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I have always found it ironic that many of the very people who created the modern Internet, and have sold the world on the transformational possibilities of con

I have always found it ironic that many of the very people who created the modern Internet, and have sold the world on the transformational possibilities of connecting with each other through it, also believe that one must physically be in Silicon Valley to succeed in their own industry. A founder’s desire to start a company that could reasonably be run from anywhere in one of the world’s most expensive areas should turn off investors, not attract them - and this is happening with more frequency as Bay Area costs escalate. If those within the Valley bubble want to remain relevant to the startup scene in the coming decades, they would be wise to leverage some of their own tools to provide those outside the bubble with greater access to the resources within it.

dman 8y ago
Do you have any specific people in mind?
- downandout 8y ago
  I was referring to the general sentiment that if you're a serious tech startup, you should be in SV. You can see this sentiment throughout this comment thread, in an essay someone linked to below written by Paul Graham, and in any number of articles extolling the virtues of the Valley. As for specific people, I’d start with Mark Zuckerberg - a champion of connecting the world through technology - who seems to have believed that a SV presence was necessary for Facebook to succeed. He had to believe that, or he wouldn’t have moved the company there as soon as he had the funding to do it.
dhnsmakala 8y ago
Salaries high in SV. Talent goes to SV for high salary. Companies go to SV to seek talent.
- downandout 8y ago
  When cost of living for a quality of life that is equivalent to almost any other area (e.g. not having 8 roommates on a $150k salary) is taken into consideration, SV salaries actually pale in comparison to those in other areas.
- checkyoursudo 8y ago
  Salaries aren't that great, in my personal experience. My spouse was offered about $200,000 for a job in Foster City, and $190,000 in a city in the Midwest. My spouse's friend took one of those $200,000 jobs and for about 1.4 mil bought a house smaller than our starter house. We bought a 3300 sqft house for less than 400k.
wenc 8y ago
In my mind, it is not ironic. While the Internet has made great progress in solving human connectivity and distance problems--and indeed for many people (e.g. remote workers who happily work from home) it has solved it them for all practical purposes--in reality it has not solved it to the point that renders physical presence unnecessary. We've gotten to a point where remote interactions are OK-ish (pareto), so incremental improvements now have diminishing returns with decreasing payoff. Nobody's really working on making things a lot better than they are now. To me, there's still great benefit in clustering human beings of like mind in the same physical space because it creates a creative buzz than somehow cannot be replicated with telepresence. Being able to have serendipitous side conversations (without having a video conference camera on all the time), going to meetups in physical spaces (as opposed to watching streaming videos), and the ability to make random real-life human connections with people working in the same area all contribute to this buzz. This buzz is purely psychological but tremendously powerful [1], and I don't know of any instances where it can be created through technology alone. Some say it is a question of bandwidth -- maybe some day we'll have augmented/virtual reality, very high-resolution video, etc. that will render all of this moot. Perhaps... but it would also need to be able hack our neuroscience and psychology in some way... [1] Cities and Ambition http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

dman 8y ago

Do you have any specific people in mind?

downandout 8y ago
I was referring to the general sentiment that if you're a serious tech startup, you should be in SV. You can see this sentiment throughout this comment thread, in an essay someone linked to below written by Paul Graham, and in any number of articles extolling the virtues of the Valley. As for specific people, I’d start with Mark Zuckerberg - a champion of connecting the world through technology - who seems to have believed that a SV presence was necessary for Facebook to succeed. He had to believe that, or he wouldn’t have moved the company there as soon as he had the funding to do it.

dhnsmakala 8y ago

Salaries high in SV. Talent goes to SV for high salary. Companies go to SV to seek talent.

downandout 8y ago
When cost of living for a quality of life that is equivalent to almost any other area (e.g. not having 8 roommates on a $150k salary) is taken into consideration, SV salaries actually pale in comparison to those in other areas.
checkyoursudo 8y ago
Salaries aren't that great, in my personal experience. My spouse was offered about $200,000 for a job in Foster City, and $190,000 in a city in the Midwest. My spouse's friend took one of those $200,000 jobs and for about 1.4 mil bought a house smaller than our starter house. We bought a 3300 sqft house for less than 400k.

wenc 8y ago

In my mind, it is not ironic. While the Internet has made great progress in solving human connectivity and distance problems--and indeed for many people (e.g. remote workers who happily work from home) it has solved it them for all practical purposes--in reality it has not solved it to the point that renders physical presence unnecessary. We've gotten to a point where remote interactions are OK-ish (pareto), so incremental improvements now have diminishing returns with decreasing payoff. Nobody's really working on making things a lot better than they are now. To me, there's still great benefit in clustering human beings of like mind in the same physical space because it creates a creative buzz than somehow cannot be replicated with telepresence. Being able to have serendipitous side conversations (without having a video conference camera on all the time), going to meetups in physical spaces (as opposed to watching streaming videos), and the ability to make random real-life human connections with people working in the same area all contribute to this buzz. This buzz is purely psychological but tremendously powerful [1], and I don't know of any instances where it can be created through technology alone. Some say it is a question of bandwidth -- maybe some day we'll have augmented/virtual reality, very high-resolution video, etc. that will render all of this moot. Perhaps... but it would also need to be able hack our neuroscience and psychology in some way... [1] Cities and Ambition http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html