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The USA tech industry did start with hard-tech. The hint is in the name "Silicon Valley". The spur in innovation in the American tech industry started with comp
by _448 5y ago
The USA tech industry did start with hard-tech. The hint is in the name "Silicon Valley". The spur in innovation in the American tech industry started with companies working on projects from the defence and aerospace industry. Along the way they lost the plot, mostly during the dot-com bubble when the investment/banking/family-office industry(that does not understand tech) got heavily involved into it to make quick money! That diversion from hard-tech to click-bait tech has continued even today, because the investors want quick return whereas for hard-tech you have to have a lot of patience to see positive outcome.
One country that, to some extent, successfully emulated the early Silicon Valley type strategy is Israel that has encouraged lot of personnel from defence and aerospace industry to form commercial ventures.
Not many countries understand this point; many go by the PR bling that is spewed by the USA internet companies(mostly pushed by get-rich-quick minded VCs) and try to encourage this type of non-essential startups in the hope of being "successful similar to Silicon Valley". The definition of successful is obviously is being set by these get-rich-quick VCs rather than the country itself. It is not surprising that you see lot of the VCs/Accelerators/Incubators fund me-too type companies in other geographies in the hope that they will be acquired by companies in the US! It is all bait-and-switch game and not meant to develop R&D and innovation that benefits societies at large. Benefits to the society, if at all there is one, is the by-product or after-thought of this whole process.
- ativzzz 5y agoIt's much easier for Israel to justify investing into "hard" tech that accelerates military power because they are surrounded by ideological enemies and are perpetually at war.
- lasagnaphil 5y agoIt's illuminating (and equally harrowing) to see how much of the fundamental technology we have today has been researched and invented by the military (the Internet is one prime example), in stark contrast to the widespread belief among today's SV techies that free market innovation is what's driving the tech.
- _448 5y agoHere is someone who is trying to spread this gospel of state led innovation for some time now: https://www.economist.com/schumpeter/2014/02/03/startup-myths-and-obsessions https://www.economist.com/schumpeter/2014/02/03/startup-myth... https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mariana-mazzucato https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mariana-mazzucato https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/09/economics-agitator-mariana-mazzucato.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/09/economics... https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/01/16/the-case-for-more-state-spending-on-r-and-d https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/01/16/the-case-for-m... https://marianamazzucato.com https://marianamazzucato.com
- cbHXBY1D 5y agoI'll never forget how an employee at a Silicon Valley VC tried to dissuade me from joining Microsoft Research because MSFT wasn't "really a 'tech' company." According to the VC, examples of tech companies were Airbnb or the million "Uber for X".