Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 237 posts

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#101

Post by FD3SA »

michaelochurch wrote: post #63
oskarth wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This way of thinking about it is interesting. For many people, me included, entrepreneurship is first and foremost a existential choice. Do you have some examples of what this middle path might look like? For the entrepreneurial-minded, is it different from what is commonly viewed as "lifestyle business" or bootstrapped revenue-first side-project (that might later turn into a solid small-scale business)?

Mid-risk/mid-growth businesses. Designed to grow at 15-40% per year and hire selectively (see: Valve). Can have a desirable culture (e.g. open allocation) that wouldn't survive 75%/year personnel growth. Too risky for bank loans (personal liability) but not the billions-or-bollocks long-shot gambits that are career-making for VCs. But still potentially very profitable if VCs took a portfolio mentality rather than a c…

Also, profit sharing a la investment banks and hedge funds.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#102

Post by aswanson »

zanny wrote: post #93
Vervious wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole article reads like a narrative that is grabbing random anecdotes to support a point, even when the facts say otherwise. I'm curious what facts you're talking about. The very problems you point out about healthcare.gov support part of the author's argument - that today's tech environment rewards the creation of a sexting app over more groundbreaking work, and therefore youth do the former. From my perspect…

Then blame consumers and investors that fund sexting over space travel or cancer cures, because that is why all the entrepreneurs jump on it. If there were monetary demand for a cancer cure, and I mean real billions a year in venture capital into R&D on the subject, that nobody was using - you would see a dearth of sexting apps, at least for a while, while that VC funding is consumed. Effort goes where the money is,…

I can't help but be reminded of the quote: “You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.”

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#103

Post by raldi »

dalke wrote: post #79
raldi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Street infrastructure is paid for by taxes, including payroll taxes, corporate income taxes, and gas taxes, all of which Google pays.

Google is primarily located in Mountain View, in Santa Clara county. My question was how much of San Francisco's street infrastructure - a different city and county - was supported by Google. Did Google pay "a lot more" than the citizens of the city, as SteveGerencser suggested? The residents and businesses in SF pay about $1 billion in property taxes. How does that compare to specifically Google's contribution? Who…

You're backpedaling. Previously, you said:

> I thought they didn't pay anything until this January

Now that I've pointed out three ways they pay for SF city infrastructure, you're moving the goalposts.

> Google is primarily located in Mountain View

But they still have thousands of desks in their San Francisco office space.

Also, every employee on those shuttles is either paying SF property tax or paying rent that, in part, goes to paying SF property tax. They also pay state and local sales taxes, which also go towards public infrastructure.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#104

Post by leoc »

michaelochurch wrote: post #63
oskarth wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This way of thinking about it is interesting. For many people, me included, entrepreneurship is first and foremost a existential choice. Do you have some examples of what this middle path might look like? For the entrepreneurial-minded, is it different from what is commonly viewed as "lifestyle business" or bootstrapped revenue-first side-project (that might later turn into a solid small-scale business)?

Mid-risk/mid-growth businesses. Designed to grow at 15-40% per year and hire selectively (see: Valve). Can have a desirable culture (e.g. open allocation) that wouldn't survive 75%/year personnel growth. Too risky for bank loans (personal liability) but not the billions-or-bollocks long-shot gambits that are career-making for VCs. But still potentially very profitable if VCs took a portfolio mentality rather than a c…

Partnership-like arrangements would seem to be an obvious choice of structure for such firms. Valve seems to be basically a single-proprietorship that tries to run and compensates itself like ye olde professional partnership. The problem is, how to get capitalists on board without giving them enough equity to undermine the partnership goal? Partnership isn't an obviously good match with long development times or significant capital costs. Valve had a founder who was willing to play the benevolent owner-operator using his own hoard of stock-option money.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#105

Post by rosser »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #80
3pt14159 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that Michael, I had you confused with someone else on HN. Apologies. Look, if the money were there and the environment was there we'd be there. It really is that simple. I think the odds of winning the startup lottery are actually pretty high, at least for all reasonable definitions of "winning". Although that might be survivorship bias speaking on my end. If more people were like Elon Musk we'd be workin…

So it's all someone else's fault?

Of course it is.

I'm reminded of a scene in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, with Kieran Culkin and Emile Hirsch. (Great movie, btw.) Minor spoilers:

The boys are riding their bicycles along a country road, and happen upon a dog that's been struck by a passing vehicle, and is dying. Hirsch's character, Francis, says (paraphrased), "Someone needs to come for it. They need to do something." Tim, played by Culkin, responds, "There is no 'they'. We are they."

I trust the scene's relevance isn't too obscure.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#106

Post by Vervious »

zanny wrote: post #93
Vervious wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole article reads like a narrative that is grabbing random anecdotes to support a point, even when the facts say otherwise. I'm curious what facts you're talking about. The very problems you point out about healthcare.gov support part of the author's argument - that today's tech environment rewards the creation of a sexting app over more groundbreaking work, and therefore youth do the former. From my perspect…

Then blame consumers and investors that fund sexting over space travel or cancer cures, because that is why all the entrepreneurs jump on it. If there were monetary demand for a cancer cure, and I mean real billions a year in venture capital into R&D on the subject, that nobody was using - you would see a dearth of sexting apps, at least for a while, while that VC funding is consumed. Effort goes where the money is,…

> Effort goes where the money is, because your legacy is a long term problem, and your ability to eat is todays issue.

I completely agree with you. I suppose that the angst comes from the idealism that always surrounded Silicon Valley, that we were here to build big things and change the world. And that arguably isn't happening right now, with the exception of the efforts of a few well-established companies.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#107

Post by caycep »

jmsduran wrote: post #99
powera wrote: post #50

I stopped reading this when I got to "Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?" - there was the cover article in Time Magazine not less than 2 weeks ago about these very engineers fixing healthcare.gov, and describing why they don't do it permanently (government procurement is awful and almost always unrelated to actual ski…

I don't blame people choosing to work in other business areas rather than putting their efforts in fixing government, curing cancer, improving medicine, rebooting our space program, fixing education, etc. Why? Because it's honestly very hard work, often with little recognition and less pay. People trying to innovate or 'disrupt' these fields are up against deep rooted political institutions, large corporations with m…

Especially with the way academic science / biotech is run. Some reasons off the top of my head:

-Curing cancer (i.e. biotech/biomedical research) often requires a lot of startup overhead. Engineering training is hard, and I am sure there are a lot of expensive hardware and laboratory equipment, as well as similar levels of bureaucracies and personalities to deal with. But a similar startup training path in bio requires - wet labs, animal labs, and associated support (including feeding, caring, ethics oversight which is important but adds additional time and effort to everything). The medical angle adds both additional regulatory, ethics, and safety considerations, as well as political egos from MD's, hospital admins, university chairmen, etc.

-Pay: in the commercial/private sector, I am sure things are probably a little better, but with more strings. But you can choose to fight in the VC funding space, for bigger pots of money, vs. jumping into the right for NIH R01s, R21s where the politics and competition are brutal. The basics are not dissimilar - VCs like founders with track records and ideally a minimum viable product or proof of concept, NIH grant reviewers like proposals from established labs (who have a lot of money and data already). Just that it seems the pot is a lot tighter for people trying to get money from the government. The DoD maybe better in this regard.

-Culture: Are you going to be a founder or early employee, with equity and potential for higher raises? Or are you going to be a postdoc making $40-60k for the next decade of your life?

That being said, I do know people do it, i.e. the "Craig Venter model". They don't tend to get a lot of press, though, and they often exit to big pharma or big devices (medtronic...)

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#108

Post by pseut »

powera wrote: post #50

I stopped reading this when I got to "Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?" - there was the cover article in Time Magazine not less than 2 weeks ago about these very engineers fixing healthcare.gov, and describing why they don't do it permanently (government procurement is awful and almost always unrelated to actual ski…

So you stopped because of a rhetorical question?

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#109

Post by 10098 »

> young engineers ignore opportunities in less-sexy areas of tech like semiconductors, data storage and networking, [...] without Nvidia’s graphics processing unit, your BuzzFeed GIF is not going to make anyone laugh

I don't know man. I mean, I'm fairly young (mid-twenties) and if someone told me I could work for nvidia I would take that opportunity. Things like graphics hardware/networking/data storage etc are a lot more interesting than 90% of the crap that most startups are working on, but they are also a lot harder too. The bar to entry is higher.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

#110

Post by raldi »

dalke wrote: post #83
raldi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I drove a car to and from work, and kept it parked in the street at night, would you consider that frivolous?

Now you've switched topics. I said there are reasonable arguments for saying that the thesis - that private buses reduce the number of cars and make more effective use of commuting time - is frivolous. Now you want me to make a specific judgment about a generic use of your car? Why the topic switch? My view is that my taxes should not help fund a personal garage for you to store your car. If it's kept on the street t…

I was using that as an illustrative example, and indeed, it has revealed the crux of our disagreement: You think "frivolous" means one thing, and the dictionary and I think it means another.
Post reply on HN