'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave' • Hacker News Board

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#111

Post by saraid216 » Sat, May 19, 2012, 4:59 AM UTC

akg wrote: post #15

recursive wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's absolutely correct. Automated cars will have a much bigger effect than iPads. So much time is wasted driving.

If time is wasted driving, is building more efficient cars really the solution? I would venture that technology that makes the world a lot smaller and puts information at your fingertips, e.g., tablets, phones, social networks, etc. will be a much bigger disrupter in the way we live our current lives. Maybe in the future we won't have to drive as much since we can just get things done without having to waste time in…

It's not just efficiency. The parent is slightly wrong on that point. Remember that Steve Blank's original point is driverless cars, not efficient cars. Driverlessness changes the game in ways that mere efficiency does not. That disruption has been analyzed and commented on in many other places, so I'm not going to rehash it (and I don't really feel qualified to).

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#112

Post by saraid216 » Sat, May 19, 2012, 5:05 AM UTC

AznHisoka wrote: post #107

robot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A social app has a potential to go viral, e.g. spread by word of mouth or via means built into the application. Spreading to all social contacts for example. You can't do that with a startup involving hardware or anything non-social.

Apps that have gone viral usually have gone viral because of tremendous effort put into marketing before the app was released. You can't expect to just release something in the App Store, have it spam your friend's FB wall, and contacts and expect a million users by next month. It doesn't work that way, though the guys at Techcrunch, and Mashable may give that appearance.

The key perception is that VCs and entrepreneurs believe apps are easier to go big relative to hardware. It's not about whether it's easy to go big with apps at all. I think we can agree that it's easier to build and distribute an app than it is to build an distribute a novel piece of studded silicon.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#113

Post by saraid216 » Sat, May 19, 2012, 5:07 AM UTC

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #16

Wouldn't cars be the domain of Detroit or Tokyo, not the Valley? Why would it? Perhaps the technology behind some of it would come from there, but doesn't that start from consumer electronics anyway? He's being a bit too forward-thinking, decrying the absolute cultural sea change social media represents for almost all walks (and aspects) of our lives, relationships, and ways to do business. It's, IMO, the biggest rev…

Have you been to Detroit lately?

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#114

Post by crosh » Sat, May 19, 2012, 5:54 AM UTC

Reading through these comments I feel that people are focusing on the wrong issue. At a high-level, let's not focus on high-tech vs. relatively low-tech. Rather, as Steve is, we should be discussing whether companies are pushing to solve significant world problems and pushing real sciences forward, or whether entrepreneurs and VCs are eager to tackle gimmicky but real quick buck businesses.

I feel that we have brilliant minds looking for quick paydays, which is understandable, but does not say much about our community. We need more Palantirs, Fusion IOs, and SpaceX type companies and fewer email, flash sales, and gaming companies.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#115

Post by skmurphy » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:05 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #3

"THOMPSON: Is Facebook worth $100 billion? BLANK: In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody's debating whether Facebook can make money. They're debating how much more valuable Facebook's hundreds of millions of users can be, and how fast can they can grow that value. That's an execution problem." Facebook makes $4 per user from a…

The advertisers are the customers, they are the ones paying Facebook. The 'users' are the audience that the advertisers are paying to reach.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#116

Post by temphn » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:49 AM UTC

jluan wrote: post #96

grellas wrote: post #89

Steve Blank is a respected Valley veteran who has written highly insightful and informative materials about the history and development of the Valley (see http://steveblank.com/secret-history/ ) and so his opinion is worthy of note. That said, I have been in the Valley since 1968, have watched its ups and downs professionally since the early 1980s, and can say without question that it is currently bursting at the sea…

I don't think the point you make contradicts Steve Blank's at all; to me, Blank's thesis is that startups in the Valley no longer choose to pursue truly disruptive technological innovation because our ecosystem now almost exclusively rewards areas such as social media, where you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are, to the detriment of "hard tech" such as biotech, robotics, and the semiconductors…

Elon Musk made his fortune with Paypal, an internet company. Google made its fortune on the internet. There is nothing that prevents people from making the easier dollars first in something like Zynga and then going and putting their personal $10M to work on something of substance.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#117

Post by hristov » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:49 AM UTC

This has always been the case. VC money has always gone to the last stage of commercialization of technology and not for basic science or long term engineering projects. That is why you are supposed to have research universities and research government agencies and foundations.

What he says is generally correct, but it is not new. So his pessimism is largely unwarranted.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#118

Post by SoftwareMaven » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:54 AM UTC

iamwil wrote: post #85

redthrowaway wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who cares what this guy thinks? "This guy" is Steve Blank[1]. He's kind of a big deal in SV and the startup scene in general. Whether or not you agree with his assessment of Valley culture, his personal cachet is such that it behooves you to take notice. []1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blank

Be careful not to give him credibility just because he's an expert. While we should take notice because he has a track record of knowing what he's talking about, we should evaluate his claims on its own, regardless of who makes the claim. Is it true that VCs no longer invests in the hard sciences? I don't think so. There's VCs that invest in cleantech and biotech. Is it true that VCs like quick returns and will incre…

Steve has a track record as an entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. He has spent a lot of time in this space. His argument may be wrong, but he really does have the credentials to make it worth thinking about.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#119

Post by vibrunazo » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:59 AM UTC

jluan wrote: post #96

grellas wrote: post #89

Steve Blank is a respected Valley veteran who has written highly insightful and informative materials about the history and development of the Valley (see http://steveblank.com/secret-history/ ) and so his opinion is worthy of note. That said, I have been in the Valley since 1968, have watched its ups and downs professionally since the early 1980s, and can say without question that it is currently bursting at the sea…

I don't think the point you make contradicts Steve Blank's at all; to me, Blank's thesis is that startups in the Valley no longer choose to pursue truly disruptive technological innovation because our ecosystem now almost exclusively rewards areas such as social media, where you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are, to the detriment of "hard tech" such as biotech, robotics, and the semiconductors…

As I understand it, I think they're disagreeing like this:

Blank: The valley used to invest in hard problems that made the world a better place. Now that era is gone for good. Because social media makes so much money, no one will ever want to invest in hard problems in comparison.

Grellas: Yes we are no longer investing in hard problems. But that era isn't gone for good. Because the valley is such a good place for innovative startups, eventually, startups will start solving hard problems again.

Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

#120

Post by SoftwareMaven » Sat, May 19, 2012, 6:59 AM UTC

I like Steve Blank. In fact, he is one of my "mentor idos" (people I would lie to emulate, but no hero worship here). I also think he is wrong.

There is no "true path" of SV that it can fall off of and be over. Instead, there is a continued cycle of very technical people working together to build significant equity that is then recycled for more new tech people to do the same.

When that stops happening, SV will die. In the meantime (like any other time), there are sparkly things drawing people's attention. And I would be willing to wager the crop of people making big exits today aren't going to be happy investing everything in what they just did.