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Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

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Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#101

Post by justin66 »

Eire_Banshee wrote: post #47
acchow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> apartment rent is around 600 - 1000 a month You can't really use this as an "advantage" since it disappears rapidly once it starts become a tech hub.

Meh, it doesn't have the geographic limits that you get on the coast. The only geographical feature hemming in the city is the lake. You have essentially unlimited space to expand in all other directions. It would be hard to get skyrocketing rents outside of the immediate downtown area. But mostly Chicago just sucks. Its all the shitty parts of the midwest without any of the good ones. What you really want is Indiana…

> What you really want is Indianapolis, Columbus, Minneapolis, Louisville, etc...

There's something you don't hear every day.

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

vonmoltke wrote: post #51
ng12 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it doesn't have the people and that's all that really matters. SV is self-fulfilling at this point: talented programmers and entrepreneurs flock to the Bay because that's where the talented programmers and entrepreneurs are. Yes, there are talented programmers in every metropolitan area but the Bay has significantly more of them than anywhere else.

Yet SV companies complain the loudest about having a hard time finding talent. In large part, I suspect, because of decreasing amounts of talent that want to put up with the area.

I believe that's just selection bias. The media - especially the media most of us here are likely to read - focus on SV tech companies. Next to an article about SV startup complaining about lack of talent, you won't find an article about startup from Kraków, Poland complaining about the same, because who cares.

I.e. "loudest" isn't really the right word to describe the only group that is even allowed to speak publicly.

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#103

Post by marchenko »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #60

No idea if Mr. Thiel is right in this decade, but long term silicon valley has lost its main advantage: silicon. The physical business of building computer parts, especially chips, involves a lot of hard science and deep magic and requires a kind of priesthood steeped in that magic. SV's original success was built on this -- it got rich because it is where the silicon priests lived. But now things have evolved so the…

Andy Grove would agree with you [1]. He argued that a lot of valuable innovation occurs during the scaling/manufacturing process. If you offshore that step, all of the proficiency and innovation that occurs 'at the bench' develops - and is capitalized upon - elsewhere.

[1](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grov...)

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#105

Post by NicoJuicy »

stingraycharles wrote: post #55
NicoJuicy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has the culture, just not the funding. Investments are way too little

“Putting your money where your mouth is” applies here. This is precisly the symptom of a risk-averse culture, and it’s holding us back.

Rocket Internet has the (self) funding, the netlog creators have funding ( Twoo / Netlog / Realo / facebox / redbox), drupal got funding in America ( fast growing tech company in the USA),...

We only have public companies here who are throwing pennies at startups ( 25 k) including the governement.

Eg. http://idealabs.be/ ( Belgium from Telenet NV - the biggest ISP here)

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#106

Post by esteban85 »

kevan wrote: post #75
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #30

One of the attributes of The Valley that are not easily reproduced is the forced cross pollination of knowledge and experience among the tech work force. This is forced through layoffs as companies, industries and the economy run through their cycles. This cross pollination leads to several outcomes: 1. the workforce is diverse in experience; 2. employees tend to work harder and longer hours in order to keep their jo…

Why do you think this is unique to the valley? At a first glance every major metro area has this, what's so different?

I believe whats special in the Valley that I have not seen anywhere is the sheer concentration of startups, investors and qualified people and the willingness for them to share. Sharing comes in many formats in the valley of knowledge, their own startup, contacts and advise. The last two are the hardest to find elsewhere at the scale that you see in SV, I havent found it in Asia I havent found it in Europe... this for me is the competitive advantage of being in the Valley

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#107

Post by tptacek »

acchow wrote: post #42
derekp7 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why Chicago isn't more of a major destination for tech companies. The city is highly walkable, has excellent transportation infrastructure, and low cost nice housing is plentiful within an hour commute by train or car. You can get a nice house for less than 200k, apartment rent is around 600 - 1000 a month. In the city, there are a lot of old 3-4 story houses that have been converted to each floor being a re…

> apartment rent is around 600 - 1000 a month You can't really use this as an "advantage" since it disappears rapidly once it starts become a tech hub.

It is extremely unlikely that any amount of tech investment in Chicago would make 1000/mo apartments hard to find. Chicago is enormous, and has underinvested, relatively low-density neighborhoods stretching for multiples of the dimensions of San Francisco.

Logan Square apartments would get more expensive, but the market would respond to that the way it did with Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Bucktown, and Ukranian Village: by gentrifying westward into Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and Belmont-Cragin.

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#108

Post by tptacek »

logfromblammo wrote: post #73
derekp7 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why Chicago isn't more of a major destination for tech companies. The city is highly walkable, has excellent transportation infrastructure, and low cost nice housing is plentiful within an hour commute by train or car. You can get a nice house for less than 200k, apartment rent is around 600 - 1000 a month. In the city, there are a lot of old 3-4 story houses that have been converted to each floor being a re…

Having lived in Chicago, I think it's probably because the city government is corrupt, the Cook county government is corrupt, the suburban county governments are corrupt, all their municipalities are corrupt, and the whole region is going bankrupt from it. People look at Detroit, and think Chicago may be next. They don't want to put their eggs in the same basket as a time bomb, or an egg-sucking weasel. The only thin…

Public finance problems in Chicago are a product of unrealistic pension guarantees. You can call that "corruption", but by that definition many other major metros in the USA are equally "corrupt".

The Chicago and Illinois Democratic party machines are almost certainly corrupt (or just rife with corruption), like most single-party states. But it's not clear to me how this impacts ordinary life for citizens.

Indianapolis is fine. I generally think, if you're going to move to a Midwestern city with no critical mass of tech companies, you might just consider throwing a dart. There are more tech workers in Chicago than Indianapolis, but in no Midwestern city are you going to exhaust the supply.

We generally need to get away from the notion that the locale in which you start your company is make-or-break. What we don't need to do is suggest that there's a Midwestern Ur-city where everyone needs to go.

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#109

Post by tptacek »

CalChris wrote: post #88
strange_quark wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UChicago is an excellent school, right up there with Stanford and the Ivys, and you're forgetting Northwestern, UIUC, Wisconsin - Madison, Michigan - Ann Arbor, Purdue, and plenty others.

There's a good reason I've never met anyone from the University of Chicago in Silicon Valley. It doesn't have an engineering school. I have met two people from Moscow State University (quite a bit further, no?) in Silicon Valley. It does have an engineering school.

It has a CS program, but it's not a great CS program. Aspiring engineers in Chicago tend to go to Champaign or Madison. UIC has a competent, serious research-university engineering program that is adequate to the region but not a standout on the national scale.

(Northwestern, the other top-tier Chicago school, does have an engineering program).

We should probably dispense with the notion that regions "need" engineering schools to feed a tech industry. That is probably not generally how it works. Portland has a thriving tech scene, but not many people travel for engineering school in Portland. Boston has world-class engineering schools, and an anemic tech scene.

Re: Peter Thiel: Silicon Valley’s monopoly on big growth tech companies is over

#110

Post by tptacek »

arkem wrote: post #52
kodt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can get a nice house for less than 200k Gonna need a source on that one

Doesn't seem too far fetched[1] if you read it as a nice house under 200k within an hour of Chicago. I don't know enough about Chicago to know exactly how far our an hour's drive is or to know exactly what 'nice' means in this context but it seems like there are areas where the median price is quite a bit lower than 200k. [1] https://www.trulia.com/local/chicago-il/type:home_prices_sal...

Those are not generally places where a tech worker is going to buy a house. Let's just stick with "housing in Chicago is significantly cheaper than housing in SFBA or NYC".
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