'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
1–10 of 151 posts
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#2To a large extent the investment in all that silicon is why developers can play the commodity game today. Many smart people are working on the next substrate for the next revolution and everything will change again. The differences are the breadth of the commodity wave and our consciousness of the time between breakthroughs.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#3"THOMPSON: Is Facebook worth $100 billion?
BLANK: In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody's debating whether Facebook can make money. They're debating how much more valuable Facebook's hundreds of millions of users can be, and how fast can they can grow that value. That's an execution problem."
Facebook makes $4 per user from advertisers who LOSE money when they pay Facebook. In other words, Facebook's users LOVE their product. Facebook's customers (advertisers) get nothing from it. Click through rates suck, and actual ROI is negative. Eventually, the new advertisers who show up and realize it's a waste of money will stop paying for nothing, and then the $4/user goes away. Users and the media LOVED Groupon. The businesses who were Groupon's actual customers HATED it. This is no different. Don't get me wrong, a billion users is incredibly monetizable. Just not the way Facebook is trying to do it. The social B.S. will eventually fade to the real stuff.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#4"THOMPSON: Is Facebook worth $100 billion? BLANK: In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody's debating whether Facebook can make money. They're debating how much more valuable Facebook's hundreds of millions of users can be, and how fast can they can grow that value. That's an execution problem." Facebook makes $4 per user from a…
What's the real stuff?
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#5Who cares what this guy thinks? He doesn't count either the iPhone or iPad among the most important innovations of the last 5 years, but two of his 4 choices are about cars, and another is Google Goggles.
He also surmises that Silicon Valley is dead because of a few observations about Facebook, while ignoring that Apple has become the largest company in the history of the known universe.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#6"THOMPSON: Is Facebook worth $100 billion? BLANK: In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody's debating whether Facebook can make money. They're debating how much more valuable Facebook's hundreds of millions of users can be, and how fast can they can grow that value. That's an execution problem." Facebook makes $4 per user from a…
What's the real stuff?
Cars that drive themselves. Distributed power generation. Web connected sensors in everything. You know, things that have a material effect on people's quality of life. As opposed to Facebook.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#7Social media is not going to be "where the money is" when all these companies founded by 20-year-olds hit the wall because Facebook is the only one making any money off social. Eventually VCs will realize, hey maybe we should fund some of these guys with big ideas over here. Social is just a gold rush, but these things are cyclical.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#8Who cares what this guy thinks? He doesn't count either the iPhone or iPad among the most important innovations of the last 5 years, but two of his 4 choices are about cars, and another is Google Goggles. He also surmises that Silicon Valley is dead because of a few observations about Facebook, while ignoring that Apple has become the largest company in the history of the known universe.
He's absolutely correct. Automated cars will have a much bigger effect than iPads. So much time is wasted driving.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the real stuff?
Cars that drive themselves. Distributed power generation. Web connected sensors in everything. You know, things that have a material effect on people's quality of life. As opposed to Facebook.
It's important to realize that Facebook has done a tremendous job of connecting the non-digerati who previously communicated via infrequent mail or rare phone calls.
While I am very bearish on a 100 P/E, the reality of Facebook's userbase and its engagement is not something to blow off. Facebook has distinctly impressed itself on the communication modality of many many people.
Don't underestimate that.
Re: 'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'
#10Who cares what this guy thinks? He doesn't count either the iPhone or iPad among the most important innovations of the last 5 years, but two of his 4 choices are about cars, and another is Google Goggles. He also surmises that Silicon Valley is dead because of a few observations about Facebook, while ignoring that Apple has become the largest company in the history of the known universe.
I believe he's talking about the current crop of startups and research that's getting funded right now.