> "If you put all the current trends together, it seems obvious Silicon Valley will become the most powerful place on earth at the expense of just about everywh

> "If you put all the current trends together, it seems obvious Silicon Valley will become the most powerful place on earth at the expense of just about everywhere else on earth." It's not a zero-sum game. Google is collecting huge sums of ad revenue, but in return, it is improving the productivity of virtually all of its users. Just to illustrate what I mean, Kelly, my mechanical engineering friend, used to disappear into the engineering library for days looking up parts in catalogs, calling vendors to confirm specs and availability, placing orders over fax or phone, and waiting, sometimes weeks, for parts to arrive. Today, it's an afternoon's work, mainly on Google, and he has the parts in two or three days.