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

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21–30 of 131 posts

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

#21
post #8

With the greatest respect for Mr. Thiel and his accomplishments I'm skeptical. I've travelled the world and my experience is that very few places in the world have America's, often irrational, can-do attitude, appetite for new venture risk, and societal acceptance of new venture failure as an important part of the entrepreneurial process. I just don't think it's that easy to graft these cultural norms to other cultur…

He did say SV, which is probably true. Europe may or may not have the culture you are suggesting, China might have that hunger but no business started there is safe from gov control, Russia has that control without the economic growth, a lot of places are too small. But...there's probably a dozen cities in the US where you could get everything you can in SV (ok, maybe not the monoculture, the crazy VCs, the crazy cos…

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 rental unit, for about 1200.

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

#22
post #16
post #8

With the greatest respect for Mr. Thiel and his accomplishments I'm skeptical. I've travelled the world and my experience is that very few places in the world have America's, often irrational, can-do attitude, appetite for new venture risk, and societal acceptance of new venture failure as an important part of the entrepreneurial process. I just don't think it's that easy to graft these cultural norms to other cultur…

He referenced China. Any big startups come out of there?

Here's a list

https://www.techinasia.com/china-top-well-funded-startups-20...

Didi has raised over $10bn.

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

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talent is remote and talent is willing to move, especially when they can make an extra 50% through cost of living differences. That ecosystem produces some great stuff, but a lot of it is garbage. Those advantages are perhaps overstated unless your goal is to move to SV and become a unicorn. It's almost tautological.

> but 90% of it is garbage. That's inherent to the process of all creation and business starting. 90% of everything is garbage. That's a case where there's nothing unique about Silicon Valley. I'm sure you're at least vaguely aware of the very high failure rate of all new businesses within just a five year span. Or see: last 200 years of industrial history. There were hundreds of automakers just in Detroit in the US,…

It was an observation, not a normative statement. The only part anyone really cares about is the 10%, so if your goal isn't to have an ecosystem that is always churning through stuff, that aspect isn't a huge advantage.

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

#24
post #16
post #8

With the greatest respect for Mr. Thiel and his accomplishments I'm skeptical. I've travelled the world and my experience is that very few places in the world have America's, often irrational, can-do attitude, appetite for new venture risk, and societal acceptance of new venture failure as an important part of the entrepreneurial process. I just don't think it's that easy to graft these cultural norms to other cultur…

He referenced China. Any big startups come out of there?

China is a different case. Any successful tech company will be ruthlessly copied and scaled in China by mercantilist policies which work quite well.

But there are no Chinese brands that are widespread household names out of China. Even if a billion Chinese use renren the rest of the world uses Facebook (and maybe vk). Even if a billion Chinese use Baidu the rest of the world uses google (and maybe yahoo, in Japan, for some reason).

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

#25
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did say SV, which is probably true. Europe may or may not have the culture you are suggesting, China might have that hunger but no business started there is safe from gov control, Russia has that control without the economic growth, a lot of places are too small. But...there's probably a dozen cities in the US where you could get everything you can in SV (ok, maybe not the monoculture, the crazy VCs, the crazy cos…

I agree that there are nice options in the US and you'll have a much more comfortable life. But if you want to learn as much as you can, if you want to have as many options as you could possible have, and quiet frankly earn as much as you could, you'll likely should move to SV and no other place in the US will even come close to that. The bleeding edge of technology is and will be in SV and China (and China is not re…

You can learn an unbelievable amount sitting in your room in your underwear and work with and on world class projects. There are more free resources than ever before, location is not a constraint.

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

#26
post #22
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referenced China. Any big startups come out of there?

Here's a list https://www.techinasia.com/china-top-well-funded-startups-20... Didi has raised over $10bn.

Also, not mentioned on that list is DJI, which is pretty dominant in the drone space, and it was only founded in 2006. I know it's not a software startup, but you'd be hard-pressed to say it's not a tech company.

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

#27
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did say SV, which is probably true. Europe may or may not have the culture you are suggesting, China might have that hunger but no business started there is safe from gov control, Russia has that control without the economic growth, a lot of places are too small. But...there's probably a dozen cities in the US where you could get everything you can in SV (ok, maybe not the monoculture, the crazy VCs, the crazy cos…

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…

terrible weather? lack of real feeder schools for tech entrepreneurialism ?

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

#28
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referenced China. Any big startups come out of there?

China is a different case. Any successful tech company will be ruthlessly copied and scaled in China by mercantilist policies which work quite well. But there are no Chinese brands that are widespread household names out of China. Even if a billion Chinese use renren the rest of the world uses Facebook (and maybe vk). Even if a billion Chinese use Baidu the rest of the world uses google (and maybe yahoo, in Japan, fo…

There are a number of Chinese phone startups that are doing quite well.

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

#29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did say SV, which is probably true. Europe may or may not have the culture you are suggesting, China might have that hunger but no business started there is safe from gov control, Russia has that control without the economic growth, a lot of places are too small. But...there's probably a dozen cities in the US where you could get everything you can in SV (ok, maybe not the monoculture, the crazy VCs, the crazy cos…

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…

Because mostly only big companies choose their destination. For the rest it's where they live when they found the company. So if more people in Chicago found tech companies you'll get more tech companies. That's the reason SV is a self-feeding machine. People work at one of the many startups or big companies here, get experience, get money, and then part of them start their own companies. That's the circle that drives SV and because it gets stronger each time it's hard for any other city or region to really catch up.

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

#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 job; 3. employees that are released from projects that they still believed in are more likely to take that project elsewhere, or, seek funding themselves.

These cycles work like a bellows, re-shuffling engineering teams en masse and thereby fueling innovation. It's actually pretty painful, but is an important factor and remains unique not in the fact that it happens, but in the scale that it happens in The Valley.

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