Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent example of that: Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen just wrote a new-agey sort of book explicitly taking that "we're here to change the world" angle. They could've written a different book, more like one Warren Buffet might write, about the business of software and online services, and running a profitable company in the industry. But they don't appear to consider that to be the bar for success.
At least some of Google's work has the possibility of changing the world: AI. Between self driving cars, natural interface methods, and data understanding, the future looks interesting. On the other hand, yet another social network, photoshop filter app, todo list app, instant messaging app, advertising app, these are not going to change the world, though often heralded as such.
Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
71–80 of 86 posts
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unpaid overtime isn't legal in the United States where SF is, as far as I know.
What passes for "salaried time" in the US and SF is called unpaid overtime to everywhere else in the world.
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably right. But SV's startup culture is pretty unfriendly to 50-80 year old enployees with family and financial obligations and less risk tolerance. I suppose SV companies are going to tend to solve young adult problems because they are composed of young adults. It's what they know.
Your description of SV startup culture isn't unique - it seems to be pretty much SOP for virtually any company these days. Lose your job after 50 and finding an equivalent position can be daunting. >I suppose SV companies are going to tend to solve young adult problems because they are composed of young adults. It's what they know. It's not only what they know, it's what they think is cool as well. And that's okay -…
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent example of that: Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen just wrote a new-agey sort of book explicitly taking that "we're here to change the world" angle. They could've written a different book, more like one Warren Buffet might write, about the business of software and online services, and running a profitable company in the industry. But they don't appear to consider that to be the bar for success.
At least some of Google's work has the possibility of changing the world: AI. Between self driving cars, natural interface methods, and data understanding, the future looks interesting. On the other hand, yet another social network, photoshop filter app, todo list app, instant messaging app, advertising app, these are not going to change the world, though often heralded as such.
Doing expensive R&D without a money maker generally requires government help. I don't think Google wants to go that route.
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#75Silicon Valley is interested in finding solution to problems that make money, just like every other industry.
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
After researching the issue deeper, apparently there are exceptions to the time-and-a-half regulation, and programmers are an exception. I'm not sure why you're specifically mentioning the word salary though.
Many people are not paid for their time (wages). Instead they're paid a fixed rate (a salary). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary#United_States
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#77The cultural one is simply that Silicon Valley and the tech sector in general currently constitute one of the last remaining vestiges of the upper-middle class and the petite bourgeoisie in an otherwise recessionary and degrading Western society. Others refer to us occasionally as the "Tech Sector Master Race". Forgive the 4chan slang, but that is how we come across sometimes: as a little nerdy subculture that smugly walks through a world we don't quite belong to, demanding coffee and consumer electronics and thinking about our investment accounts while other people think about making rent. And the worse the rest of society gets, the worse this effect will become. See below.
The individual one is that, frankly, I have too easy a time contenting myself with my gadgetry to see wide-open markets, and when I do see an idea, I expect the corporate behemoths to colonize it first. An undergrad here at Technion once came and talked to me about starting a groceries-delivery service here in Israel. I immediately thought of Stop&Shop's Peapod, before realizing we don't have anything like that here. Then my next thought was, "What, people can't be bothered to go to the market?" It's easy to overlook opportunities to solve others' pain points just because you personally don't have a lot of pain points (which ties right back in to techies being so massively fortunate!).
The legal/economic one is that productizing technology has gotten very hard. I'm always glad to see more hardware start-ups and such, but people often hesitate to commit money to unknown companies. Then software is more and more functionally impossible to sell in a shrink-wrapped box as a product (due to piracy and upgrades), people hate advertisements, non-corporate users hate paying subscription fees for software because they think they bought their copy, and people are still demanding ever more quality for fixed or shrinking prices. Lastly, technology has gotten less and less "do it yourself" and more and more "black box", pushing all kinds of things underground. Overall, the path from tinkering to a product to a sale to tinkering again has gotten longer, and that's what drives the endless rounds of "social-mobile-local Big Data cat-picture analytics apps". And of course, this also goes right back to large parts of society being unable to afford innovative luxury goods produced by the tech sector. A game console that costs $400 now instead of $200 ten years ago wouldn't be that much of a problem if the cost of living had stayed the same or if wages had doubled (before inflation, even). They haven't.
So until we find some ways to fix this stuff, Silicon Valley is going to be stuck catering to the one audience who will consistently buy into Silicon Valley, that being Silicon Valley.
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent example of that: Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen just wrote a new-agey sort of book explicitly taking that "we're here to change the world" angle. They could've written a different book, more like one Warren Buffet might write, about the business of software and online services, and running a profitable company in the industry. But they don't appear to consider that to be the bar for success.
At least some of Google's work has the possibility of changing the world: AI. Between self driving cars, natural interface methods, and data understanding, the future looks interesting. On the other hand, yet another social network, photoshop filter app, todo list app, instant messaging app, advertising app, these are not going to change the world, though often heralded as such.
Other than that, the continued development of AI/ML techniques mostly isn't changing the world. Miniaturizing the code and data, so that the masses can own their own AI/ML processors, that will change the world.
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#79Speaking for myself, I can perceive a few problems with the tech industry: one more (but not entirely) individual, one more (but not entirely) cultural, and one more (but not entirely) legal/economic. The cultural one is simply that Silicon Valley and the tech sector in general currently constitute one of the last remaining vestiges of the upper-middle class and the petite bourgeoisie in an otherwise recessionary and…
Re: Is Silicon Valley only interested in the problems of twentysomethings?
#80Speaking for myself, I can perceive a few problems with the tech industry: one more (but not entirely) individual, one more (but not entirely) cultural, and one more (but not entirely) legal/economic. The cultural one is simply that Silicon Valley and the tech sector in general currently constitute one of the last remaining vestiges of the upper-middle class and the petite bourgeoisie in an otherwise recessionary and…
Minor nitpick. Video game consoles and games are equal price or cheaper than old ones when adjusted for inflation. Here are a couple articles I found to support that. http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/706637/video-game-infl... http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-...
(Though admittedly, that makes the financial outlook of games companies even worse.)