfishness amongst the tech elite..like that of a child who wants all the candy for themselves. As a society, if we don’t give dignity to all and value everyone..that society will slide and crumble.

It is not that tech bros are paid obscene amounts. It’s just that artists and service providers and even politicians(channeling Singapore model which we should all probably emulate) aren’t paid enough. There is no need for scarcity and hoarding(that comes from a scarcity mentality) here.

Maybe SV could also learn something with some in the tech sector learning to stay in their lane and allow others to shine in their strengths and abilities. Everyone wants their little pool of limelight. It’s light. There is enough for everyone.

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