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> The Valley’s most valuable product is the contrarian thinking that fuels its innovation culture. The most valuable product is its ability to deliver platform

> The Valley’s most valuable product is the contrarian thinking that fuels its innovation culture. The most valuable product is its ability to deliver platforms that empower and incentivize more people to engage with economic production. Technologies that democratize capitalism, like the PC; key digital tools like spreadsheets, word processors, desktop publishing; the internet; online communities that democratized publishing and broadcasting like YouTube, podcasting, blogging; online marketplaces that democratized retail. > That might not be true for much longer, however. There are signs that the gilded age for consumer internet businesses may be drawing to a close. Anticompetitiveness and ‘exclusionism’ isn’t dying, the outsized incentives for the few will always be there. There will always be a back and forth. It’s up to Silicon Valley to understand its own nature and not let itself be subverted.

colmvp 6y ago
Regarding your first point, I think it's both honestly. I've lived in various major Western cities in NA/EU/AU and SV was cut by a different cloth. I've never met such a confluence of interesting contrarians in my entire life. I don't write that to proselytize SV or to mask criticisms of the region, I genuinely feel my experience living there was substantially different with respect to the exposure of eye-opening ideas than any other place I've lived in. Airbnb isn't even like a crazy idea of a company, but the gist of the company was incredibly oft-putting to the majority of people I told back home in 2009. "What? Short-term rental to a stranger in my place?! No way!" Now of course, Airbnb as a concept is as 'normal' as any other large corporation. It doesn't matter that my hometown produces great engineers or has billions of dollars in funds, when the overall community is highly risk-averse and conformist, it affects the market size, investment, etc.

colmvp 6y ago

Regarding your first point, I think it's both honestly. I've lived in various major Western cities in NA/EU/AU and SV was cut by a different cloth. I've never met such a confluence of interesting contrarians in my entire life. I don't write that to proselytize SV or to mask criticisms of the region, I genuinely feel my experience living there was substantially different with respect to the exposure of eye-opening ideas than any other place I've lived in. Airbnb isn't even like a crazy idea of a company, but the gist of the company was incredibly oft-putting to the majority of people I told back home in 2009. "What? Short-term rental to a stranger in my place?! No way!" Now of course, Airbnb as a concept is as 'normal' as any other large corporation. It doesn't matter that my hometown produces great engineers or has billions of dollars in funds, when the overall community is highly risk-averse and conformist, it affects the market size, investment, etc.