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I think that's right. On the other hand, I don't want the place to just die. That would be bad for the world. Predicting where the future "is", if there is suc

I think that's right. On the other hand, I don't want the place to just die. That would be bad for the world. Predicting where the future "is", if there is such a place, is harder. In 1975, I think that the concentration of investment made sense because it followed the same principle as academia: smart people want to stick together, and smart people with esoteric specialties usually want to be near others in the same specialty. Now, the model of a large city is taking over. Smart people want to be around a heterogeneous set of smart people, and use the Internet and conferences for in-specialty interactions. So New York and Chicago and even Boston are more compelling. People just go to the Bay Area to make money. No one under 40 wants to be there (and almost no one over 40 can afford to be there) because, while the talent level is high, it's monoculture. In 2015, the Valley makes a lot less sense when you consider what people are building out there. It's not technical excellence any more. Marketing experiments using technology have driven out actual technology, the latter being too long term to gel with two-week "iterations" and an age discrimination culture that (stupidly) discards people just around the time when they start to develop a deep expertise. The 2015 Valley story is different. What we have is a lot of passive capital tied up in pension funds and retirement accounts, and some sliver of it gets thrown into higher-risk asset classes like VC firms. The passive capitalists, above all, want the highest returns on their investment. They'd probably also prefer (as a tie-breaker) that the jobs be created locally (i.e., in Ohio if it's an Ohio state employee pension fund) rather than in California... but if the returns were better in CA, they'd want their money put there. VC has become a conveyer belt that sucks up a huge amount of passive capital from all over the country and funnels it into a few people in Northern California. This would be defensible if VC were a high-performing asset class. The problem is that it's not. It works very well for the careers of a few hundred very well connected people, but the passive investors get shitty returns and the engineers building the stuff are lucky to get 0.01%.

jamiesonbecker 11y ago
Agreed. The valley is, without a doubt, an incredibly enabling place, and there will never be another.. but there's perhaps a large percentage of smart people who also see the valley as disenfranchising for whatever reason. It's not a matter of fair; life isn't fair or unfair. Entrepreneurship is always a gamble, and there are enough examples of previous entrepreneurs (including one that operated out of that other Menlo Park [1]) that did just fine and/or made the world a better place, even without the amazing support structure of the valley. Life is choices. Some are harder than others. See you in Austin! 1. http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/history/thomas-edison-and-menlo-park/ http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/history/thomas-edison-and-men...
SamReidHughes 11y ago
> Marketing experiments using technology have driven out actual technology, the latter being too long term to gel with two-week "iterations" Fast iterations and "marketing experiments" happen because technology (the Internet) enables that, not because people are culturally different now. > and an age discrimination culture that (stupidly) discards people just around the time when they start to develop a deep expertise. Then show us all these age-discriminated people that are out of work. > People just go to the Bay Area to make money. No, they go for lots of reasons. The weather, the people (or they'd be in SoCal), the wide variety of jobs to choose from (for developers), and that there are meetups and groups for any imaginable software-related activity is a perk. > The passive capitalists, above all, want the highest returns on their investment. They'd probably also prefer (as a tie-breaker) that the jobs be created locally (i.e., in Ohio if it's an Ohio state employee pension fund) rather than in California... but if the returns were better in CA, they'd want their money put there. So, in other words, you're saying they prioritize investing "locally" not at all. They also prioritize investing in companies that start with the letter "Z" (which is a cool letter) just as much. Not sure why you feel the need to mention this imaginary desire of Ohioans (that you made up entirely in your own head). More practically they might want to invest in companies that aren't evil. (There's an actual profit non-maximizing decision you see in reality.) > VC has become a conveyer belt that sucks up a huge amount of passive capital from all over the country and funnels it into a few people in Northern California. Are you saying it was different before? If it was, then how so?
- angersock 11y ago
  Then show us all these age-discriminated people that are out of work. For an imaginary problem it sure has a lot of press: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-ageism-idUSBRE8AQ0JK20121127 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-ageism-i... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/01/05/silicon-valley-age-discrimination-if-youve.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/01/05/silicon-v... http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-anyone-30-ageism-silicon-valley/ http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-anyone-30-ageism-... http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-brutal-ageism http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-b...

jamiesonbecker 11y ago

Agreed. The valley is, without a doubt, an incredibly enabling place, and there will never be another.. but there's perhaps a large percentage of smart people who also see the valley as disenfranchising for whatever reason. It's not a matter of fair; life isn't fair or unfair. Entrepreneurship is always a gamble, and there are enough examples of previous entrepreneurs (including one that operated out of that other Menlo Park [1]) that did just fine and/or made the world a better place, even without the amazing support structure of the valley. Life is choices. Some are harder than others. See you in Austin! 1. http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/history/thomas-edison-and-menlo-park/ http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/history/thomas-edison-and-men...

SamReidHughes 11y ago

> Marketing experiments using technology have driven out actual technology, the latter being too long term to gel with two-week "iterations" Fast iterations and "marketing experiments" happen because technology (the Internet) enables that, not because people are culturally different now. > and an age discrimination culture that (stupidly) discards people just around the time when they start to develop a deep expertise. Then show us all these age-discriminated people that are out of work. > People just go to the Bay Area to make money. No, they go for lots of reasons. The weather, the people (or they'd be in SoCal), the wide variety of jobs to choose from (for developers), and that there are meetups and groups for any imaginable software-related activity is a perk. > The passive capitalists, above all, want the highest returns on their investment. They'd probably also prefer (as a tie-breaker) that the jobs be created locally (i.e., in Ohio if it's an Ohio state employee pension fund) rather than in California... but if the returns were better in CA, they'd want their money put there. So, in other words, you're saying they prioritize investing "locally" not at all. They also prioritize investing in companies that start with the letter "Z" (which is a cool letter) just as much. Not sure why you feel the need to mention this imaginary desire of Ohioans (that you made up entirely in your own head). More practically they might want to invest in companies that aren't evil. (There's an actual profit non-maximizing decision you see in reality.) > VC has become a conveyer belt that sucks up a huge amount of passive capital from all over the country and funnels it into a few people in Northern California. Are you saying it was different before? If it was, then how so?

angersock 11y ago
Then show us all these age-discriminated people that are out of work. For an imaginary problem it sure has a lot of press: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-ageism-idUSBRE8AQ0JK20121127 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-ageism-i... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/01/05/silicon-valley-age-discrimination-if-youve.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/01/05/silicon-v... http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-anyone-30-ageism-silicon-valley/ http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire-anyone-30-ageism-... http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-brutal-ageism http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-b...