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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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

jtmcmc wrote: post #27
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…

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

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by acchow »

derekp7 wrote: post #21
aaron-lebo wrote: post #13

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…

> 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.

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

#43

Post by aaron-lebo »

adventured wrote: post #39
aaron-lebo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no such thing as an ecosystem that isn't always churning through stuff (other than a dead one). The premise you're floating doesn't exist. Silicon Valley's 10% is better than the 10% anyone else produces. It also does it at a higher volume simultaneously. That's why it's Silicon Valley and nobody has managed to match it in the last 50 years.

But some of that ecosystem is just dead slack. It exists because it exists, because part of how SV works is VCs have to find new winners and people want to change jobs and have more options. If that is not your main goal, you don't need the ecosystem.

SV is good at what it does, it's the best at what it does, but that's orthogonal to building a great company. We believe it's necessary because that's how it has been done.

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

#44

Post by dang »

dmode wrote: post #17
twblalock wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did Silicon Valley ever become what it is, and why did it continue to be dominant in the tech industry for so long, when there were billions of people outside of Silicon Valley the entire time? Clearly population numbers are not sufficient in themselves to explain why the situation will change.

Thanks for the down votes. But if you haven't realized, the world has changed dramatically since valley became Valley. There is a lot more wealth distribution around the world and technology is easily accessible. Look at the 50s and look at now and see how Asia has emerged as a dominant economic force. China is #2 in total GDP, and India is #7. Couple this with the fact that these two countries have unlimited workfor…

> Thanks for the down votes.

This breaks the site guidelines. Please read and follow them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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

#45

Post by oh-kumudo »

icu wrote: post #32
melling wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

China is a funny one. For sure there is 'hustle'... I was scammed many a time in Beijing... But there is this really important cultral dimension in China called "guanxi". It's not easy to summarise the importance and pervasiveness of guanxi... from a Western perspective it could be described as corruption but it's more like a social currency that is involved in any important transaction.

Ahah, the old eastern asian vague social structure narrative. You'd be surprised how closely knitted Chinese companies are with SV, and how they replicated the SV in every possible way, even the interview process.

So I will say guanxi is not an noticeable factor here. If you look back, how many SV startups are funded by people with a lot of resources, under the name of, networking? Does that count as your definition of social currency? In fact, guanxi, or 关系, in Chinese means connections. Sounds familiar, isn't it?

The reason China has a huge startup scene is not that hard to understand if you are willing to come out of your idealogical/cultural bubble:

1. Presence of GFW. It bars the competition from outside of China.

2. Cheap local talents. They work twice the hours, but possible rewarded with 1/2 or 1/3 of what their SV counterparts are earning. The Chinese system allows such exploitation, while not anywhere else in the world.

3. Vast market. There are 1B cellphone users in China, that alone could sustain several 100B companies.

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

#46

Post by vikiomega9 »

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…

Is there a model for this? I'm asking because cross pollination can happen through other means. High density of conferences, strength of networks among other means.

This argument is reminiscent of reformations and the political landscape of Europe way back when.

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

#47

Post by Eire_Banshee »

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.

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 Indianapolis, Columbus, Minneapolis, Louisville, etc...

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

#48

Post by radiorental »

tomaha wrote: post #29
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…

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 drive…

Your description made think of the slime mold map of the Tokyo transportation system [1] albeit with a different set of inputs.

As with any organic, self propelled, system.. it matures and growth turns to maintenance, and eventually decay. Is the general argument here that SV has become a victim of it's massive organic growth, has it eaten up one of it's resources (housing, healthy diversity, etc) to the point where another city/system can now flourish??

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKuFREOgmo

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

#49

Post by dmode »

refurb wrote: post #33
dmode wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the down votes. But if you haven't realized, the world has changed dramatically since valley became Valley. There is a lot more wealth distribution around the world and technology is easily accessible. Look at the 50s and look at now and see how Asia has emerged as a dominant economic force. China is #2 in total GDP, and India is #7. Couple this with the fact that these two countries have unlimited workfor…

No actually, it's not that obvious. Look back to the 1980's. I remember watching news clips on TV of people smashing up Japanese electronics because they were taking over the US. It was plainly obvious they were going to displace the US as the leading economic power. Hell! They were buying up all the largest buildings in the US!! Didn't quite turn out that way, huh?

It is not about "displacing the US". It is about a monopoly being over. Which means, there will be big tech companies from SV, but also from China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Europe etc. etc. And it is already true. Chinese companies raised $56bn last year.

The world is also significantly different from 80s. China's GDP in 1980 was $200 bn. Now it is $11 trillion

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

#50

Post by walshemj »

twblalock wrote: post #11
dmode wrote: post #3

This is not a profound statement, but rather obvious. If may calculations are right, there are roughly 6 billion 993 million people outside of Silicon Valley

Why did Silicon Valley ever become what it is, and why did it continue to be dominant in the tech industry for so long, when there were billions of people outside of Silicon Valley the entire time? Clearly population numbers are not sufficient in themselves to explain why the situation will change.

Massive amounts of government speeding on defence and tech going back to ww2
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