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The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

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Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#191

Post by nostrademons »

akiselev wrote: post #190
nostrademons wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's really an improvement. One of the nice things about Silicon Valley is that ideas that are laughed at elsewhere are taken seriously here. And a lot of the time, the people doing the laughing end up eating their words later. Remember that the search engine market was crowded and considered a commodity backwater when Google entered it; all the smart money was betting on portals. The cloud storage mar…

Except this time people are laughing because everyone else is doing it instead of what most of the rest of the world does, which is laugh at you because they think it's impossible or not worth trying because it's so risky. Apple is an exception and had a clear idea of how they were going to do things differently. If you were to come up to me and say you were starting a smart phone company without a concrete idea (and…

I'm talking about Apple in 1977, not Apple in 2007. At the time, most of the innovations that made them popular (Woz's wizardry with color displays, the floppy disk controller, the strategy of selling for large discounts to schools, and certainly the Xerox PARC visit) were way off in the future.

Google and DropBox were also laughed at because it was what a number of other companies were doing, not because what they were attempting was technologically impossible. Most outsiders had no idea that what Google was doing was technologically impossible, because, well, they heard "search engine" and thought "AltaVista".

It's the nature of innovation that you figure things out as you go along. If you have all the answers when you start, you're not innovating. And that implies that you have to start somewhere, usually where a bunch of other people are starting, and so of course things will be crowded when you're just a startup. It's all the stuff that happens in-between being an Instagram clone and going public with a wildly different product that matters.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#192

Post by yummyfajitas »

timr wrote: post #162
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the research? I want to work in it, but every company in this 'hot' industry is too enamored with cranking out disposable apps.

That's my point: there isn't much going on. You can try academia, but things are pretty bleak right now. There's so much competition chasing so little money that it's hard to see a path to a career for all but the luckiest few PhD graduates. And forget it if you don't have a PhD from a top school. People put so much mental energy into pondering the lack of innovation, but we've been systematically under-funding scien…

There's so much competition chasing so little money that it's hard to see a path to a career for all but the luckiest few PhD graduates. And forget it if you don't have a PhD from a top school.

The problem here is that academic research (at least in math+physics, what I'm familiar with) doesn't have a place for second best. Most academic research produced by people below the top tier is worthless and will never amount to anything.

It's a very different situation from technology, where yet another CRUD app can actually bring huge value to the business.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#193

Post by ephermata »

philwelch wrote: post #170
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #49

Edit: Seriously, I really want to know what people think about the question at the end. I worked with someone who works at cd2, and on a selfish note I'm just curious. I'm a "pasty scientist" paid by DARPA, in biotech. I work for someone who previously founded a brain-machine-interface company that had a small IPO (cyberkinetics). I would love nothing more than to see things I work on get turned into viable products.…

There are no more tech startups. There are startups that use technology, but writing CRUD apps to manage house cleaners and town cars isn't developing new technology.

What optimization tasks do Exec and Uber solve to provide the quality of service their customers expect?

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#194

Post by akiselev »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #188
akiselev wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the things you call "social problems" can be solved by disruptive technologies. What if robots could install the fiber automatically instead of with construction crews and do it via overhead instead of underground cables? Social problem gone. What if they could build the entire bullet train track cross country (Almost all of that multibillion dollar California train is labor)? Social problem gone. Or how about…

The social problem wasn't labor at all. Workers are easy to hire if you've got the money and can make money back off the result. Hell, the economy needs more and better-paying jobs anyway, right? The social problem is that putting in infrastructure requires making deals with property-owners and municipalities. I'm getting this from people who've worked for ISPs and other such enterprises: the biggest problem with new…

I wasn't aware that was a big problem in infrastructure. Thank you for the info.

Perhaps a drop in the other costs could help cover the cost of acquiring land rights and permits?

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#195

Post by contingencies »

venus wrote: post #182
contingencies wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a Chinese citizen, I'm an anglo-Australian. I just happened to prefer living in Asia since about 12 years ago. By all means, if you don't enjoy risk taking, language learning or being in another culture, then stay in your home culture and pontificate about how great your country towns are. If you want the reward, you have to take some risk. All visas issues can be solved with persistence. Life is what you mak…

Wow, you're reading a lot into my comment that I didn't intend. I have nothing against any of those things. I am just pointing out that you don't just "move to Asia"; there are tradeoffs to be made. > then stay in your home culture and pontificate about how great your country towns are Really uncalled for IMO. I have lived and worked extensively in Japan and Thailand and visit the region multiple times a year. Like m…

I'm not on the attack, I'm just sayin'. For example, Singapore is a bastion of fascist conservatism, plain and simple. The fact you even mentioned it as a potential destination shows that you are either hyper-conservative or that you haven't had much long term experience in the region. Visiting and living are two different things. I agree there are pros and cons to everywhere, but comparing a beach in Asia to a country town in the west is in my opinion ridiculous. Each to their own though. IMHO, the developing world is where it's at.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#196

Post by Retric »

robomartin wrote: post #177
unclebucknasty wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a slippery slope though: exactly who should profit and how much profit is too much? Posing those kinds of questions raises the ire of the "free market/profit motive cures everything" crowd that drives our current brand of capitalism. Once we give something over to the machine, we introduce the very problem. IMO, we need to completely rethink what should be left to the markets vs. what we produce as a soc…

That's a tough one because it is beyond clear that --and I am going to use that word-- innovation does not originate in government, master plans or even companies with huge funding. Make a list of all the major products in the last fifty years, the companies they came from and how they got started to prove the point. I can't think of a single major scientific discovery in any scientific field over the last, say, 500…

The Internet was 100% government funded at it's start. Private companies where involved in it's creation but only as what amounted to paid contractors. And yes they had a clear goal of increasing infrastructure to aid collaboration. Or if you really hate the idea that any private funding was involved at any point, just look at GPS.

More to the point, the vast majority of recent particle Physic's, Astronomy, and basic Medical findings where government funded.

PS: There are literally thousands of counter examples but I think I destroyed your point as it stands.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#197

Post by Retric »

michaelochurch wrote: post #106
te_chris wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rings true and people always seem to forget that it's much easier to innovate when the cost of living is lower. I'm currently living in Auckland, New Zealand, which by NZ (and world standards I think, though can't cite anything off hand) is quite expensive, but myself and my girlfriend have been contemplating moving to Sydney, Australia, a city which is one of most expensive in the world but where we would both…

This rings true and people always seem to forget that it's much easier to innovate when the cost of living is lower. The problem, or the balance that must be struck, is that it's hard to innovate without being surrounded by other innovative people. You need a city with a critical mass of innovative, talented people and a low cost-of-living. California in the 1970s had that. I don't know what the 2013 analogue is, or…

Except the critical mass is something like 3 people. So, yes people help but having 1,000 or 1,000,000 innovators around you makes little difference.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#198

Post by Retric »

bokonist wrote: post #144
michaelochurch wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rings true and people always seem to forget that it's much easier to innovate when the cost of living is lower. The problem, or the balance that must be struck, is that it's hard to innovate without being surrounded by other innovative people. You need a city with a critical mass of innovative, talented people and a low cost-of-living. California in the 1970s had that. I don't know what the 2013 analogue is, or…

Expensive real estate is a deliberate policy of the government. Local government zoning laws keep the supply tight. And low interest rates and easy credit enable people to take out huge loans to bid up the prices of real estate. To get cheap housing, the government would just need to repeal zoning laws and limit all the size of all home mortgages from any government subsidized institution (FDIC insured banks, etc.) t…

Add to that the home mortgage tax deduction which doubled the price of a new home.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#199

Post by Retric »

khuey wrote: post #167
bearmf wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A real estate market separated into 60% government-owned cheap housing and 40% privately owned expensive housing strangely reminds me of NYC with its rent control/stabilization policies. Most of the current problems will not go away with government owning buildings instead of landlords. If the prevailing rate is low enough, a black rental market will soon form for government-owned units in desirable locations. What I…

In many areas (including the Bay Area) the government won't allow private developers to build new housing (via zoning laws etc.)

Building a house is cheap, having the local infrastructure to support houses is expensive. Letting people build unlimited housing without restriction is a terrible idea.

What we need is a tax on new houses that covers local infrastructure needs. We don't do this because developers have long fed on subsidies of there external costs by local governments.

Re: The hypocrisy in Silicon Valley's big talk on innovation

#200

Post by khuey »

Retric wrote: post #199
khuey wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many areas (including the Bay Area) the government won't allow private developers to build new housing (via zoning laws etc.)

Building a house is cheap, having the local infrastructure to support houses is expensive. Letting people build unlimited housing without restriction is a terrible idea. What we need is a tax on new houses that covers local infrastructure needs. We don't do this because developers have long fed on subsidies of there external costs by local governments.

We call those taxes property taxes, but thanks to prop 30 in California the situation there is totally messed up too.
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