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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

#161

Post by unclebucknasty »

RougeFemme wrote: post #156
unclebucknasty wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment and the dilemma you present are very interesting. I think part of the problem is that we have reduced everything to a matter of economics and profit. It has become the measure of value for everything, so much so that intelligent, compassionate people can discuss the value of human life in terms of dollars and jobs. So, I think the problem you suggest is the product of a false choice. That is, IMO if we h…

I wouldn't have a major issue with a company profitting from the cure for cancer. On the other hand, I hate to seethe senior management of said company reaping handsome profits while people without the means to pay for it die without it. And I have major issue with sick people's inability to pay when the initial research was either done by or funded by taxpayer dollars. And then apply that same principle to all the m…

I think it's a slippery slope though: exactly who should profit and how much profit is too much? Posing those kinds of questions raises the ire of the "free market/profit motive cures everything" crowd that drives our current brand of capitalism.

Once we give something over to the machine, we introduce the very problem. IMO, we need to completely rethink what should be left to the markets vs. what we produce as a society for the good of humanity.

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

#162

Post by timr »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #159
timr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "deterministic optimism" (other than the obvious silliness of attributing one mindset to the entire US ), is that it doesn't change the nature of reality. You can invest more in certain areas and yield a return on that investment, but you can't reliably call your shots. Life doesn't work that way. Nearly all of the fruits of government research have been as a result of "stochastic" investment (i.e. n…

Where is the research? I want to work in it, but every company in this 'hot' industry is too enamored with cranking out disposable apps.

That's my point: there isn't much going on.

You can try academia, but things are pretty bleak right now. There's so much competition chasing so little money that it's hard to see a path to a career for all but the luckiest few PhD graduates. And forget it if you don't have a PhD from a top school.

People put so much mental energy into pondering the lack of innovation, but we've been systematically under-funding science for more than a decade. There's not much of a puzzle here.

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

#163

Post by saraid216 »

larrys wrote: post #131
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…

"But what would a good measure be?" I think it's important to realize in answering that question a few things. a) The answer to the question isn't digital (black and white) it's analog. It's a matter of degree and relative to the thing being considered. Curing cancer - say, up near 100. Cat photo app, say, down near 0. And everything in between. (Numbers arbitrary to make a point.) b) Most people could probably have…

> Cat photo app, say, down near 0.

Even this is obscuring the truth somewhat. Last year (?) an IT person in charge of xvideos.com (porn site) noted that they had deployed a technology stack further than it had been done before. This increased confidence in said stack for others, which could have all sorts of ripple effects that eventually lead to making an amazing innovation.

But the issue isn't that people are doing these incremental things. The issue is that they claim to be doing more than that, and they aren't. They're claiming to cure cancer by buying knick-knacks in Hungary which are taxed and the money used to pay for the electric grid powering the hospital where a patient with cancer is staying and occasionally gets visited by his son who happens to be researching a cure for cancer.

At some point, you can't take credit any more. Take a page out of other industries' books. Just shut up about innovation and focus on quality.

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

#164

Post by WildUtah »

michaelochurch wrote: post #91
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no longer cheap to live there. Tinkering with new ideas on some modest amount of savings and "odd jobs" or consulting is no longer possible. Expensive real estate leads to calcification and risk-aversion and cultural death. It's why urban ecosystems (including VC-istan, which is not a city per se) turn into hellholes shortly after their peak of greatness. Many of the world's top cities are expensive as all hell,…

Expensive real estate is a symptom of one of two things: 1. A rapid upward change in desirability or job market health. In the long run, this will even out as housing is built-- it's just slower to build new houses than create new jobs or reasons for people to live somewhere. If it's demand-based, expensive housing doesn't mean that it's a good place to live; only that it became a better place to live faster than bui…

You didn't give examples for #1, but it describes NoDak and Wyoming near oil and gas finds.

#2 is classic NYC, SF, and the like.

Luanda and Moscow are in different countries. And neither is all that expensive if you're a native (neither is Tokyo); they're really expensive for expats. The most expensive cities in the world are the ones that artificially limit housing supply with mandated sprawl development laws. Those cities like SF and NYC are mostly in the USA.

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

#165

Post by harryh »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #140
saraid216 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that a business is at least 70% a social solution no matter how big your engineering department is, right?

/sigh Yes, but when I say "social problem", I mean the kind where you have to convince people with whom you're not actually doing business, and who therefore have a larger stake in their personal whims than in getting anything out of your project. For example, with the "package tubes" idea, you have to convince either reams of individual property owners or whole municipalities and states to allow you access to the sp…

Ya, you're looking for something that never existis. This stuff is hard man. To do things that are hard you often have to get down in the muck and deal with shit you don't feel like dealing with. Welcome to life.

I'm sure that DaniFong has to do that all the time for her energy project.

But hey, write everything off as a social problem if that's the excuse you're looking for to let yourself off the hook. Everyone's got to come up with something.

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

#166

Post by harryh »

jskonhovd wrote: post #121
harryh wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Sign me up anytime for anyone of those projects, but wait will it pay as much as my mediocre average crud software developer job??

It certainly will if you can solve one of them.

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

#167

Post by khuey »

bearmf wrote: post #160
michaelochurch wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A real estate market separated into 60% government-owned cheap housing and 40% privately owned expensive housing strangely reminds me of NYC with its rent control/stabilization policies. Most of the current problems will not go away with government owning buildings instead of landlords. If the prevailing rate is low enough, a black rental market will soon form for government-owned units in desirable locations. What I…

In many areas (including the Bay Area) the government won't allow private developers to build new housing (via zoning laws etc.)

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

#168

Post by saraid216 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #140
saraid216 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that a business is at least 70% a social solution no matter how big your engineering department is, right?

/sigh Yes, but when I say "social problem", I mean the kind where you have to convince people with whom you're not actually doing business, and who therefore have a larger stake in their personal whims than in getting anything out of your project. For example, with the "package tubes" idea, you have to convince either reams of individual property owners or whole municipalities and states to allow you access to the sp…

I guess I was a little unclear.

A business is the solution-method with the most minimal social component possible, and it's still hugely a social solution. Any other solution that will ever exist is going to require a much larger social solution. This is part and parcel of any innovation.

If you're going to disrupt society, it will be relevant to society when you do so. You don't get to be antisocial about this unless you're a supervillain.

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

#170

Post by philwelch »

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.…

There are no more tech startups. There are startups that use technology, but writing CRUD apps to manage house cleaners and town cars isn't developing new technology.
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