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Creating the Next Silicon Valley - The Chilean Experiment
- shawnee_ 16y agoWhat needs work >> Venture Capital Given the interesting things going on in the engineering labs I visited and the startups I met, one would have thought the place would have been crawling with VC’s fighting over deals. Instead it felt like the government – through CORFO - was doing most of the risk capital investing. Not ideal, but better than nothing. Capitalism can get the most solid footing as a sustainable economic system when there is minimal government involvement. Need wealth to create and fuel more wealth.
- zeemonkee 16y agoDidn't much of Silicon Valley's early investment come from the US government, such as the military ?
- anamax 16y agoThe US Govt bought things, but it didn't tell folks what to build (for other people). Govts like to pick winners. So do companies, but with companies, only one has to hit for society to win.
- daniel-cussen 16y agoI've spoken to people in the mining industry and Chile does produce technology used in mining. It even exports some of this tech, such as explosives.
- mikeryan 16y agoDear god, stop trying to replicate Silicon Valley elsewhere. Create a newer, better ecosystem for entrepreneurs. You're pretty much destined to fail if you try to replicate SV. Move the goal posts to something else.
- meterplech 16y agoYou are right of course, but you should remember that when governments try to spur innovation and entrepreneurship they have to sell the idea to their constituents and to their talented people. It helps to at least have a great cluster to describe to people what innovation could mean. A sort of crazy end goal to consider. But yes, for most direct comparisons smaller countries should like Steve Blank said be looking at Israel, Singapore and Finland. Honestly, I think the most challenging thing will be to change Chile's cultural fear of failure. That is probably the single best asset that Israeli culture has in spurring innovation. It is just considered the norm.
- lazyant 16y agoThey are not trying to replicate Silicon Valley but to create an innovation hub for start-ups and entrepreneurship like in other small countries (Israel and Finland is mentioned). "Silicon Valley" is just a recognized name, it's like saying Kleenex for tissues.
- do 16y agoWhat is the Chilean government doing to bring over already established, innovative companies? It seems that one good way to inject innovation is to introduce companies that can employ young, entrepreneurial Chileans and set examples they can follow in future ventures.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoWhen I look at systems of people the first thing I look at is failure: how does the system/individual fail, what sort of feedback loop is there, and how are changes made? So Steve's statement about the culture not accepting failure was a red flag. His statement that the government was the prime investor was another red flag. (Governments are notorious for not admitting failure. To do so would challenge the their authority and ability) And once he said that bankruptcy laws there were draconian? The red alert started going off. It's simply non-doable. It's a shame. I love the scenery, and the people are terrific. But a million small failures make a great success, and if you can't fail easily, quickly, and learn from it? You're never going to develop much of anything.
- mdda 16y agoTo me the right solution is to have an 'umbrella company' - that startups can live under. By law, they'd be divisions (so bankruptcy law would never get involved). But, internal to the umbrella company, there would be a culture of experimentation & iteration. Like rejection therapy, the 'umbrella' employees could be encouraged to fail often : Not enough failure implies not enough risk-taking / innovation.
- euroclydon 16y agoHow does that solve the problem of not being able to unilaterally write off a debt obligation?
- mdda 16y agoIf you're having to rely on the ability to walk away from a commitment (to a supplier, say), then that needs to be built into the contract initially. In California (say), where the culture is 'built for failure', the contracts already embed that optionality - meaning that the pricing already has the possibility of default built in. Negotiating the same flexibility elsewhere should just increase the pricing. Just as offering gold-plated guarantees in California should reduce the pricing.
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- euroclydon 16y agoWell it's clear what the opportunity is in Chile right now... Teaching entrepreneurship! If you've got a business idea to target that, they'll be lining up to pay you money.
- statsuno 16y agoBased on the critiques below, Chile should revise its bankruptcy laws, mandate more government procurement from startups and SMEs, encourage partnering with Silicon Valley and other high-tech regions, set up a Silicon Valley incubator like the Nordic countries are doing now, and encourage more university research collaboration with high-growth nations.