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

theatlantic.com

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

#141

Post by varelse »

TLDR: Agree with parts of Steve Blank and Grellas...

15 year veteran of the valley here, and as much as I agree with Steve Blank that the herd money is chasing social media right now (and why not?), I don't agree that the long-term payout investments are gone - just look at Planetary Resources for an instant counterexample (I know, they're based in Seattle so they don't count, right?).

But more importantly, all of Web 2.0's 30ish billionaires are as mortal as the rest of us. The difference is that they actually can throw money at that problem and stand a good chance of at least a modest payout (just look at Sergei Brin and Parkinson's research). And while I agree with Steve Blank about the importance of government funding for long-term technological development, I think we're about to see a Cambrian explosion in biotech as these guys try to fight off the inevitability of death. Because what good are all their toys if they don't stick around long enough to play with them?

Meanwhile, the north end of Silicon Valley has quietly transformed itself into a mecca for biotech and bioinformatics in recent years. Silicon Valley itself started out as farmland and look at it now. I see this as just the latest in a series of transformations to whatever is the next big thing.

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

#142

Post by usaar333 »

pyre wrote: post #137
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We spend something like 5-10% of our time driving. Automated driving would allow us to save that and use it for something useful. Not many innovations have saved people that much time.

You'll still be sitting in the car during that time (these are driverless cars, not personal teleporters), so I wager that the extra time will be spent on Angry Birds or watching TV on your phone.

True, you'll see some reduction in time though:

1. Less congestion

2. No need to find parking

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

#143

Post by microarchitect »

maigret wrote: post #140
microarchitect wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is fundamentally different from Facebook because they solved a really hard problem really well and then found an excellent way of monetizing their solution. People still use Google today largely because it works better than the other options out there. Further, the other options are worse not because the others aren't trying hard enough or spending enough on search. To me, Google falls squarely in the disrupti…

Funny, the more I learn about Facebook, the less I believe to this distinction. You've got to see how much people FB hired out of Goog to see that they've got some technical talents, and I can hardly imagine they are idling. Facebook may not be solving all the same problems than Goog, but they probably have an equivalent advanced DC management. See their work on devops, PHP compiler, and how they opened their server…

Facebook now have a lot of very difficult technical problems to solve and are doing a great job solving them. But what got them here wasn't a great algorithm, it was good execution on a fairly simple concept.

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

#144

Post by forensic »

tsotha wrote: post #138
forensic wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have yet to see any evidence social media has the same effect. Have you looked for these studies? Are you an expert on this corner of the literature? There have been studies and they do show that internet socialization has an effect on a variety of relevant measurements. To summarize, Internet socialization is not equivalent to face-to-face socialization but it does provide some of the benefits and is also able to…

Perhaps you can cite the research with which you're so familiar.

Anyone genuinely interested in these facts could check Wikipedia, Google Scholar, or a Google Books textbook and find copious citations.

To be perfectly honest, I find your behaviour more interesting than the actual topic.

Why do people who have clearly not exhaustively studied a particular field put forth their own ignorance as an argument in their favor?

"I'm an evangelical Christian who has never gone to university and I've never seen any evidence of evolution. My ignorance is a strong argument against evolution! I am going to use my ignorance as a bludgeon in this debate and make everyone else do all the work of digging up citations, which I won't read anyway."

Am I wrong in thinking this is a uniquely American form of entitled debating style? "Everyone has the right to spread their ignorant opinion" or something?

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

#145

Post by willpower101 »

There must not be much going on in the world right now. So many headlines have similar grandiose statements recently. The valley is not dead. There are future disruptive companies being ran by two guys in a garage all over silicon valley. Sadly, you have to have the foresight to wait five years while they build momentum. There's never not a next big thing.

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

#146

Post by willpower101 »

willpower101 wrote: post #145

There must not be much going on in the world right now. So many headlines have similar grandiose statements recently. The valley is not dead. There are future disruptive companies being ran by two guys in a garage all over silicon valley. Sadly, you have to have the foresight to wait five years while they build momentum. There's never not a next big thing.

Actually, I want to amend that a little bit. Rocket city, spaceport, JPL, etc., I feel space travel is on the same precipice that tcp/ip and compuserve were in the 80's. The next 20 years will be fun.

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

#147

Post by Eliezer »

adpirz wrote: post #136
atarian wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A lot of people forget that Elon Musk spent a large portion of his own money to fund new ventures from Paypal. Bill Gates is helping many disadvantaged people around the world with the money he earned from Microsoft. I'd also like to point out that a lot of these Internet companies contribute to charities, so the money isn't just a 100% flow up the hierarchy.

This doesn't hit the root of the problem. If we rely on the current SV enterprise model, we're basically just hoping that the billionaires that come out of this social media binge will be socially aware enough to invest in hard problems themselves, and in that sense, they become almost feudal lords. This is a case where I think, just like Blanks states, the government's responsibility to counteract market forces for…

Taking money from everyone to fund science... could be argued, I suppose. Taking money from successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to fund government science would be merely stupid. In other words, what I object to about the parent comment is the notion that the U.S. government could possibly, possibly, be better-intentioned and wiser in practice, on average in real life, than the winners of the great startup contest.

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

#148

Post by ralfn »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #11
recursive wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's absolutely correct. Automated cars will have a much bigger effect than iPads. So much time is wasted driving.

This is just blatantly wrong. Yes automated cars will be a huge deal, but discounting the iPad is just prejudice pretending to be insight. The mobile OS experience and the tablet PC are very much the next phase of evolution of the computer. Right now the iPad is trailblazing the way as a very high markup luxury good but even so it's proving to be enormously disruptive. When the second shoe drops on the tablet PC revo…

Good stuff, just one remark:

>technology will change what it means to live in the 3rd world

There is no 3rd world. Its 2012, not 1930. Income gaps are becoming localised, rather than globalized.

I understand your point, but i just hate the phrase, since it symbolizes the cartoonesque ignorance of the western world.

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

#149

Post by ralfn »

usaar333 wrote: post #58
InclinedPlane wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just blatantly wrong. Yes automated cars will be a huge deal, but discounting the iPad is just prejudice pretending to be insight. The mobile OS experience and the tablet PC are very much the next phase of evolution of the computer. Right now the iPad is trailblazing the way as a very high markup luxury good but even so it's proving to be enormously disruptive. When the second shoe drops on the tablet PC revo…

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 $4…

> I'd argue the laptop was just as, if not more, revolutionary than pad-formatted computers.

Wouldnt it be more fair to say that the tablets finally do, what they promised us laptops would do?

I think the change to touch is quite radical, and that because all the ui stuff had to be reinvented, we were able to break away from all the desktop paradigmas.

These mobile OSes are fundamentally different: they allow a person to run managed untrusted applications, while minimizing battery life and maximizing security. This is a complete opposite of a desktop OS that is meant to run trusted applications with as much power, access and performance as possible.

The OLPC was great, but the tablets did make that compromize the new default for everybody.

Then again, i fully agree that self driving vehicles are more disruptive.

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

#150

Post by [deleted] »

usaar333 wrote: post #58
InclinedPlane wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just blatantly wrong. Yes automated cars will be a huge deal, but discounting the iPad is just prejudice pretending to be insight. The mobile OS experience and the tablet PC are very much the next phase of evolution of the computer. Right now the iPad is trailblazing the way as a very high markup luxury good but even so it's proving to be enormously disruptive. When the second shoe drops on the tablet PC revo…

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 $4…

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