'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

The iPhone and iPad were absolutely not a "project" (the word he uses in the article) of the past five years. They're part of a project that started more than ten years ago. I certainly don't think they're old technology - they're still ahead of the tablet and arguably the smart phone market, I think - but I don't really classify them as small projects that have a lot of potential that were just invented in the past five years. Heck, you could easily argue that the iPad is the fruition of a vision, and a project, that Steve Jobs started decades ago. And if you want to get technical, the iPhone was in active development before five years ago.

> One, you presume that advertisers are incredibly naive and don't measure returns.

Working in digital media (in Australia) I would say this is actually accurate.... People measure returns not on the impact on sales because its difficult to account for... people are using metrics such as "likes" and size of the email list to know if a campaign is working. The top advertisers do measure the impact down to the user... but most are not willing to pay the money it costs to gather and analyse the data. Instead they follow the trends, under the impression that if everyone else is doing it, it must be right.

Part of the problem is that

- Most companies run digital through a different team from press, broadcast and other media.

- The digital team is almost always very lightly funded compared to the other mediums (its also cheaper to run). Due to the lighter funding it tends to have the more junior marketers.

- Many companies run each brand in their portfolio through a different marketing team, so that your dealing with small teams (3-10) of people even for large national brands.

- These people are typically not mathematically and technologically trained and typically work with outside vendors to do their work.

Don't overestimate the value of facebook ads, they work really well for certain things (some impulse buys, things on the facebook platform, etc), but It doesn't work well (at the moment) for many other products (expensive, niche).

Facebook has a lot of potential to adapt this going forward but I am thinking that people are betting on facebook like its a sure thing and am not yet convinced they will pull it off.

The last commercial Fab in the valley closed some five years ago. Many of the companies that were essential still have their HQ in the valley, but are transferring more of their operations over seas, Applied Materials for one.

The valley has evolved over time too, and in order to be an interesting place it must continue to evolve. I have yet to see an end to interesting conversations, ideas, and things coming out of here.

Tablets shouldn't be discounted, but I can't see how they'll change more peoples' lives more than automated driving.

In terms of your points. (I'm assuming tablet = pad type of computer such as ipad, kindle, etc.):

1. Cheaper: Is this true compared to an ultra-low cost laptop, such as the OLPC X 1.75? They might have less components (no keyboard/mouse/touchpad), but capacitive touch screens aren't cheap (I believe $40 in the ipad2). So unless pricing closes in on keyboards (which go for around $10?), I see tablets as being pricier than laptops.

2/3. Agreed

4. Again, see #1. power consumption for low-end laptops is on-par with a tablet if not below. (XO 1.75 is 2W. XO-3 claims 1W).

5. Why is this so much different than a windows program?

So yes, I agree that tablets change things, but how much do they fundamentally improve a person's life? I agree some percentage of people will be taken from "not having a computer" to "having a computer/using it better", but in the end the tablet is just a lighter laptop you can use standing up and with friends easier. So ya, there's benefit, but world changing? I'd argue the laptop was just as, if not more, revolutionary than pad-formatted computers.

On the other hand, I feel automated cars are truly revolutionary. From the point of view of America:

1. 1% of Americans will die in a car crash and countless more will be injured. Automated systems will be an order of magnitude better than human drivers, so we'll see thousands of lives saved a year.

2. Without having to pay for a taxi driver or for expensive liability insurance, the price of a taxi will at least halve. At this point, there is less incentive to own cars and car ownership rate plummets, resulting in far fewer cars being produced (and cars being utilized at much higher rates). (I'm summarizing this famous post: https://plus.google.com/103583939320326217147/posts/TpN1g1oS...)

2a. Americans spend something like $300billion a year on new cars. Automated driving will save >$100B (1% of economy) annually.

3. Again, automated cars drive much better and can operate in situations too dangerous for humans (extremely close driving). With a good communication network, congestion operation will be much more efficient, leading to far less traffic and a reduced need to build more roads.

3a. Auto insurance industry a fraction of its original size. $150B+ savings

4. Driving jobs (taxi, truck) eliminated. That's over 4 million jobs. (2% of the workforce). Incredibly significant and another $100B in economic savings (of course assuming successful redirection to other economically productive activities).

Bottom line: In addition to regaining substantial time lost driving, America alone will save at least $350B a year. That's 2.5% of US GDP (and 25% of transportation gdp).

The disruption in mobile & social already happened, the iPhone, iPad and Facebook are just indicators that the industry has moved in to a very mature stage.

What did mobile and social disrupt?

-Authoritarian governments. -Print media -Broadcast and cable TV -Anything people occupied their time with before it

What will/has the iPad disrupt/disrupted?

-Microsoft -Desktop & Laptop hardware manufacturers -Print books (asta la vista Borders) -Television sets

Steve Blank's complaint is basically that the margins are so good in this "new" market that all the money is being invested here and the next big disruptors are getting ignored.

I think as processing power continues to drop in price and mass market access to gigantic data sets grows, this will become a non-issue. The question is, will those disruptions come from somewhere outside of Silicon Valley?