Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora

1. Consumer internet founders are not great at life sciences

This is a distraction. Most of the money in internet has been with automating or supporting business operations for medium to large sized businesses. Life science tech brings unique challenges which is why so many life science tech companies are based in the valley or have offices here. Just to pick out one example the highest resolution ultrasound machines made come from a company based in the valley. This statement appears to be based more on the distracting powers of social media and consumer tech.

2. Internet regulation is upon us

This is good thing because regulations give consumers confidence in the reliability and safety of new technologies. Even the most care free developers do not expect that the current order of things will endure.

3. Climate response is capital intensive

This is a distraction from the fact that the most promising technologies for addressing climate response are extremely well represented in the valley. Analysis of orbital and aerial sensor data, automated sensors, control systems for solar and wind generation, modernized electrical grid support systems, and more were all led in part by companies in the valley. More to the point all of these technologies were initially developed by small companies for small applications. Real progress with climate response is likely to involve some big projects, but these projects will be successful because they are based on much smaller works.

4. The end of the betting economy

Economies are based on bets and consist of bets, as is said, all the way down. The difference is that the terms are changing. Instead of throwing money at pets.com or Facebook plugins or cryptocoin wallets founders are going to have to be more careful and sparing of resources. This is actually a good thing and is likely to at least in part lead to a return to business success competing with hype for available capital. The situation now is that investors can outspend customers in any sector so the venture capital space has become disconnected from genuine business success. Squeezing the slop out of the system should be good for everyone.

The analogy that comes to mind is being told that the future is being researched and started at universities and then concluding that frat parties do not yield meaningful tech progress, frat parties are consistently targeted for regulation, frat parties do not address social issues, therefore universities are not actually likely to host research and development that shapes the future. And yes, in this example the current giants in the valley are what amounts to a loud frat party.

Any intuitive skill that can be built through hard work and years of experience seems to be within the realms of what AI/ML can learn to do. Separating background from the subjects, guessing the 3D shape of an object from a 2D image etc. Anything that people can master through experience, including stuff like "sensing that there's something fishy but can't tell exactly what" kind of intuition.

I bet that there would be welding machines that can help an amateur to weld like a master by learning and imitating the way a master welder does its job.

Your rebuttal appears to miss the point that O'Reilly makes.

First: This page [1] shows business tax is about 1B of 6B total for San Francisco. In most cities in the United States, business tax is a relatively small part of total tax revenue. Most cities derive the largest proportion of tax revenue from property taxes. For SF, it is 2B per year -- the highest of any tax revenue category. SF property prices have risen a lot in the last ten years, so property tax has also risen. I understand some of this could be attributed to a strong economy combined with difficult regulations to build new residential housing. Thus, SF has seen a historic rise in housing prices.

Second: Speaking more specifically to O'Reilly's point about the "art of tax avoidance": Are you familiar with "base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS)"? Sometimes you hear the term "Dutch Sandwich" or "Double Irish arrangement" in media. Global (tech) companies can greatly reduce national taxes by using these tax strategies. Thus, they deny much needed tax revenue to various countries where they operate. Please note: These tax strategies are not only limited to tech. Any industry that is heavily weighted towards "intellectual property", such as pharma, uses similar tax strategies. (General Electric was one of the earliest and most aggressive.) Famously, even Starbucks, which isn't a very "IP intense" industry managed to pay zero national taxes in the UK one year. After some embarrassing news stories, they offered a voluntary payment to the UK nat'l gov't.

[1] https://sfgov.org/scorecards//finance/expenditures-and-reven...