6 ms·

Silicon Valley’s Secret: Proximity, Stolen Parts, and the Kindness of Strangers

160 points by jackgavigan 10y ago

pbiggar 10y ago
This is so true. I didn't steal any parts (though I was given free office space and other stuff), but much of the success of CircleCI was strangers (or at least "very new friends") giving me advice, referring me to their friends and colleagues and investors.
mschuster91 10y ago
> A guy working on a database at Ampex was Larry Ellison. A guy working in audio was Ray Dolby. Ampex was incredibly generous about letting these people start their own companies. This just can't happen today, anymore. Everybody/-thing and their dog is bound at least by NDAs, if not worse by non-compete agreements. The only exception I know of is Google's 20% program, but IIRC even this has been scaled down.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > The only exception I know of is Google's 20% program Is that an exception? Letting people work on whatever, for the company, is different than letting them work on whatever then walk off with it.
- Taniwha 10y ago
  Non compete clauses are not legal in California ... Might be one reason for the Valley's success
  - fapjacks 10y ago
    You mean THE reason for SV's success.
- flukus 10y ago
  Didn't google axe the 20% program?
  - hvidgaard 10y ago
    It was never "spend 20% on whatever you like" but "spend 20% on something you can turn into something useable for Google", be it internally or externally. At least that is what I hear from the Googlers I know and have talked to in person.
- kcorbitt 10y ago
  I work for Google, and I've asked for -- and been granted -- IP for a side project I've been working on. Actually under California state law I probably had rights to the IP anyway (I haven't worked on it at work or with work resources) but I've been officially granted a legal promise that Google won't sue me into bankruptcy to try and assert ownership. :) It wasn't a hard thing to do, and I get the impression that unless you're planning on directly competing with something they care about, they're pretty liberal with such releases.
  - mifreewil 10y ago
    Seems like a bad idea, why would you ask for permission? If you're not using company resources and unless you tell the company about some IP they don't know about, they aren't going to sue you. You're just giving them the option to assert themselves.
    - kcorbitt 10y ago
      If nothing ever comes of it, it doesn't matter either way. If it becomes successful enough to launch into its own company, there is a huge disadvantage to not having the IP situation clarified up front. For one thing, investors get very concerned about even the remote possibility of someone else trying to claim copyright to your code. And once you are successful, it's not safe (or ethical, really) to just assume your [former] employer will never hear about it and connect the dots.
b1gtuna 10y ago
" I graduated 256 out of a class of 256 (at the University of Utah). That is, I had the most efficient degree possible. I got a degree, but I didn’t do one bit more than I needed to." LOL!
- bduerst 10y ago
  Well in the 1960's, just having a degree meant more than it does today.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    That was before making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy (1976) created an educational finance industry[1] requiring the world to produce more postsecondary students. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Phoenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Phoenix
- dood 10y ago
  Hah, I was similarly pleased by finishing with exactly 59.5% - the threshold for a 2:1 in the UK system, meaning I hadn't wasted any energy on getting higher marks than necessary.
- qntty 10y ago
  He'd have done a bit less if he was 255.
komali2 10y ago
Hm. Short article, very fun to read about these alumn though. I'm not so bought in on the idea that silicon valley itself was the thesis her - seems like it's just an argument in general for real world networking. I'm bought in to that, I've never regretted a single meetup I've been to.
gopalv 10y ago
> One of the nice things about Silicon Valley, is, you all have worked next to an idiot who has gone off and been successful That sort of under-cuts the meritocracy message by a lot. I think success is a product of more things than talent, it could be about projected talent as much as what's underneath the hood - confidence as a product of ignorance and narcism is indistinguishable from the real thing, unless tested. And guess what, some of those people who talk big actually become those people by a mixture of opportunity and hard work - I feel like one of those imposters :) But asking a lottery winner on picking the best numbers is nearly as useful as picking a loser on how not to pick them - it's what they do after they win a dice roll that matters (invest, avoid going bankrupt etc). This is not without lessons though - that the failures were made in a consequence-less environment (sic at Nutting & their bankruptcy) and those lessons were carried into aa future success instead of being the opening chapters of a student loan driven panic.
- bduerst 10y ago
  I think the point you're trying to convey is what the author meant - Ellison, Dolby, and Jobs were not lucky idiots, just that some of their peers saw them that way.
- duaneb 10y ago
  Meritocracy is a nice goal, but it's certainly not Silicon Valley (or any other place of which I know). The universe has no even playing fields, and it's hard to win friends by contradicting that. Does hard work matter? Of course. Does it determine success? Not as much as it would under a meritocracy.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  > > One of the nice things about Silicon Valley, is, you all have worked next to an idiot who has gone off and been successful > That sort of under-cuts the meritocracy message by a lot. What meritocracy message? If there is one thing Silicon Valley ISN'T it's meritocratic. Success here is a function of luck, access to capital, personal connections and shameless self-promotion. Nothing meritocratic about that. We HAVE all worked with idiots who have gone off and been successful. It's an encouraging message--if you're an idiot.
doener 10y ago
Isn't Silicon Valley's biggest secret its close relation to the US military?
- adventured 10y ago
  No, that has never been secretive. It has been very well known for decades in the global tech industry. Anyone outside of the tech industry could care less.
- Animats 10y ago
  What close relationship? That all changed in the 1980s, when consumer electronics sped past DoD purchases. This bothered many DoD agencies at the time. Not well known: BSD Unix was supposed to die when DARPA cut off funding. DARPA had decided to support Mach, which was more of a research project and potentially could have better security. But instead, BSD Unix was taken up by Sun as a startup.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    I'm failing to find anything on it now, but I remember rumor from the 90s that the NSA was an early SUN customer. If true, Eric Schmidt is all the more interesting.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - Animats 10y ago
      NSA probably did buy some SUN workstations. They'd buy a few of anything in those days. I was at an aerospace company that made satellites and ground stations back then, and we had a few Sun workstations in the early 1980s. One had a TV-resolution color display in addition to the black and white display. Someone ported an orbital elements program plotting program for satellite orbits and positions, and the positions of the ground stations, providing a real-time display. An Air Force general was visiting, and demanded that the entire machine be immediately moved over to the USAF Satellite Control Facility (the old "blue cube" in Sunnyvale), which was still running on the 1960s technology used by NASA for Apollo. This was done, and the in-house machine was replaced at USAF expense.
blister 10y ago
I had breakfast with Nolan Bushnell back in 2013 at GameTech and he's been a huge inspiration to me. The dude is 80? and has the energy and enthusiasm for tech that is simply contagious. We talked for 20 minutes over bacon on how he wanted to use his company BrainRush to bring high school education down to take just six months. Everything he does, he does with gusto and a full heart. He's one of my favorites. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak at a conference, take it! Disclaimer: I am not Nolan Bushnell. :)
- mlvljr 10y ago
  oh, you recursive bastard!
jackgavigan 10y ago
In addition to reinforcing my already-entrenched belief that Proximity and the Kindness of Strangers are key ingredients in Silicon Valley's success, this article TIL'd me that Nolan Bushnell, Larry Ellison and Ray Dolby all worked at Ampex (whose big sign I've driven past many times on 101). That explains why there are so many buildings in San Francisco with 'Dolby' signs.
keithwhor 10y ago
I've spent the last two months in Canada, taking in bits and pieces of the investment landscape and technical culture I left for Silicon Valley two years ago. I'm interested in the contrast. To preface, I love Canada. I love Toronto. I was born and raised here. (Yes, Drake's pretty cool, too). But my biggest criticism of the industry in Toronto is that it seems to be missing this spark. A meeting in Silicon Valley isn't just a meeting. Due to proximity and kindness of strangers, it's the start of propagating wave of influence. As you create more of these waves, constructive interference forms peaks that manifest in specific individuals who are not only willing to help you, they're willing to champion for you. Toronto doesn't lack kindness of strangers. At all. But it lacks a large-scale cohesive human medium via proximity that Silicon Valley so readily provides. As a Toronto-born Canadian, I'm deeply interested in how Canada's ecosystem can better facilitate and grow this kind of critical mass of talent and connections. There are good places to start, my friend Ahmad Nassri runs TechMasters (https://techmasters.chat/ https://techmasters.chat/) and is bringing thousands of developers together. I think a great approach might be heading towards deepening SV ties and becoming part of a larger social medium instead of trying to bootstrap its own. I think this is a huge part of the NYC tech community that is blossoming and I've been able to witness first hand as well. I guess we'll see how far SV influence can reach. :)
- khnd 10y ago
  sv has a homogeneous culture builtin
- acchow 10y ago
  Also Toronto born-and-raised and living in SF. I'm not sure what this spark you speak of is, but I feel a ton of energy, enthusiasm, fearlessness, and widespread talent in SF that barely exists in Toronto. I believe that much of it has to do with self-selection - SF is full of people that decided to be there and intentionally moved there - wanted to learn programming, or wanted to start a company, or didn't feel comfortable being homosexual in their small town, or wanted to live somewhere with warmer winters and hiking in December. It feels like most people in Toronto were born there or moved there as young kids when their parents immigrated. The self selection of people in SF has dramatic influences on its culture. Maybe you can call it homogeneous and sure there's a big tech industry in SF, but it's hardly the largest industry there.
agumonkey 10y ago
Title sounds like China scene.

160 points by jackgavigan 10y ago

This is so true. I didn't steal any parts (though I was given free office space and other stuff), but much of the success of CircleCI was strangers (or at least "very new friends") giving me advice, referring me to their friends and colleagues and investors.

mschuster91 10y ago

> A guy working on a database at Ampex was Larry Ellison. A guy working in audio was Ray Dolby. Ampex was incredibly generous about letting these people start their own companies. This just can't happen today, anymore. Everybody/-thing and their dog is bound at least by NDAs, if not worse by non-compete agreements. The only exception I know of is Google's 20% program, but IIRC even this has been scaled down.

serge2k 10y ago
> The only exception I know of is Google's 20% program Is that an exception? Letting people work on whatever, for the company, is different than letting them work on whatever then walk off with it.
Taniwha 10y ago
Non compete clauses are not legal in California ... Might be one reason for the Valley's success
- fapjacks 10y ago
  You mean THE reason for SV's success.
flukus 10y ago
Didn't google axe the 20% program?
- hvidgaard 10y ago
  It was never "spend 20% on whatever you like" but "spend 20% on something you can turn into something useable for Google", be it internally or externally. At least that is what I hear from the Googlers I know and have talked to in person.
kcorbitt 10y ago
I work for Google, and I've asked for -- and been granted -- IP for a side project I've been working on. Actually under California state law I probably had rights to the IP anyway (I haven't worked on it at work or with work resources) but I've been officially granted a legal promise that Google won't sue me into bankruptcy to try and assert ownership. :) It wasn't a hard thing to do, and I get the impression that unless you're planning on directly competing with something they care about, they're pretty liberal with such releases.
- mifreewil 10y ago
  Seems like a bad idea, why would you ask for permission? If you're not using company resources and unless you tell the company about some IP they don't know about, they aren't going to sue you. You're just giving them the option to assert themselves.
  - kcorbitt 10y ago
    If nothing ever comes of it, it doesn't matter either way. If it becomes successful enough to launch into its own company, there is a huge disadvantage to not having the IP situation clarified up front. For one thing, investors get very concerned about even the remote possibility of someone else trying to claim copyright to your code. And once you are successful, it's not safe (or ethical, really) to just assume your [former] employer will never hear about it and connect the dots.

b1gtuna 10y ago

" I graduated 256 out of a class of 256 (at the University of Utah). That is, I had the most efficient degree possible. I got a degree, but I didn’t do one bit more than I needed to." LOL!

bduerst 10y ago
Well in the 1960's, just having a degree meant more than it does today.
- rhizome 10y ago
  That was before making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy (1976) created an educational finance industry[1] requiring the world to produce more postsecondary students. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Phoenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Phoenix
dood 10y ago
Hah, I was similarly pleased by finishing with exactly 59.5% - the threshold for a 2:1 in the UK system, meaning I hadn't wasted any energy on getting higher marks than necessary.
qntty 10y ago
He'd have done a bit less if he was 255.

komali2 10y ago

Hm. Short article, very fun to read about these alumn though. I'm not so bought in on the idea that silicon valley itself was the thesis her - seems like it's just an argument in general for real world networking. I'm bought in to that, I've never regretted a single meetup I've been to.

gopalv 10y ago

> One of the nice things about Silicon Valley, is, you all have worked next to an idiot who has gone off and been successful That sort of under-cuts the meritocracy message by a lot. I think success is a product of more things than talent, it could be about projected talent as much as what's underneath the hood - confidence as a product of ignorance and narcism is indistinguishable from the real thing, unless tested. And guess what, some of those people who talk big actually become those people by a mixture of opportunity and hard work - I feel like one of those imposters :) But asking a lottery winner on picking the best numbers is nearly as useful as picking a loser on how not to pick them - it's what they do after they win a dice roll that matters (invest, avoid going bankrupt etc). This is not without lessons though - that the failures were made in a consequence-less environment (sic at Nutting & their bankruptcy) and those lessons were carried into aa future success instead of being the opening chapters of a student loan driven panic.

bduerst 10y ago
I think the point you're trying to convey is what the author meant - Ellison, Dolby, and Jobs were not lucky idiots, just that some of their peers saw them that way.
duaneb 10y ago
Meritocracy is a nice goal, but it's certainly not Silicon Valley (or any other place of which I know). The universe has no even playing fields, and it's hard to win friends by contradicting that. Does hard work matter? Of course. Does it determine success? Not as much as it would under a meritocracy.
ryandrake 10y ago
> > One of the nice things about Silicon Valley, is, you all have worked next to an idiot who has gone off and been successful > That sort of under-cuts the meritocracy message by a lot. What meritocracy message? If there is one thing Silicon Valley ISN'T it's meritocratic. Success here is a function of luck, access to capital, personal connections and shameless self-promotion. Nothing meritocratic about that. We HAVE all worked with idiots who have gone off and been successful. It's an encouraging message--if you're an idiot.

doener 10y ago

Isn't Silicon Valley's biggest secret its close relation to the US military?

adventured 10y ago
No, that has never been secretive. It has been very well known for decades in the global tech industry. Anyone outside of the tech industry could care less.
Animats 10y ago
What close relationship? That all changed in the 1980s, when consumer electronics sped past DoD purchases. This bothered many DoD agencies at the time. Not well known: BSD Unix was supposed to die when DARPA cut off funding. DARPA had decided to support Mach, which was more of a research project and potentially could have better security. But instead, BSD Unix was taken up by Sun as a startup.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  I'm failing to find anything on it now, but I remember rumor from the 90s that the NSA was an early SUN customer. If true, Eric Schmidt is all the more interesting.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Animats 10y ago
    NSA probably did buy some SUN workstations. They'd buy a few of anything in those days. I was at an aerospace company that made satellites and ground stations back then, and we had a few Sun workstations in the early 1980s. One had a TV-resolution color display in addition to the black and white display. Someone ported an orbital elements program plotting program for satellite orbits and positions, and the positions of the ground stations, providing a real-time display. An Air Force general was visiting, and demanded that the entire machine be immediately moved over to the USAF Satellite Control Facility (the old "blue cube" in Sunnyvale), which was still running on the 1960s technology used by NASA for Apollo. This was done, and the in-house machine was replaced at USAF expense.

blister 10y ago

I had breakfast with Nolan Bushnell back in 2013 at GameTech and he's been a huge inspiration to me. The dude is 80? and has the energy and enthusiasm for tech that is simply contagious. We talked for 20 minutes over bacon on how he wanted to use his company BrainRush to bring high school education down to take just six months. Everything he does, he does with gusto and a full heart. He's one of my favorites. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak at a conference, take it! Disclaimer: I am not Nolan Bushnell. :)

mlvljr 10y ago
oh, you recursive bastard!

jackgavigan 10y ago

In addition to reinforcing my already-entrenched belief that Proximity and the Kindness of Strangers are key ingredients in Silicon Valley's success, this article TIL'd me that Nolan Bushnell, Larry Ellison and Ray Dolby all worked at Ampex (whose big sign I've driven past many times on 101). That explains why there are so many buildings in San Francisco with 'Dolby' signs.

keithwhor 10y ago

I've spent the last two months in Canada, taking in bits and pieces of the investment landscape and technical culture I left for Silicon Valley two years ago. I'm interested in the contrast. To preface, I love Canada. I love Toronto. I was born and raised here. (Yes, Drake's pretty cool, too). But my biggest criticism of the industry in Toronto is that it seems to be missing this spark. A meeting in Silicon Valley isn't just a meeting. Due to proximity and kindness of strangers, it's the start of propagating wave of influence. As you create more of these waves, constructive interference forms peaks that manifest in specific individuals who are not only willing to help you, they're willing to champion for you. Toronto doesn't lack kindness of strangers. At all. But it lacks a large-scale cohesive human medium via proximity that Silicon Valley so readily provides. As a Toronto-born Canadian, I'm deeply interested in how Canada's ecosystem can better facilitate and grow this kind of critical mass of talent and connections. There are good places to start, my friend Ahmad Nassri runs TechMasters (https://techmasters.chat/ https://techmasters.chat/) and is bringing thousands of developers together. I think a great approach might be heading towards deepening SV ties and becoming part of a larger social medium instead of trying to bootstrap its own. I think this is a huge part of the NYC tech community that is blossoming and I've been able to witness first hand as well. I guess we'll see how far SV influence can reach. :)

khnd 10y ago
sv has a homogeneous culture builtin
acchow 10y ago
Also Toronto born-and-raised and living in SF. I'm not sure what this spark you speak of is, but I feel a ton of energy, enthusiasm, fearlessness, and widespread talent in SF that barely exists in Toronto. I believe that much of it has to do with self-selection - SF is full of people that decided to be there and intentionally moved there - wanted to learn programming, or wanted to start a company, or didn't feel comfortable being homosexual in their small town, or wanted to live somewhere with warmer winters and hiking in December. It feels like most people in Toronto were born there or moved there as young kids when their parents immigrated. The self selection of people in SF has dramatic influences on its culture. Maybe you can call it homogeneous and sure there's a big tech industry in SF, but it's hardly the largest industry there.

agumonkey 10y ago

Title sounds like China scene.