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Silicon Valley is doing a poor job at connecting with the rest of the world. In people's eyes it's all brilliant MIT kids who get millions of dollars to write s
by prayag 13y ago
Silicon Valley is doing a poor job at connecting with the rest of the world. In people's eyes it's all brilliant MIT kids who get millions of dollars to write software that lets other kids share pictures and sell it for billions. Most of the rest of the world can't even fathom this. It's a novelty, a fairy tale which will never affect them. In a lot of people's eyes there will be no major casualty if the tech business "goes away".
It is really important for rest of America to relate to Silicon Valley. To see the millions of lives these companies are changing, not just by connecting people to each other but also by helping them earn a living. The etsies of the world are providing real opportunity that didn't exist before. The rest of America needs to see that.
This is why I am so excited about Alexis' "Without their Permission". I hope it gets a much wider audience than the tech sector and people see the tech world for what it really is.
In similar vein, it is very important for the tech world to remain humble, not to get carried away by catered lunches, google buses, 6 figure salaries and free ubers. The tech world needs to understand that this is not how life in most professions works and we are in real danger of turning into spoilt and privileged people that the rest of the world has started seeing us as.
- mkr-hn 13y ago> The etsies of the world Etsy was launched in NYC. Other than that, I agree. I'm struggling to think of a SV company other than Facebook, Twitter, and Google. And as far as I'm aware, Google is the only one of those three with projects outside SV. Maybe it's easier to think of more if you're in SV and not on the other side of the continent.
- jmduke 13y agoI think this is less 'Silicon Valley' the geographic location and more 'Silicon Valley' the idea -- the metaphorical land of hype, of venture capital, of red bull vodkas and launch parties, of being wired in -- of buzz.
- jrpt 13y agoAre you serious? Facebook and Twitter are huge forces worldwide. There's a reason countries like Iran and China have blocked them. (And this just in: Iran has unblocked FB and Twitter as of this week.) And for SV companies other than those, there's no lack of big names: Apple, Oracle, Salesforce, HP, Intel, Symantec...
- mkr-hn 13y ago> Are you serious? You must have missed this: > Maybe it's easier to think of more if you're in SV and not on the other side of the continent. I didn't know those were SV companies. They're household names because of their impact, not their location. People don't tend to associate them with the location of the company's headquarters. > There's a reason countries like Iran and China have blocked them. (And this just in: Iran has unblocked FB and Twitter as of this week.) You missed this too: > only one of those three with projects outside SV I was thinking of Google Fiber and Google's lobbying to make driverless cars legal in as many states as possible. Projects. "Getting banned in China" isn't a project. It's almost as if you ignored the content of my comment. And today I learned that Menlo Park (Facebook) and Cupertino (Apple) are in California. I imagine this is what it's like when someone learns there's more to Atlanta than the airport.