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The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

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Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#61

Post by pron »

kmfrk wrote: post #3

Evgeny Morozov wrote a must-read book review that deals with this bloviating mentality: http://bookforum.com/inprint/019_05/10825 . Can't wait to read his upcoming book on the subject.

Thanks.

I like his analysis, but particularly liked this interesting bit:

'Consider a 2011 survey by a British insurance company in which 11 percent of respondents claimed to have seen an incident but chose not to report it, worried that higher crime statistics for their neighborhood would significantly reduce the value of their properties. In this case, the quality of future data is intricately dependent on how much of the current data is disclosed; unconditional “openness” is the wrong move here—precisely because of feedback loops.'

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#62

Post by potatolicious »

pbiggar wrote: post #40
potatolicious wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Very strong" and "more to come"? Pray tell, what in the following lists qualify as the sort of "big innovations" we're talking about? [1] http://a16z.com/portfolio/ [2] http://firstround.com/companies/ [3] http://www.kpcb.com/companies Don't get me wrong, these lists contain a lot of great products that I'm happy exist - but big and world-changing they are not. The fact that the typical SV VC scene funds one or two…

Big innovations from those lists (which I call things that are - or are intended to be - life-changing for a reasonably large number of people): airbnb, asana, box, facebook, github, meteor, picloud, pinterest, skype, stripe, twitter, uber, yourmechanic, discourse, fundersclub, hoteltonight, mint, onekingslane, simple, square, taskrabbit, coursera, groupon, nest, spotify,

The way I look at it, there are three classes of companies when we talk about this issue. There's the "changes the landscape of the world" level, there's the "massive disruption to a segment", and then there's "incremental improvement on something".

None of the companies in this list are, IMO, in the first class. Self-driving cars, insulin injections, freedom from oil, eradication of common diseases, the internet, semiconductors, the smartphone, etc, IMO all fall under this category.

The second class is where I see AirBnb, Facebook, Square, and the such. They've turned their respective industries upside down with something genuinely different and new (as opposed to simply executing better at lower cost).

IMO the majority of your list belongs in the third class - they're great products, but ultimately they are incremental improvements in their field and have not shown themselves to be disruptive. How has Pinterest changed the world? Or Groupon?

Funny anecdote about Groupon - I've talked to some small business owners way back when Groupon was at the tip of everyone's tongues, and it was never perceived as a disruptive force. Business owners considered them an evolution of coupon books, and treated it as a new, alternative marketing channel - it was never truly disruptive.

The whole point of the original post is that we're funding an ocean of "class 3" companies, a small handful of "class 2" ones, and basically none in class 1.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#63

Post by a_p »

David Wheeler has an interesting list of what he considers to be important software innovations. [1] Most of the innovations listed occurred in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

An interesting quote from an article[2] about an interview with Linus Torvalds in LWN.net:

"A member of the audience asked Linus to describe his single most memorable moment from the last 20 years. Linus responded that he didn't really have one; the kernel is the result of lots of small ideas contributed by lots of people over a long time. There has been no big "ah ha!" moment. He went on to describe a pet peeve of his with regard to the technology industry: there is a great deal of talk about "innovation" and "vision." People want to hear about the one big idea that changes the world, but that's not how the world works. It's not about visionary ideas; it's about lots of good ideas which do not seem world-changing at the time, but which turn out to be great after lots of sweat and work have been applied."

[1] http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/445687/

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#64

Post by kmfrk »

pron wrote: post #61
kmfrk wrote: post #3

Evgeny Morozov wrote a must-read book review that deals with this bloviating mentality: http://bookforum.com/inprint/019_05/10825 . Can't wait to read his upcoming book on the subject.

Thanks. I like his analysis, but particularly liked this interesting bit: 'Consider a 2011 survey by a British insurance company in which 11 percent of respondents claimed to have seen an incident but chose not to report it, worried that higher crime statistics for their neighborhood would significantly reduce the value of their properties. In this case, the quality of future data is intricately dependent on how much…

This is basically David Simon's journalism in a nutshell as formulated by Campbell:

    The more any quantitative social indicator is use for 
    social decision-making, the more subject it will be to 
    corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to 
    distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended 
    to monitor.
Michelle Rhee's tenure is a cautionary tale that people insist to not learn anything from.

Gotta juke them stats.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#65

Post by bitserf »

OGinparadise wrote: post #8

Another thing: as companies get larger they will try to squeeze competitors, fire employees and do everything possible to increase their margins. Legal, but they shouldn't brag about it. Edited to add: Apple, Microsoft and Google alone have close to $250 Billion in the bank, $250,000,000,000 and what we hear each quarter about them? Increased margins, more and more ads, increased prices on software, anti-competitive…

Or my favorite, buying revenue through acquisitions and then asking existing employees to take one for the team with pay freezes and austerity measures because of the subsequent impact to margin.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#66

Post by buss »

> Turning terabytes of genomic knowledge into medical benefit is a lot harder than discovering and mass producing antibiotics

Incidentally, if you'd like to actually turn terabytes of genomic data into actionable medical information, Counsyl is hiring software developers https://jobs.counsyl.com

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#67

Post by yummyfajitas »

timr wrote: post #59
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #44

"But these aren't free market aberrations brought on by regulations. They're the invisible hand of capitalism itself: reaching out for quick gains while avoiding as much downside risk as possible." Oh boy. We've got political commentary trying to pose as analysis. Okay, let's get this straight: capitalism drives efficiencies in markets. Efficiencies drive innovation. If you look at this only in terms of money, you're…

"Oh boy. We've got political commentary trying to pose as analysis. Okay, let's get this straight: capitalism drives efficiencies in markets. Efficiencies drive innovation. If you look at this only in terms of money, you're missing the point." Did you read anything else before you went into Political Strike Mode, or did you just skim it? From the previous section: "most of Silicon Valley doesn't concern itself with a…

Other than mentioning that Thiel tends to place the blame on the government (which he does),

Not for the lack of innovation. In fact, he specifically decries the lack of innovation by the government as well as the private sector. Thiel seems to blame it on a cultural shift - he believes the US has moved from an optimistic-deterministic viewpoint to an optimistic-stochastic viewpoint.

Go read his stanford lectures to see this expressed fairly well.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#68

Post by ohwp »

Maybe the problem is that innovation and invention are mixed up all the time. The CD was a great invention while Apple is an innovative company.

I'm not sure this is correct but I think that innovations remove risks while inventions are always risky or don't bother to think about risks.

Edit: to make myself more clear: I think that innovations are about renewal and inventions are about new. Some examples (in my eyes): Apple is innovative, IBM is inventive.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#69

Post by tsotha »

qdog wrote: post #55
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #44

"But these aren't free market aberrations brought on by regulations. They're the invisible hand of capitalism itself: reaching out for quick gains while avoiding as much downside risk as possible." Oh boy. We've got political commentary trying to pose as analysis. Okay, let's get this straight: capitalism drives efficiencies in markets. Efficiencies drive innovation. If you look at this only in terms of money, you're…

"If you want to see big changes, create big rewards for solutions without constraint to how they are accpomplished. So let's see $50 Billion to anybody who can take us to a repeatable $10/kilo to low earth orbit. Or $10 Billion for the first 3D printer able to print an electric car." Arguably that's what government grants do or should do. Taking 50 billion dollars in tax money and stoking the fire in an area we are i…

>Of course, some of that 50 billion gets eaten by graft, and that's where the problem a lot of people have with government programs.

That's why prizes are a good way to go. Nothing gets paid out if you don't reach your goal.

>Although private companies don't seem to have any better levels of control (usually much worse control) over corruption, a lot of people seem to think only 100% success demonstrates "working" government.

The difference is private companies are spending money provided as a result of an agreement freely entered into by all parties, while the government is spending money taken from people by force of law. The government should be held to a much higher standard.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#70

Post by msutherl »

fl3tch wrote: post #47

If you want to make a difference, quit trying to cash out as a 25 year old millionaire. Get a PhD and do research. That's the real risk in life, that you might work your ass off for little pay, spend 30 years chasing a dream, and fail in the end. But the people who succeed change the world. Interestingly, most Nobel Prize winners donate a large percentage of their prize money to charity or research. They weren't inte…

Is this the only way to make a big difference? I would love to see something like a guide to making a difference in the world. What are the major archetypes of such people?

For instance, what of the managers who brought together the teams of PhD's to do the work – are they not just as important as the Nobel winners? And how does one become such a manager?

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