Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
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Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#2> The extractive behavior the tech giants exhibit has been the norm for modern capitalism since Milton Friedman set its objective function in 1970: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This is all the sadder, though, since the tech industry set out to model something better. The generosity of open source software and the World Wide Web, the genius of algorithmically amplified collective intelligence are still there...
I don't buy that at all, the tech INDUSTRY was the result of attempting to extract value out of technology. I have to scoff at the inclusion of "algorithmically amplified intelligence" as one of the egalitarian core values of SV. If you hadn't caught on by then, you must have been heady off the fumes of it all.
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#3Maybe, at least people won’t be tied down 100% and can work remote. If you have a family you can now afford a home to raise kids in.
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#4> The extractive behavior the tech giants exhibit has been the norm for modern capitalism since Milton Friedman set its objective function in 1970: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This is all the sadder, though, since the tech industry set out to model something better. The generosity of open source software and the World Wide Web, the genius of algorithmically amplified collective…
So open source was just tech people not understanding their core purpose of "extract value out of technology" ?
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#5Im so tired of random writers, even if it's O'Reilly himself, trying to predict that Silicon Valley is doomed. That's like saying Hollywood is doomed, or Wall Street is doomed. I've been around long enough to know that nothing will unseat Silicon Valley as the tech capital of the world.
Silicon Valley has the critical mass of talent, VC money and greed that can't be replicated anywhere else in the world. There's a reason why we have never seen a world leading tech company come out from anywhere except the US. Despite having much higher educational standards even in 3rd world countries, the best the world could do is China which just stole US ideas and then built a firewall to keep others out.
Do I like what Silicon Valley has turned into? Hell no. I like the 90s version so much better, where nerds were tinkering with cool stuff and writing software because they loved software, not because they want to increase engagement by 1%. But it is what it is, and Silicon Valley will change with the times, I'm sure. I would love to see another dot-com-bust and clear out some of the chaff, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen this time around.
If there's anything that will kill Silicon Valley it's that people since 2010 have made *too* much money. Practically anyone at a FAANG is now a multi-millionaire no matter what you've worked on. One of the factors I listed above, greed, is now missing for the most part. People have too much money, and with that they stop getting hungry. The hunger for making money, which propelled a lot of the advancement in previous decades, is absent in many people here. Even I've become a multi-millionaire over the last 5 years by doing nothing differently except buying a house and working at a tech company. This causes a financial convection current, which you're somewhat seeing, of the bored rich Googlers moving on and doing other stuff. The incentive is gone for many.
But as long as more immigrants from other countries come to Silicon Valley because they've heard about how rich people come, that will continue to fuel things for decades to come. These days, if you get funded by a VC, you're getting $5 million for 20%, which is a lot of money. Deals like that can't be matched elsewhere and another reason why you won't see people trying to raise money elsewhere, they will just come to Silicon Valley with their greatest ideas and keep propelling it.
Silicon Valley will never die.
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#6Isn't another growing/bigger centre for technology innovation now in China/Taiwan? Are we just pretending that Silicon Valley is still Mecca?
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#7Im so tired of random writers, even if it's O'Reilly himself, trying to predict that Silicon Valley is doomed. That's like saying Hollywood is doomed, or Wall Street is doomed. I've been around long enough to know that nothing will unseat Silicon Valley as the tech capital of the world. Silicon Valley has the critical mass of talent, VC money and greed that can't be replicated anywhere else in the world. There's a re…
I agree, but never say never.
The Chinese will for sure have their own version of Silicon Valley and their giants will rival ours, no doubt.
I think there will be other critical centers of tech innovation, similar to how Hollywood is Hollywood but NYC has an industry as well.
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#8> The extractive behavior the tech giants exhibit has been the norm for modern capitalism since Milton Friedman set its objective function in 1970: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This is all the sadder, though, since the tech industry set out to model something better. The generosity of open source software and the World Wide Web, the genius of algorithmically amplified collective…
So open source was just tech people not understanding their core purpose of "extract value out of technology" ?
Open source is an entirely different movement. OSS is written the world over, yet SV is where everyone is busy extracting orders of magnitude of value from it.
From plenty of experience, SV open sources because it provides a business advantage, because it costs them nothing or because it's part of the business model of OSS+Support. Individual contributors are the heroes here, people doing it for the love of the software. The software industry will spin their work for a dollar all fucking day with no contribution back.
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#9Until 1988, California was ruled largely by Republicans.
Since 1988, it gradually cane to be ruled more by Democrats, with the notable exception of the "moderate" Republican governor Schwartzenegger.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-voting...
In both eras, its GDP and population went up, until it became the 5th or 4th largest economy in the world.
A bit of mean reversion occurs, after massive spikes in housing prices, wildfires and a pandemic and everyone loses their crap. Seriously, people... this is about as bad as cries of "CARNAGE!!" in 2016 when crime has a slight uptick after 10 years of decline.
Re: Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
#10> The extractive behavior the tech giants exhibit has been the norm for modern capitalism since Milton Friedman set its objective function in 1970: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This is all the sadder, though, since the tech industry set out to model something better. The generosity of open source software and the World Wide Web, the genius of algorithmically amplified collective…
So open source was just tech people not understanding their core purpose of "extract value out of technology" ?
For some business plans, open source is a means of keeping competitors some number of releases behind internal development, perpetually, while they're none the wiser.