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A Local Revolution?

paulgraham.com

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Re: A Local Revolution?

#91

Post by david927 »

dbul wrote: post #79
david927 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Productivity only matters when it's directed properly. A brilliant MIT student working 20 hour days on some silly mash-up is not nearly as productive as a slow and obtuse engineer in some large corporation working 6 hours days. It's the results that count. I would argue the contrary case to Paul's; I think that Silicon Valley has slowed down growth. They make it a lottery that you can win with having a cool,…

This sounds nice in theory, but I don't think it is always true. There are techies who have a career and those who have a job. It is better to get as many who have a job doing what they are passionate about, because they are probably wasting their time at their job. And I wish that at least one of the 100+ companies that have come out of YC were IPO bound. I tried to hint that we were of that mindset when we had appl…

I couldn't agree more about YC. The application questions would change to "we're only interested in single founders, but we will consider a technical co-founder." I think it also just makes sense for the "spray and pay" style to fund 1000 startups focusing on hard problems with the potential of 1 making up for it all.

When we hit it, dbul, you and I can put this together. Deal? :-)

Re: A Local Revolution?

#92

Post by anamax »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #83
ellyagg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, government was much smaller at the time of the Industrial Revolution, at least in the US. The federal budget, as a share of the GDP, was 3% right before FDR. Now it's some giant, horrible amount I don't even want to say out loud. Given this, the idea that there could be less (or about the same) regulatory interference of business today is, frankly, ludicrous. For one thing, simply reducing business budgets (taxe…

the idea that there could be less (or about the same) regulatory interference of business today is, frankly, ludicrous. That depends crucially on which business you're talking about. Exceptions abound. Consider that example of the mail-order wine business. Do you know how hard it was to start such a business in the days before FDR? There was a lot of "regulatory interference", personified by guys like "Eliot Ness". Y…

> Consider that example of the mail-order wine business. Do you know how hard it was to start such a business in the days before FDR? There was a lot of "regulatory interference", personified by guys like "Eliot Ness".

Prohibition was passed in 1919 (under Wilson) and "repealed" in 1934. (The repeal amendment federalized some restrictions that hadn't existed before 1919.)

Re: A Local Revolution?

#93

Post by anamax »

prospero wrote: post #11
tjic wrote: post #3

> There are already signs that startups may not spread particularly well. The spread of startups seems to be proceeding slower than the spread of the Industrial Revolution Government was much smaller at the time of the Industrial Revolution. The theory of "regulatory capture" says that government is responsive to those firms that are affected by government regulation and have the money to buy favorable legislation. T…

Why is it bad that in order to automatically generate binding legal documents, someone involved needs to be educated in the subtleties of legal language? A walking, talking lawyer should be personally responsible for the quality of the documents being generated. If there's no such person, you're putting the onus of validation on the client, which I think misses the entire point. In most of these cases, it's not the g…

> Why is it bad that in order to automatically generate binding legal documents

One question is why so many things require generating legal documents.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#94

Post by david927 »

eugenejen wrote: post #87
david927 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but meaningless. History is only our friend when it applies. A lot of technology is now software based and thanks to the web, it is immediately distributed evenly to all those who have computers with internet access. While that still leaves out a large chunk of the world, it gives no substantial benefit to the place where the technology was born.

Open source and internet help to spread software source. But the mindset of how a piece of software solve users' problems are still limited the location that the software is created. It will be more like a culture barrier. For a culture that has no sense of custom satisfaction, the user interface for e-commerce will never be as good as Apple or Amazon. We as technologists sometime forget a lot of our assumptions are…

That's a perfect reply. You're absolutely right, but I know a lot of companies who've made a fortune doing "Ebay for Switzerland", etc. Businesses will step in to fill that gap to a certain extent but the applications themselves reflect the hub culture. Excellent point.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#95

Post by xiaoma »

What about the spread of existing hubs? How much bigger is Silicon Valley than it was a couple of decades ago? How many start-ups and how much land will it encompass in another 20 years?

Re: A Local Revolution?

#96

Post by madair »

If you want to see startup revolution as the norm, just go to Asia. I'm sure Paul Graham has seen the scale of small business across the Mideast, China, Southeast Asia, for that matter the whole world, I just haven't been to South America so I can't speak about that.

It's kinda helpful to look past your own borders sometimes. There's a lot more lint in the world than just in your own belly button.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#97

Post by nazgulnarsil »

davidw wrote: post #84
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"moderate" is a cop-out. If you're a moderate now you would presumably have been a moderate 50 years ago. And the moderate of 50 years ago would be fringe today. The moderate of 100 years ago would be a radical today. Don't surrender your reason to social contructivism.

That's not a bad point, especially where it comes to how we treat other people. Indeed, I am not a moderate in everything, clinging to the center. However, in terms of government intervention in the economy, I am, and I also think it's far too large and interesting, and nuanced of a subject to adequately cover it in these sorts of forum. It's best left to be talked about over a bottle of good wine.

this may interest you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: A Local Revolution?

#98

Post by BerislavLopac »

dant wrote: post #81

I think pg has misjudged what stage of the start-up revolution we're in. He notes that the industrial revolution spread quickly because there were geographical areas with middle class populations and cultures that let people keep the large sums of money they made. He also notes that the culture necessary for large numbers of start-ups is not present in many areas. IMO, we're no way near the railroad stage of the star…

The main problem with PG's article is that he is, as always, overly focused on startups. For something to be a revolution, it has to last for a while (otherwise it's just a rebellion, and a failed one on top of it), which is something directly opposite to the nature of startups.

By definition, startups don't last -- they either disappear (either by failing or M&A), or they stop being startups and turn into "regular" companies. But, that being said, I still think that Paul is on to something -- the future model of a succesful company is not a large multinational conglomerate like IBM, Microsoft or Shell, which is too large for its own good and where, like with dinosaurs, it takes ages for a signal to travel from limb to brain and back.

Instead, I believe that the future of companies lie in small, flexible and agile companies which have simple operations and global reach. This doesn't mean that a successful company should somehow prevent its own growth -- but it should grow in small units, sprouting new, smaller companies which operate on their own.

My favo(u)rite example, which proves that this model works, is the Virgin Group, which includes lots of small to medium sized companies which operate in a number of different industries. For a traditional, centralized company such diversity would be a suicide, but in this case the companies are connected by the common brand and its messages.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#99

Post by jleyank »

Nobody seemed to mention (in a quick read) that the local/legal environment influences whether startups fly or not. Boston was a startup hub well before Silicon Valley was flying, but it's my understanding that IP and labor law in MA is (far?) more favorable to the employer than the employee - as compared to California.

If you're going to look for an environment that has "movement" of ideas and people, the environment has to be conducive to this. California has done well, but might strangle itself on commuting costs, the lack of infrastructure and the costs of living there.

It'll be hard for states to favor new vs. old businesses, but there's 50 of them out there, and a number of them will probably give it a go at some point.

Re: A Local Revolution?

#100

Post by fredwilson »

as i told Paul when he sent me this essay, he's got it all wrong. silicon valley's rate of startup growth is slowing and the rate of startup growth in many of the leading cities of the world (london, bejing, mumbai, banglore, new york, tel aviv, berlin, etc) is increasing. i think Paul's view has been skewed by living in Boston and Silicon Valley. Boston's startup ecosystem has been in decline for almost ten years now and when compared to Silicon Valley, it looks like game over. But if you chart the number of new startups funded by angels and VCs in all these cities since 1995, you'll see the right picture. I did that for my web 2.0 keynote and if i can find the chart, i'll post a link here
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