A Local Revolution? • Hacker News Board

Re: A Local Revolution?

#31

Post by benmathes » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 9:59 PM UTC

newhouseb wrote: post #9

"The most likely scenario is (1) that no government will successfully establish a startup hub" Take a look at HaiDian/ZhongGuanCun in Beijing, chock full of startups big and small. From my understanding, the reason entrepreneurs flocked there originally was because HaiDian offered huge tax breaks versus the rest of China (for the explicit purpose of developing a high-tech industry). In my eyes, HaiDian is a huge coun…

PG does appear to assume ease of movement by potential founders to current startup hubs. Large cultural and language barriers remove this ease of movement. Perhaps a more rigorous claim is that there will be very few startup hubs per largely-different (culture,language) region.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#32

Post by tokenadult » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:02 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #16

tjic wrote: post #3

> There are already signs that startups may not spread particularly well. The spread of startups seems to be proceeding slower than the spread of the Industrial Revolution Government was much smaller at the time of the Industrial Revolution. The theory of "regulatory capture" says that government is responsive to those firms that are affected by government regulation and have the money to buy favorable legislation. T…

Government was much smaller at the time of the Industrial Revolution. Is this true? Is it really such an open-and-shut case? In some senses it is obviously true: There were a lot fewer people, a lot fewer filing cabinets and a lot fewer regulations. A lot of the tools needed for our big modern system -- hygiene, communications, literacy -- just weren't there yet. There were essentially no worker protections in the ea…

You ask a very astute question that is too rarely asked. The way this plays out in the United States is that many entrepreneurs complain about the growing role of the federal government in regulation of business over the last two centuries, which plainly is a correct description of the historical trend. But only legal historians, with their specialized knowledge, notice that many state laws have become much less restrictive of business activity over time. It's actually rather difficult to figure out what the overall historical trend is at all levels of government in the United States. Some businesses may be easier than ever to form, while others are harder than ever to form.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#33

Post by benmathes » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:03 PM UTC

icey wrote: post #13

Am I the only one who sees the irony that so much localization is required for an industry that specializes in remotely connecting resources?

I don't see irony, just wordplay between "local" and "remote". If you are given a tool that can remotely connect resources then it's not unexpected that you should only build the stuff in one place. You use the remote-connection tool to reach everyone, making anyone doing the same thing elsewhere mostly redundant.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#34

Post by webwright » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:03 PM UTC

I'd LOVE to have outsource a few hours worth of google research to plot the founding locations of all of the startups on these lists:

http://startup.partnerup.com/2009/04/08/complete-list-of-q1-... http://startup.partnerup.com/2009/01/06/complete-list-2008-w... http://startup.partnerup.com/2008/01/02/2007-acquisitions-we...

Of course, SV would dominate, but I wonder by how much. It'd be REALLY interesting to see it as a ratio to total startups started, but I think that'd be a harder # to come by.

I think startup success is fueled by how many people have the desire to start something up and access to early-stage funding. The Valley clearly dominates the latter, but it seems (anecdotally) that hackers who want to spin something up are becoming more commonplace in non-valley locations.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#35

Post by old-gregg » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:03 PM UTC

When you interpret Paul's "startup" as a "newborn Internet media company" the essay makes a lot of sense, especially the comparison to movie business.

But if you interpret "startup" as "newborn consumer electronics company" or a "newborn software company" or anything else more generic not squeezed into a web page it falls short: first, the percentage of GDP generated by internet media is miniscule, the whole thing isn't that big, it's a sizable niche in a software development world but not more. For instance, when measuring life in "robotic startups" one may conclude the SV is not relevant, but Boston very much is, and Japan is taking over the world, I'm sure Trevor would agree with some of this.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#36

Post by nihilocrat » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:04 PM UTC

acegopher wrote: post #29

All industries have "centers": finance -- New York, Boston automobiles -- Detroit entertainment -- LA etc. There are natural reasons for that: new companies are often founded by execs who think they can do better than the big companies they leave, infrastructure gets built up that benefits all in that given industry, talent begins to congregate in those areas, etc. I think that different types of startups might be co…

This is on the line of why I think this article is actually pretty weak; it's acting like a bunch of known, understood factors are somehow new and revolutionary.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#37

Post by prospero » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:11 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #25

prospero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it bad that in order to automatically generate binding legal documents, someone involved needs to be educated in the subtleties of legal language? A walking, talking lawyer should be personally responsible for the quality of the documents being generated. If there's no such person, you're putting the onus of validation on the client, which I think misses the entire point. In most of these cases, it's not the g…

> Why is it bad that in order to automatically generate binding legal documents, someone involved needs to be educated in the subtleties of legal language? I wouldn't put up a huge stink if the law was "you must pass the bar exam". However, the law is "you must attend 3 years of law school". > These laws do not exist solely to frustrate you Agreed. They exist to decrease the supply of lawyers, thus increasing the pri…

I know a fair number of newly-minted laywers, and my understanding is that most of the concrete material tested in the bar exam is taught in the summer following graduation from law school. Law school is largely concerned with abstract concepts that are important, but more difficult to test.

I sympathize with your frustration, but the reason for the prerequisites could just as easily be that they don't believe they can create a test which properly encompasses everything a lawyer should know.

Also, at least in San Francisco, the job market seems to be saturated with lawyers, even before the economy went south.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#38

Post by j2d2 » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:37 PM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #22

At the beginning, there is always a 'center', but that does not negate the influence of the other districts. I suspect that PG has gotten caught up in a bit of the valley hype. There are many more counterexamples. Microsoft (does it not count because it was pre-internet?) was a start-up outside the valley at one point. MySpace didn't start out in the valley. So why skype? because a valley company overpaid significant…

This comment seems to disregard the point of PG's essay. He's describing a network effect. Just as it's hard to create a startup community (not a single startup, as in your examples) you need the types of people who build startups present or on their way. The valley is full of people who are interested in startups and work with them to some capacity. It would be difficult to attract someone interested in startups to move to New Haven when there is already so much attraction to the valley. It's true, you could start a startup anywhere. It's probably going to happen in the valley.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#39

Post by rgr23 » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:41 PM UTC

"People are dramatically more productive as founders or early employees of startups—imagine how much less Larry and Sergey would have achieved if they'd gone to work for a big company—and that scale of improvement can change social customs."

I question this assertion. I'd bet a single Google engineer who makes a 1% improvement in adsense targeting can create more economic value than most startup founders.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#40

Post by olefoo » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 10:58 PM UTC

biohacker42 wrote: post #12

Two nit picks: 1. Innovation over the past couple centuries has not spread evenly. Cities always got a disproportional deal. That is why even today small towns all over the developing AND developed world are still losing people to the big cities. 2. A big part of the high-tech startup concentration seems to be VC clustering. But if startups are to be a truly revolutionary change I hope we get away from the investor m…

Especially nowadays, with the direct costs of a web-based software startup approaching zero; there is no reason for fincanciers to be the bottleneck. When three motivated people working out of their homes can build a fully functional site; the direct costs to the founders aren't that different from their living expenses and there is no need for large amounts of capital until after product development is completed.

The main advantage of regional hubs is that of social density; easy access to expertise and enough demand for experts that they can survive and thrive.