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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

#101

Post by danielpal »

pg wrote: post #87

These articles are easy to write (and upvote) but such conclusions are pretty meaningless till you have a definition of what counts as innovation. That's a very interesting question, and yet just about everyone who talks about this topic ducks it and goes instead for the easy score. Maybe we can do better here on HN. What's the right way to measure innovation? E.g. surely the 5 year old's definition (big shiny things…

I used to view innovation as: making it possible to do something that wasn't possible before (going from 0 to 1). But under that definition alone, SpaceX would not be very innovative. It's just sometimes when you go from 1 to N but the N is so large (like SpaceX case) it's probably a different kind of innovation. And by making the N that large, it's starts to look a lot like 0-1 and new opportunities arise, like the chance of getting to Mars (which is definitely 0-1)

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

#102

Post by harryh »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #97
DaniFong wrote: post #82

For what it's worth, in my experience the people talking about big innovation, actually ARE extremely supportive of genuine, plausible efforts at producing planetary scale improvements. In our case, we're trying to solve the economical energy storage problem (lightsail.com) These folks put their money where their mouth is, and helped out greatly when we needed advice or funding or connections. Particular people who h…

Ok, so here's a fun question: where do I find a list of the Big Problems? Because when I look at the world, it seems to me as if most of the really Big Problems are not technological but social. In the end, the conversion to solar energy won't be a single man's heroic effort, it'll be the combined efforts of an entire society that finally decided to go solar. On the other hand, technological approaches to social prob…

Really? What do you wish you could do that you can't? Let's make a list of things:

* I wish my body didn't start to break down as I get older.

* Related to that there are a whole host of diseases and disorders that I'll probably get one of and die from one day.

* I wish I didn't have to spend so much money on energy (not just directly on my monthly bill, but as part of the cost of almost everything I buy).

* I wish my internet connection was 100x faster.

* I wish I could travel to California from NY without having it sit on a cramped airplane for 5-6 hours.

* I wish I had a thinking interface to computers instead of having to take my damn phone out of my pocket and peck at it to get it to work.

* I wish my memory could be augmented in some way. I'm forgetting things all the time and that's really annoying.

* I wish that learning new stuff wasn't so hard. Can someone build on of those machines they have in the matrix so I can just download up some knowledge. I want to know Kung Fu!

* I worry about global warming. If everyone was as rich as Americans and lived like we do it seems like we'd have some pretty big problems. Can we do something about that?

* I hate that when I order something from Amazon I have to wait so long for it to show up. Why can't a machine in my apartment just zap it into being instantly? They've got that in Star Trek and it looks pretty awesome.

* Speaking of Star Trek, I'm bored of living on Earth. I want to go to the moon, or mars, or another solar system! How could we possibly do that?

OK. That's just five minutes of random thinking. I'm sure that I (or you!) could come up with many many other Big Problems.

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

#103

Post by mbesto »

pg wrote: post #87

These articles are easy to write (and upvote) but such conclusions are pretty meaningless till you have a definition of what counts as innovation. That's a very interesting question, and yet just about everyone who talks about this topic ducks it and goes instead for the easy score. Maybe we can do better here on HN. What's the right way to measure innovation? E.g. surely the 5 year old's definition (big shiny things…

Like all attempts to objectify the subjective, the analysis usually fall short and can be easily gamed. For example, large tech firms such as SAP say they are more innovative because the amount of R&D money they spend. I don't think it's worth putting the term 'innovation' on a measuring stick.

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

#104

Post by jacoblyles »

pg wrote: post #87

These articles are easy to write (and upvote) but such conclusions are pretty meaningless till you have a definition of what counts as innovation. That's a very interesting question, and yet just about everyone who talks about this topic ducks it and goes instead for the easy score. Maybe we can do better here on HN. What's the right way to measure innovation? E.g. surely the 5 year old's definition (big shiny things…

The appeal of these articles is that they speak our unspoken thoughts. When someone tells you about the snapchat/instagram clone they are building at a startup event, you are socially obligated to smile and say something nice about it. But on the inside you wonder at an economic system that puts people through two decades of training so that they can apply their talents to such activities. Meanwhile, companies doing big things find it tough to hire as they are competing with seed funding for your own cat pictures startup.

When I moved out to Silicon Valley it was right before the Groupon IPO and hundreds of man-years were being spent on Groupon clones. Of course nobody remembers them now.

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

#105

Post by draggnar »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #49

Edit: Seriously, I really want to know what people think about the question at the end. I worked with someone who works at cd2, and on a selfish note I'm just curious. I'm a "pasty scientist" paid by DARPA, in biotech. I work for someone who previously founded a brain-machine-interface company that had a small IPO (cyberkinetics). I would love nothing more than to see things I work on get turned into viable products.…

Your question reminds me of the article yesterday that suggested an "x prize for everything" [0]. I have heard many people say that the really hard part is the goal setting and determining which problems to solve, which you include in your question. Maybe the problem is that there is not a strong enough connection between the academic proof-of-concept ideas and the people who have the power to set the goals. In a perfect world, these proof-of-concept ideas would be the inspiration for an x-prize. The competition itself acts as a map forward which would generate a bunch of competition to tackle something, with a new industry established as the result. It seems the connection you are looking for isn't necessarily between the proof-of-concept ideas and the products, but rather the proof-of-concept ideas and the market-building-of-the-commons which benefits all participants. Once that exists, VC's can do their jobs to exploit the market.

[0](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5348677)

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

#106

Post by michaelochurch »

te_chris wrote: post #92
michaelochurch wrote: post #72

Silicon Valley used to be a place with cheap land where people went because the cost of living was low, and they could tinker with cool ideas whereas, in the expensive East Coast cities, they'd have to work themselves to death just to tread water. California was this place where you could come and do cool stuff and build on land the East Coast elite didn't want. It's no longer cheap to live there. Tinkering with new…

This rings true and people always seem to forget that it's much easier to innovate when the cost of living is lower. I'm currently living in Auckland, New Zealand, which by NZ (and world standards I think, though can't cite anything off hand) is quite expensive, but myself and my girlfriend have been contemplating moving to Sydney, Australia, a city which is one of most expensive in the world but where we would both…

This rings true and people always seem to forget that it's much easier to innovate when the cost of living is lower.

The problem, or the balance that must be struck, is that it's hard to innovate without being surrounded by other innovative people. You need a city with a critical mass of innovative, talented people and a low cost-of-living. California in the 1970s had that. I don't know what the 2013 analogue is, or if it's even in the US. The Midwest would qualify, but it's hard to raise any kind of money (VC, bank loans) out there.

When real estate is expensive, money dominates peoples' lives-- even seemingly wealthy people who still don't make enough to raise a family. When it's cheap, people focus on other things and money is just one thing in it.

I'm ideologically against expensive real estate. I think that the government should buy, build and own about 60% of housing and set the prevailing rent per square foot. Rich people will still have the ability to buy property and to rent or own nicer private housing, but the basic prevailing rate will be set. This actually doesn't bring along the negatives of price ceilings (shortage) because the government can also build more housing and transportation infrastructure to increase available supply. I think we should hold the government responsible for that. No one should have to pay more than 1/4 of post-tax income to live within 20 minutes of work.

The reason New York is expensive is that people like me-- ambitious, hard-working, extremely capable-- are able to find jobs here. People like me make the fucking city great. For each person like me, there are 9999 who want to be around (or employ, or exploit) people like me and they drive up the fucking rent. Instead of benefitting from our contribution, however, we get charged for it when we pay these enormous housing costs. We should be rioting in the fucking streets over this.

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

#107

Post by acgourley »

DaniFong wrote: post #82

For what it's worth, in my experience the people talking about big innovation, actually ARE extremely supportive of genuine, plausible efforts at producing planetary scale improvements. In our case, we're trying to solve the economical energy storage problem (lightsail.com) These folks put their money where their mouth is, and helped out greatly when we needed advice or funding or connections. Particular people who h…

The good news is it's just a short matter of time until far more entrepreneurs begin chasing the larger problems you describe. Once these more ambitious ideas have one or two XX billion dollar wins, the leaders of those companies will replace the Zuck and Dorsey as aspirational figures and both funding and talent will spill in. Musk is doing this as we speak, and there is room for another. If you look at the timescale this is all happening, it shouldn't be so depressing. It just feels slow because you're on the inside.

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

#108

Post by robomartin »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #49

Edit: Seriously, I really want to know what people think about the question at the end. I worked with someone who works at cd2, and on a selfish note I'm just curious. I'm a "pasty scientist" paid by DARPA, in biotech. I work for someone who previously founded a brain-machine-interface company that had a small IPO (cyberkinetics). I would love nothing more than to see things I work on get turned into viable products.…

One issue I have not been able to resolve in thinking about the idea of society-funded research has to do with what I'll refer to as "bad" global actors.

It is no secret that China shines for its lack of respect for intellectual property. The same is true for their willingness to steal just about anything from anyone and make it their own.

If we, as an open society, fund programs costing billions of dollars we would, in no uncertain terms, be "giving it away" to the Chinese and other bad world players.

It's the concept of unfairness when on person in a team does absolutely nothing yet benefits greatly from the work of the rest of the team members.

I know I am over-generalizing. Yet, I have to tell you, as an American citizen I despise the idea of investing my tax dollars in something and have it simply given away to other societies who have done nothing to contribute to the cause.

Would I like to invest tax dollars to find the cure for cancer and make it globally available? Absolutely.

Would I like to see the labs and companies we built as part of that process decimated and driven out of business because the Chinese take the work product we funded and drive costs so far down that our companies crumble under the pressure of our pricing models? Nope. Not interested.

Yes, society as a whole would benefit from cheap mass manufacturing of such a drug. And, while that happens, our industry will continue to be shredded by bad players such as China.

I don't have all the answers. I certainly don't know what the solution to this one might be.

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

#109

Post by pixl97 »

robomartin wrote: post #108
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #49

Edit: Seriously, I really want to know what people think about the question at the end. I worked with someone who works at cd2, and on a selfish note I'm just curious. I'm a "pasty scientist" paid by DARPA, in biotech. I work for someone who previously founded a brain-machine-interface company that had a small IPO (cyberkinetics). I would love nothing more than to see things I work on get turned into viable products.…

One issue I have not been able to resolve in thinking about the idea of society-funded research has to do with what I'll refer to as "bad" global actors. It is no secret that China shines for its lack of respect for intellectual property. The same is true for their willingness to steal just about anything from anyone and make it their own. If we, as an open society, fund programs costing billions of dollars we would,…

At one time we believed in tariffs. If they stole it and made it, at least they would have to pay to bring it back to us. We wouldn't tariff countries/products that respected our rules.

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

#110

Post by acgourley »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #97
DaniFong wrote: post #82

For what it's worth, in my experience the people talking about big innovation, actually ARE extremely supportive of genuine, plausible efforts at producing planetary scale improvements. In our case, we're trying to solve the economical energy storage problem (lightsail.com) These folks put their money where their mouth is, and helped out greatly when we needed advice or funding or connections. Particular people who h…

Ok, so here's a fun question: where do I find a list of the Big Problems? Because when I look at the world, it seems to me as if most of the really Big Problems are not technological but social. In the end, the conversion to solar energy won't be a single man's heroic effort, it'll be the combined efforts of an entire society that finally decided to go solar. On the other hand, technological approaches to social prob…

If we could make exercise easy/fun/cheap enough to not require lots of executive function from participants, the economic and social impact would be stratospheric. That's a hard problem that probably can't be solve incrementally because the differential between regular exercisers and the total adult population is about 5x.
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