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They are not but ultimately, a farmer's problems are best solved by interacting with the farmer...not suburban SF techies. People still need to meet but it doe

They are not but ultimately, a farmer's problems are best solved by interacting with the farmer...not suburban SF techies. People still need to meet but it doesn't mean every company needs to be in the same city for one industry.

ghettoimp 9y ago
The (stereotypical) farmer can surely tell you what would be useful to him and be a great beta-tester who gives valuable feedback. But if the product is, say, some kind of automatic corn harvester, he’s pretty unlikely to give you much insight into the way to actually build it. The SV techies have no monopoly on expertise in robotics and hardware and software engineering, but they certainly have expertise. They’re in a much better position to automate farming than farmers are.
- chepaslaaa 9y ago
  You're underestimating farmers, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of them could have very valuable insight on building an automatic corn harvester. A lot of them have second jobs in fields related to natural sciences and engineering, and they have farm machinery and buildings that they probably do a good chunk of the work on.
- briandear 9y ago
  You basically summed up SV arrogance in a single paragraph. Seriously, one would argue that SV knows more about farming than farmers? Knowing how to build pianos doesn’t mean you also know how to compose music.
  - ghettoimp 9y ago
    Show me where I made any claim that SV knows anything about farming. My point is that SV knows about robotics, software engineering, ASIC design, machine learning, LIDAR systems, compilers, operating systems, networking stacks, open source libraries, debugging, venture capital, and all the rest. Composers vs. piano makers is exactly what I'm saying.
    - Fins 9y ago
      All of that will certainly help you build a... Juicero, say. Something very high-tech but absolutely useless. To solve real-world problems it very much helps to be aware of them, which isn't something SV has been particularly good lately.
      - ghettoimp 9y ago
        So your farmer understands this real world problem really well. And now he wants to automate a solution to it. And to do that he needs... all that stuff that the SV guys know. And they know that stuff really well, better than anyone else. But they don’t know the first thing about farming. Which leads me back to my original post.
        wpietri 9y ago
        Not really. The point you were replying in apparent contradiction to said, "a farmer's problems are best solved by interacting with the farmer... not suburban SF techies". Nobody's denying that there's a concentration of technological knowledge in the valley. But the only time technological knowledge is useful when combined with an understanding of the actual problem. And for farming, that's with farmers, and on farms. The SV-centric approach leads to impressive technological innovations that don't actually solve the problem. Juicero is one, for example. Another is The Melt, the VC-backed, tech-focused grilled cheese restaurant. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious they didn't have a clue. Sure, the right kind of technical knowledge is useful. But the wrong kind is useless. And the standard SV arrogance is actively harmful.
        Fins 9y ago
        The point, really, is that SV guys may know some cool tech (although with SV's chase for the next shiny JS-frameworked AI-based noSQL-stored , whatever else is trendy now-thing it is arguable if that tech is any better than tech people in saner places know just as well) -- but they have no idea what to do with it to solve any real-world problems; because they don't live in the real world. So they come up with Juiceros, $600 "smart" locks, app-based gas delivery. Not even First World problems, that's like Zeroth World problems. Unless you think the VC-fed bubble can grow indefinitely, it is SV techies who need people from the real world. Not necessarily the other way around.

ghettoimp 9y ago

The (stereotypical) farmer can surely tell you what would be useful to him and be a great beta-tester who gives valuable feedback. But if the product is, say, some kind of automatic corn harvester, he’s pretty unlikely to give you much insight into the way to actually build it. The SV techies have no monopoly on expertise in robotics and hardware and software engineering, but they certainly have expertise. They’re in a much better position to automate farming than farmers are.

chepaslaaa 9y ago
You're underestimating farmers, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of them could have very valuable insight on building an automatic corn harvester. A lot of them have second jobs in fields related to natural sciences and engineering, and they have farm machinery and buildings that they probably do a good chunk of the work on.
briandear 9y ago
You basically summed up SV arrogance in a single paragraph. Seriously, one would argue that SV knows more about farming than farmers? Knowing how to build pianos doesn’t mean you also know how to compose music.
- ghettoimp 9y ago
  Show me where I made any claim that SV knows anything about farming. My point is that SV knows about robotics, software engineering, ASIC design, machine learning, LIDAR systems, compilers, operating systems, networking stacks, open source libraries, debugging, venture capital, and all the rest. Composers vs. piano makers is exactly what I'm saying.
  - Fins 9y ago
    All of that will certainly help you build a... Juicero, say. Something very high-tech but absolutely useless. To solve real-world problems it very much helps to be aware of them, which isn't something SV has been particularly good lately.
    - ghettoimp 9y ago
      So your farmer understands this real world problem really well. And now he wants to automate a solution to it. And to do that he needs... all that stuff that the SV guys know. And they know that stuff really well, better than anyone else. But they don’t know the first thing about farming. Which leads me back to my original post.
      - wpietri 9y ago
        Not really. The point you were replying in apparent contradiction to said, "a farmer's problems are best solved by interacting with the farmer... not suburban SF techies". Nobody's denying that there's a concentration of technological knowledge in the valley. But the only time technological knowledge is useful when combined with an understanding of the actual problem. And for farming, that's with farmers, and on farms. The SV-centric approach leads to impressive technological innovations that don't actually solve the problem. Juicero is one, for example. Another is The Melt, the VC-backed, tech-focused grilled cheese restaurant. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious they didn't have a clue. Sure, the right kind of technical knowledge is useful. But the wrong kind is useless. And the standard SV arrogance is actively harmful.
      - Fins 9y ago
        The point, really, is that SV guys may know some cool tech (although with SV's chase for the next shiny JS-frameworked AI-based noSQL-stored , whatever else is trendy now-thing it is arguable if that tech is any better than tech people in saner places know just as well) -- but they have no idea what to do with it to solve any real-world problems; because they don't live in the real world. So they come up with Juiceros, $600 "smart" locks, app-based gas delivery. Not even First World problems, that's like Zeroth World problems. Unless you think the VC-fed bubble can grow indefinitely, it is SV techies who need people from the real world. Not necessarily the other way around.