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The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

sfgate.com

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

#181

Post by akiselev »

danielpal wrote: post #101
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…

There are certain fields where everything is pretty much 0 to 1.

Designing a nuclear reactor or an orbital rocket is an incredible feat of engineering, even if you have half a century or more of work to fall back on.

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

#182

Post by venus »

contingencies wrote: post #146
venus wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Asia? You might be a dual Chinese citizen, but most of us are certainly not, and the language would be another barrier. Singapore and HK have a lower language barrier but there's still the issue of visas and they are not exactly cheap. Japan is lovely but has the same issues of visa and language. You could sit on a beach in Vietnam or Thailand but if you're going to do that you may as well live in a country…

I'm not a Chinese citizen, I'm an anglo-Australian. I just happened to prefer living in Asia since about 12 years ago. By all means, if you don't enjoy risk taking, language learning or being in another culture, then stay in your home culture and pontificate about how great your country towns are. If you want the reward, you have to take some risk. All visas issues can be solved with persistence. Life is what you mak…

Wow, you're reading a lot into my comment that I didn't intend. I have nothing against any of those things. I am just pointing out that you don't just "move to Asia"; there are tradeoffs to be made.

> then stay in your home culture and pontificate about how great your country towns are

Really uncalled for IMO. I have lived and worked extensively in Japan and Thailand and visit the region multiple times a year. Like most things in life there's no such thing as a free lunch and one must weigh the pros and cons of moving. My simply mentioning that there are, in fact, cons, is no cause at all for you to go on the attack.

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

#183

Post by nostrademons »

bokonist wrote: post #178
philwelch wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not use FDIC as a crowbar to micromanage consumer banking, please. There are so many better dials for the government to turn than resorting to that.

"Let [us] not use FDIC as a crowbar" Who's "us"? I don't work for or have any power over the government or FDIC.

You're making an argument. He's saying that your argument has the unfortunate consequence of using the FDIC as a tool to micromanage consumer banking.

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

#184

Post by akiselev »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #120
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…

What do you wish you could do that you can't? Ah, there's the thing. I've spent too long learning how to deal with Real Life. Actually, looking at it, many of these are social problems, as I had hypothesized. * Technical problem * Technical * Partially technical, partially an issue of almost deliberately building energy-intensive civilizations. * High-megabits and gigabit connections are on their way, but come with t…

All of the things you call "social problems" can be solved by disruptive technologies.

What if robots could install the fiber automatically instead of with construction crews and do it via overhead instead of underground cables? Social problem gone.

What if they could build the entire bullet train track cross country (Almost all of that multibillion dollar California train is labor)? Social problem gone.

Or how about ultra low cost solar, geothermal, and wind power, again with robots to set them up? You think the oil/coal lobby can politically compete against all of the industries they fuel? Social problem gone.

How about cheaper automated air transport that's not developed by Boeing or Airbus (monstrosities who, in my opinion, only innovate because at those scales its impossible not to)? Social problem solved.

Only on space travel can I agree with you, and just barely. Have a search through Google Scholar some time. Search for gas core (late 60's, early 70's), pulse (70s and 80s), dusty plasma (90s), and gasdynamic (00s) nuclear rockets. The technology is there, we just have to work out the details. However, the social problem we're trying to get over is the lack of FUNDING for radical (read: risky) R&D pathways.

It's of course much more complicated than that but and the end of the day the beauty of technology is that a new invention can cut through all the crap we humans have put up and it can change everyone's life for the better. (look at the internet: even with so many governments censoring it and controlling it we nevertheless are more connected than we have ever been and there is so little anyone can do to stop it)

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

#185

Post by philwelch »

bokonist wrote: post #178
philwelch wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not use FDIC as a crowbar to micromanage consumer banking, please. There are so many better dials for the government to turn than resorting to that.

"Let [us] not use FDIC as a crowbar" Who's "us"? I don't work for or have any power over the government or FDIC.

You're not a citizen?

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

#186

Post by akiselev »

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…

Likewise these articles are easy to dismiss if you're too far into the SV bubble. Maybe you can qualify why this article is meaningless and answer its points instead of waiving it off? Otherwise you seem to have an unexamined prejudice against criticisms of the venture capital community's funding choices.

By the very nature of innovation you can't define what it is just like you can't ever say for certain whether some abstract piece of pure mathematics will ever contribute to engineering or science (as it very often has). However, like mathematicians we can make educated guesses on what IS NOT relevant or innovative, and by extension will never be relevant or innovative. And of course we will be wrong some times.

The very fact that you think there is a "right way" to "measure" innovation makes me think this article is pretty spot on. Innovation isn't a business, it's not a product or a user base, it's not a stock ticker. More often than not, innovation is the result of thousands, if not millions, of man-hours of passionate and extremely intelligent people who care about their work and want to ACHIEVE something that is currently impossible, impractical, or even undesirable. You can't measure or predict this, all you can do is find those passionate, intelligent people (here's where the measurement part sort of comes in) and give them the resources and support to do something great.

The point of the article is that last part is not happening. There are so many passionate and intelligent people in the Valley but almost no one is giving them the chance to do something great.

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

#187

Post by nostrademons »

BrianEatWorld wrote: post #155
jacoblyles wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Perhaps thats part of the issue. Next time someone tells you about their Instagram clone, laugh at them. An alternative to government intervention is a cultural shift, a change in what society holds in high regards. If we all start laughing at clones, people might stop making them.

I'm not sure that's really an improvement. One of the nice things about Silicon Valley is that ideas that are laughed at elsewhere are taken seriously here. And a lot of the time, the people doing the laughing end up eating their words later.

Remember that the search engine market was crowded and considered a commodity backwater when Google entered it; all the smart money was betting on portals. The cloud storage market was crowded and considered a commodity backwater when DropBox entered it. The PC market was crowded and full of hobbyists and also-rans when Apple entered it. In each case, they did things enough better than everyone else that everyone forgot that there'd ever been competitors.

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

#188

Post by eli_gottlieb »

akiselev wrote: post #184
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you wish you could do that you can't? Ah, there's the thing. I've spent too long learning how to deal with Real Life. Actually, looking at it, many of these are social problems, as I had hypothesized. * Technical problem * Technical * Partially technical, partially an issue of almost deliberately building energy-intensive civilizations. * High-megabits and gigabit connections are on their way, but come with t…

All of the things you call "social problems" can be solved by disruptive technologies. What if robots could install the fiber automatically instead of with construction crews and do it via overhead instead of underground cables? Social problem gone. What if they could build the entire bullet train track cross country (Almost all of that multibillion dollar California train is labor)? Social problem gone. Or how about…

The social problem wasn't labor at all. Workers are easy to hire if you've got the money and can make money back off the result. Hell, the economy needs more and better-paying jobs anyway, right?

The social problem is that putting in infrastructure requires making deals with property-owners and municipalities. I'm getting this from people who've worked for ISPs and other such enterprises: the biggest problem with new infrastructure businesses is getting cities and towns to agree to let you construct overhead poles (which "ruin the view") or tear up the ground under their streets (which closes whole blocks of road for a while).

In many cases, the money can be made back, the labor is workable, the invention is workable, but the right-of-way on private and public property is uneconomical to obtain.

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

#189

Post by eli_gottlieb »

harryh wrote: post #165
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/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 g…

Well thanks for being a jerk about it, but it's not like I'm doing nothing with my life. I'm just so far choosing lines of work that keep me out of infrastructure negotiations with municipalities, and I'm only 23. We'll see.

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

#190

Post by akiselev »

nostrademons wrote: post #187
BrianEatWorld wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps thats part of the issue. Next time someone tells you about their Instagram clone, laugh at them. An alternative to government intervention is a cultural shift, a change in what society holds in high regards. If we all start laughing at clones, people might stop making them.

I'm not sure that's really an improvement. One of the nice things about Silicon Valley is that ideas that are laughed at elsewhere are taken seriously here. And a lot of the time, the people doing the laughing end up eating their words later. Remember that the search engine market was crowded and considered a commodity backwater when Google entered it; all the smart money was betting on portals. The cloud storage mar…

Except this time people are laughing because everyone else is doing it instead of what most of the rest of the world does, which is laugh at you because they think it's impossible or not worth trying because it's so risky.

Apple is an exception and had a clear idea of how they were going to do things differently. If you were to come up to me and say you were starting a smart phone company without a concrete idea (and the previous experience or intelligence to back it up) of how you were going to do things differently or how you were going to make an affordable phone without the scale of Apple or Motorola, I think I would laugh.

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