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Why Silicon Valley Works

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#81

Post by batbomb »

hawkice wrote: post #69
Dewie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the point is that it is the new status-symbol. In my experience (not Silicon Valley), status symbols in the form of material possessions have taken a back seat to status symbols in the form of fitness and "experiential materialism" (frequent travelling, exotic and varied experiences).

I don't disagree with the thrust of what you are saying, and I am particularly amused that in the age of almost infinite variation deliverable through the internet there is a kind of odd counter-signalling effect to avoiding that (I also like travel and have been doing it constantly for more than a year, though, so what do I know). Describing physical fitness as "the new status-symbol" seems pretty bizarre to me, tho…

Physical fitness itself isn't a status symbol, per se. How people conduct their personal physical fitness is what has elevated it to a status symbol. Things like when, where, how often, how public, what activities/exercises, and even what they wear to work... that's the new status symbol.

A ridiculous recent example is the Trulia co-founder rowing to Hawaii with his wife for the cause of...

wait for it....

the fight against sugar.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#82

Post by cm2012 »

mathattack wrote: post #71
steven2012 wrote: post #17

No. The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people which just generally increase the level of…

Having lived in NYC too, the greed there trumps the greed in Silicon Valley. The greed in NYC is money for it's own sake. The greed in Silicon Valley at least has the pretense of creating good products. The greed in Silicon Valley requires creation of value in addition to capturing it. NYC is all about capturing in. A $4,000/month apartment in Silicon Valley gets you a good school. A $5,000/month apartment in NYC get…

Manhattan is not NYC. You can rent a 1 bedroom for $1600 a month with a 20 minute train commute to Manhattan (and even less rent further away) in a great school district in Queens. I've lived in NYC my whole life, and worked in Manhattan my whole school and working life, and never paid more than $1400 a month in rent for 2 bedrooms - living with my wife and in only completely safe neighborhoods.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#83

Post by ryandrake »

hugs wrote: post #61
basher wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to Altman - his article touches on costs: "(assuming, of course, that they can afford the wildly-out-of-control housing costs, which is probably the biggest weakness here right now)" Interesting take though, you argue that the issues generally considered the biggest problems of SV, are the cause of its success.

Housing cost is the #1 reason I moved away, and the #1 reason I stay away. I lived in Mountain View 2007 to mid-2008 for my job at Google. We were renting a house close to campus at the time and contemplated what it would cost to put down roots and stay -- most likely buying a condo or house. Every time we ran the numbers, it made no sense, so we voted with our feet and moved back to Chicago. I would love to live in…

While the cost of living here is brutal, it seems a lot of people are stuck here due to the supply of tech jobs. It would be a lot more risky to live somewhere that does not have such a supply. As someone with a solid software background, if I were to wake up tomorrow and find myself without a job, I'm reasonably sure that after at most a few months of searching I could line at least something up. If that happened in another city, I'd be in panic mode, wondering how many months of living expenses I had left in the bank account and where my family would be moving to next. When you're not in an area with a healthy job market, it's terrifying to be out of a job without severance, and 1 or 2 months away from bankruptcy (ask me how I know this).

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#84

Post by cfallin »

wes-exp wrote: post #78
steven2012 wrote: post #17

No. The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people which just generally increase the level of…

I strongly disagree that the high cost of living is beneficial for startups. Keep in mind the very term Silicon Valley comes from chip companies (Fairchild, Intel, etc.) who came to SV because it was cheap, open farm land . There isn't a business in the world that doesn't want to optimize on costs. Take a look at a modern SV company now: Apple. It creates lots of jobs in SV, but far more in China . SV succeeds in spi…

> Keep in mind the very term Silicon Valley comes from chip companies (Fairchild, Intel, etc.) who came to SV because it was cheap, open farm land.

It's funny you mention Intel here -- since the 70s/80s they've continued to expand in Hillsboro, Oregon (a suburb of Portland), where they bought a lot of cheap farmland. It's worked really well for them and the ~16k people they employ in the state. The only downside is a sort of "employer lock-in" for the employees, especially the more specialized ones.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#85

Post by sliverstorm »

driznar wrote: post #79
ig1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's vastly easier to become a millionaire in finance than in tech.

Can you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested in hearing from someone with experience in both industries to weigh in on this. Especially once the risks on both sides have been calculated in, since otherwise the comparison is largely meaningless.

From my completely non-finance, non-startup, third-party point of view, I gather some finance workers are able to establish a direct link between their work and their pay ("Your bonus is 1% of the profits your software makes"). Startup workers can only make big money if they are lucky enough to get in on a big exit- their personal performance is only weakly tied to payout.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#86

Post by porter »

Balgair wrote: post #65
steven2012 wrote: post #17

No. The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people which just generally increase the level of…

On the living part: My folks live in Concord and their next door neighbor just moved into assisted living at 95. Her house sold within a week for 700k to a young couple. It's a 3 bed 1 bath single story in Concord with drainage problems, mind you. Lets do the math here shall we: What is the mortgage and taxes(thanks prop13) on a place like? Well, at 4.05%, good credit, and 15% down, it's 2857.80/month just on the loa…

If it's so bad, why aren't people moving out of the valley?

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#87

Post by ThomPete »

mathattack wrote: post #71
steven2012 wrote: post #17

No. The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people which just generally increase the level of…

Having lived in NYC too, the greed there trumps the greed in Silicon Valley. The greed in NYC is money for it's own sake. The greed in Silicon Valley at least has the pretense of creating good products. The greed in Silicon Valley requires creation of value in addition to capturing it. NYC is all about capturing in. A $4,000/month apartment in Silicon Valley gets you a good school. A $5,000/month apartment in NYC get…

The greed in Silicon Valley does not require much more than an idea, a good network and some luck. Very few start out wanting to change the world, their companies just might end up doing it.

At least New York is honest.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#88

Post by jmathai »

porter wrote: post #86
Balgair wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the living part: My folks live in Concord and their next door neighbor just moved into assisted living at 95. Her house sold within a week for 700k to a young couple. It's a 3 bed 1 bath single story in Concord with drainage problems, mind you. Lets do the math here shall we: What is the mortgage and taxes(thanks prop13) on a place like? Well, at 4.05%, good credit, and 15% down, it's 2857.80/month just on the loa…

If it's so bad, why aren't people moving out of the valley?

I'm not convinced they aren't. I live in Sunnyvale with a wife, 2 kids and a single income. Many of our friends with similar circumstances are considering leaving and some already have.

There'll always be new blood that offsets people leaving. I think the housing shortage is so bad that even if people were leaving it wouldn't decrease pressure right away.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#89

Post by wooyi »

steven2012 wrote: post #17

No. The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people which just generally increase the level of…

The article talks about long term compensation for entrepreneurs. You're in it for the big payout, to change the world, to build something better. He's not talking about SV working for your everyday salary men/women who wants cheap housing and high quality of living or work life balance.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#90

Post by michaelvkpdx »

tim333 wrote: post #80
michaelvkpdx wrote: post #66

The premise here is that Silicon Valley "works". What do you mean by "works"? If you mean creating artificial wealth for a small group of already-rich folk, yes, it works. If you mean transforming one of the most naturally advantaged landscapes on earth into a traffic-choked sea of concrete where people do little more than work at creating new ways to buy and sell stuff, yes, it works. If you mean polluting what was…

>truly improve humanity, the Valley extremely inefficient I think Intel, Google and Facebook have improved humanity though your tastes may vary and I enjoy Apple's shiny stuff. Those have a market cap of $1.4 tr and it's hard to think of anywhere else with similar output. Maybe like democracy it's the worse possible system apart from all the other ones?

market cap != quality of life.

The Valley works well at convincing people that fake money is equal to the quality of real life. Market caps have nothing to do with happiness, health, and interpersonal relationships.

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