
Why Silicon Valley Works - philip1209
http://blog.samaltman.com/why-silicon-valley-works
======
michaelvkpdx
The premise here is that Silicon Valley "works". What do you mean by "works"?

If you mean creating artificial wealth for a small group of already-rich folk,
yes, it works. If you mean transforming one of the most naturally advantaged
landscapes on earth into a traffic-choked sea of concrete where people do
little more than work at creating new ways to buy and sell stuff, yes, it
works. If you mean polluting what was once the most democratic communications
vehicle available with social drivel and advertising, it works.

If you mean creating innovations that truly improve humanity, the Valley
extremely inefficient. If you mean demonstrating that humans don't need a
pleasant natural environment to survive, the Valley is on the right track.

The one thing the Valley works very well at is self-congratulation, especially
among the wealthy.

~~~
tim333
>truly improve humanity, the Valley extremely inefficient

I think Intel, Google and Facebook have improved humanity though your tastes
may vary and I enjoy Apple's shiny stuff. Those have a market cap of $1.4 tr
and it's hard to think of anywhere else with similar output. Maybe like
democracy it's the worse possible system apart from all the other ones?

~~~
freshflowers
Two of those, Google and Facebook, have made it their core business to prime
humanity for a lifetime of exploitation of their privacy in exchange for so
relatively very little. How the f is that "improving humanity"?

~~~
parasubvert
My life is quite a bit better because of both Google and Facebook, and I would
say a significant portion of the amount of time I spend online touches one of
those two entities. I really don't care that much about the privacy
compromises for the level I use either.

My experience is at least somewhat similar for at least a half billion to
billion other people, so I'd say their impact on humanity is "pretty large".

~~~
pmoriarty
Oh come on.

It's not like we wouldn't have basically the same world without Google,
Facebook, or virtually any other SV company.

People are just so full of themselves here.

------
anateus
Two sentences early on are problematic:

"One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that you need to have pre-
existing connections to get value from the network. Remarkably, you don’t. "

If Sam had said "you need them in Silicon Valley much less than anywhere else"
it would be a true statement. But in an article I strongly agree with, this
sort of thing... I'm not even sure what to call it, misinformation? Makes the
rest ring hollow.

The networks here have vastly lower costs of entry and way fewer secret
handshakes. But they still have them, and for many groups of people those
costs are much higher than the median. It would have been easy to acknowledge
that without diminishing the core point.

~~~
swamp40
I dunno - he explains his reasoning in the same paragraph: _" It’s standard
practice to ask people you’ve just met for help – and as long as you aren’t
annoying about it, they usually don’t mind."_

~~~
scobar
The problem, I imagine, this creates is thousands of requests for help from
innocently ignorant founders to a single valuable connection in SV. Each
founder may only make one naive request, but important individuals are
bombarded by enough to exhaust them. I admire the patience of those who
continue to offer thoughtful advice and feedback, but I imagine it's quite
tiring. I think resources like Sama's free startup class at Standford are a
great solution.

------
whiddershins
I love the way people in the Startup community talk about how New York is
oriented around finance. It is totally true, from the perspective of a certain
group of people. New York also has a history and cultural identity that puts
monetary success and business above other concerns that can arguably be traced
back to its founding by Dutch traders as New Amsterdam.

That said, New York is only oriented culturally around finance from the
perspective of a tiny subgroup of self-important people. The overwhelming
majority of people living, working, and creating in NYC do not feel that
"finance" dominates the culture, the connections, or the emphasis.

New York is the dominant hub (or close to it) for several genres of music, for
television, for fashion, for theater, for many counter-culture political
movements, textiles ... the list goes on and on and it will be boring if I
continue to explain.

Basically, it's the kind of thing you can say if you really know nothing about
New York.

~~~
jknightco
Thank you for this. I absolutely can't stand the comparison between the two
environments. According to NYC's labor statistics [1], Finance as a whole
(including all of commercial and investment banking, insurance, and real
estate) makes up about 12.5% of the city's private sector jobs, and employs
about as many people as the NYC local government does. For comparison, the
Education and Health Services sector employs almost twice as many people
(~24%), and Leisure and Hospitality about the same (11.4%).

Its much harder to find good statistics on the Bay Area because its comprised
of so many different municipalities, but I would bet the Tech industry employs
way more than 12.5% of private sector employees there. There's also no real
"runner-up" in the region; Finance is _one_ of the industries here, Tech is
_the_ industry in the Bay Area.

[1]
[http://labor.ny.gov/stats/nyc/index.shtm](http://labor.ny.gov/stats/nyc/index.shtm)

------
Cacti
As a software developer not-in-SV, life is great. I don't make a shit-ton
(~90) but my spouse also works (~50), (and we are both young) we have no debt,
our insurance is fantastic, our commute is about 15 minutes each, our house is
1/5th the cost of SV, and we are in a very good neighborhood (meaning public
school district is better than any private school unless you're going for ivy
prep), and shopping for practically anything is about 5 minutes away. Oh and
neither of us work more than 40 hours a week.

So... yeah. There is actual life outside of SV.

------
graycat
From

[http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital-
returns.html...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital-
returns.html#disqus_thread)

at least on average, there is some serious question if Silicon Valley "works"
at all well.

For

> One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that you need to have pre-
> existing connections to get value from the network. Remarkably, you don’t.

Well, as I recall, Sam, from one of your lectures in your current course at
Stanford, both Marc Andreesseen and Ron Conway made it quite clear that they
no longer take proposals from "over the transom" and, instead, learn about new
investments only from their "network". Sounds quite _closed_ and not very
"open" and, instead, like an _echo chamber_ from the past with not a very good
view of the future.

Or, NSF, NIH, and DARPA will take proposals from strangers, but not Sand Hill
Road.

~~~
twic
I'd be interested to see a comparison of something like "dollars of revenue at
ten years of age per dollar of initial investment" between Silicon Valley
startups and newly formed companies of other kinds. That seems like a
reasonable measure of the actual worth of a company to me, and so a decent
test of whether Silicon Valley works or not.

Looking at valuations or even market caps is much less useful, because that
tells you more about what's going on in investors' minds than in reality.

~~~
graycat
You have a point, but in this context necessarily _works_ has to mean making
money for the limited partners (LPs) and, there, more money than the
alternatives, e.g., an index fund of the NYSE. Well, follow the link I gave to
AVC.com and Fred Wilson's table of data there and have to conclude that on
average information technology venture capital, and, thus, nearly necessarily
also Silicon Valley, doesn't _work_ very well.

I did mention NSF, etc.: There, Ike wanted pictures. The U-2 was not getting
it done. So, one day Lockheed's Kelly Johnson walked in with a pile of papers
and proposed a new plane, fly at 80,000+ feet, at Mach 3+, for 2000+ miles
without refueling, and essentially impossible to shoot down. The project was
approved; the plane flew as planned; and we got the pictures.

So, Kelly had a very ambitious _start-up_ , and delivered as planned, with the
project approved from work essentially just on paper.

Such work can be done. Other cases include the F-117, GPS, passive sonar,
Keyhole (essentially a Hubble but before Hubble and aimed at earth instead of
space).

It really is possible to do accurate evaluations of ambitious projects just on
paper and, then, go forward with a quite high _batting average_. And this fact
does partly respond to your point.

Well, NSF, NIH, DARPA, CIA, DoE, etc. can work this way, but Silicon Valley
just flatly refuses to. Instead, they want another SnapChat with _traction_
and f'get about anything more, and that means that they can't do the really
valuable projects. And that's why, on average, they don't make the big bucks.

------
joshhart
My biggest concern with Silicon Valley is that it will become so expensive
that many potential startups are prevented from coming here. Sam also stated
that housing costs were the biggest weakness.

I wonder what YC could do about this problem for it's companies. I think it
would be interesting for YC to build a few high-rise live-work spaces for
smaller YC companies to foster and grow the tightly-knit community. Maybe like
a high-tech college campus?

~~~
nerfhammer
> build a few high-rise

The dominant political view in the area is that building high-rise anything
anywhere is something that should be stopped at all costs

~~~
_delirium
True in much of Silicon Valley (especially places like Palo Alto, which want
to retain a suburban layout), but there's some moderate densification going on
in San Jose. It lulled for a bit during the financial crisis because a bunch
of projects' financing fell through—some apartments under construction had
work stopped for ~2 years. But construction seems to be back in swing again
now.

------
7Figures2Commas
> One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that you need to have pre-
> existing connections to get value from the network. Remarkably, you don’t.
> Silicon Valley is a community of outsiders that have come together. If you
> build something good, people will help you. It’s standard practice to ask
> people you’ve just met for help – and as long as you aren’t annoying about
> it, they usually don’t mind.

There's some truth to this, but it's not entirely accurate. The spectrum of
who, what, when, where, why and how is very broad here. The top of the food
chain in Silicon Valley is just as insular as Wall Street, Hollywood, etc.

> Yes, the approximately 700 YC companies are all totally independent legal
> entities – but the connection is so strong that alumni companies get
> significant benefits from each other.

Not often discussed: some of those benefits are benefits until they're not. A
lot of accelerator-backed startups count other startups from the same
accelerator as their largest customer segment and a source of early sales
traction. When the business cycle turns and "other startups" is no longer a
viable customer segment, however, a lot of startups are going to see their
sales decimated because they have little to no diversification.

> Unlike other cities where people are mostly focused on cash compensation for
> this year, in Silicon Valley more people talk about equity than salaries
> (assuming, of course, that they can afford the wildly-out-of-control housing
> costs, which is probably the biggest weakness here right now).

This is simply not true. Most angel and venture-backed startups in the Bay
Area today offer early employees miniscule amounts of equity, and engineers
demand market rate compensation (where market rate compensation equals "what
Google or Facebook would pay me if I could get a job there").

If you're a startup offering higher equity in lieu of salary, you will have a
very difficult time hiring in the Bay Area. Most engineers are hip to the fact
that this isn't likely to work out in their favor.

------
jbail
Good article. It provoked a thought:

In an increasingly digital world, how long will physical proximity be an
advantage?

The notion that a region could somehow have its own brand of patriotism
centered around startup success merely due to density is somewhat difficult to
rationalize. You can't deny SV's success relative to other technology hubs,
but I'm wondering how far in the future physical proximity will continue to
carry such a steep advantage

~~~
uniformlyrandom
> how long will physical proximity be an advantage

There is a number of articles and research papers on the subject. In short,
distance matters even within the same building.

------
steven2012
No.

The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it
provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a
word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is
probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a
millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people
which just generally increase the level of competence, and unfortunately
competitiveness, which has a positive feedback loop which causes these smart
people to want to work even harder over time.

Outside Silicon Valley, all you hear about is billionaires being made day-
after-day, and smart people they look at this nonsense and think "I can do
that". Once the come to Silicon Valley, they get sucked into a vortex of work
and money-focus that is so strong that the only way to get ahead is by working
long hours and taking risks.

Think about it this way: a person who makes 120k/yr with 2 kids and a spouse
who stays at home will be considered the "working poor" here. I feel sorry for
anyone who tells me they have a spouse, 2 kids and a house in any place other
than NYC, and are contemplating moving to the Bay Area. Everything is priced
perfectly to the point where no one can afford to live in a good neighborhood
with a good commute with good schools. It's like the CAP theorum, except it's
more like "Good Job, Good Neighborhood, Good commute: pick one" (unless you're
rich).

So, in order to get ahead, both spouses need to work, and they need to work
very good jobs with long hours in order to "make it well". If you have Dual
Income No Kids, it's a bit easier, but you still need to deal with oppressive
traffic and high rent. It's so expensive, that all you do is think about
money. And you fall into fallacies where if both spouses make #120k/yr, for a
total of basically $250k/yr, you start thinking "why don't I feel rich?" or
"why am I working so hard with nothing to show for it?" It's because you work
10 hr days, and then you're spending 2 hrs a day commuting, and you get into a
zone where all you do is think about work, and how to buy the next iPhone
because at least you have something to show for your money. Meanwhile, none of
my friends outside of SV have iPhone 6's let along iPhone 5S's, many are still
using iPhone 4's which are perfectly good but a bit slow, but you wouldn't be
caught dead in SV with one of those relics.

So all of this money-focus necessarily squeezes out as much productivity from
the best and smartest in Silicon Valley, which is why you have so much success
here. If you compare SV to place like Japan or China, where the population is
generally better educated, you don't get anywhere near the same level of
productivity. In Japan you get high prices and long work, but there's no
payoff like there is with Silicon Valley because of the social impedances, so
you'll never have a Silicon Valley in Japan. In other places that purport to
be another SV, even places like Austin, there just isn't the same level of
greed/money focus like you have here, so I don't think you'll be able to get
as much productivity. It's the sky-high prices, work-life imbalance, the
startup-millionaire stories that create this unique pressure cooker
environment that can't be duplicated.

~~~
nilkn
All this is part of the reason why I've strongly been thinking of going back
to school to become a doctor. What follows is mostly a rant, just to be
upfront about it.

It's a really radical transition, but I really, really dislike the city-
centric focus of software engineering. I hate the idea of being a contractor
(I just want stable, life-long work), and I can't tell you how tired I am of
crippling traffic causing me not to even want to drop by the grocery store
until it's almost time for it to close. I'm not in the Bay Area, but am in one
of the five largest cities in the US. I went to college not giving a shit
about money or how much of it I would make, and now I find myself thinking
about it most days because I have to confront the fact that I can't afford any
housing near where I work. I wouldn't be so upset about it if it weren't for
the traffic which makes commuting from far out an absolute nightmare.

In terms of raw numbers, it's a transition that doesn't really make sense, not
for a relatively skilled developer anyway. The salaries aren't that much
higher outside of surgery and a few ultra-competitive specialties, and the
time and debt involved in the training are immense. Depending on any number of
factors, it could be better or worse than a life in technology. The two things
that are for sure are that you're not going to have financial difficulties and
you're not going to be subjected to ageism (quite the opposite). If you want
to be _rich_ , medicine's probably a pretty bad choice; but if you want
stable, well-paid, life-long, rewarding employment wherever you want in the
country, it's among the very best options.

The most amazing part of it is that you get to directly help people every day
(so you don't have to wonder if your crazy ass startup is actually "changing
the world" or not), there's _more_ demand for doctors in rural areas (not
less), and most non-surgical specialties can easily work comfortably into
their mid-60s (or even later, health permitting). You're also surrounded by
people who, at least in the beginning, were motivated out of passion and not
money- and status-seeking. (Of course, some people will change as they age and
grow more successful, but not all.)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Uh - remote? I've spent most of my professional life working from home.

With some extra effort, you can earn an SV salary but live in an area that has
a very un-SV cost of living.

Traffic isn't an issue either.

You can network remotely. You can build companies remotely. You can even find
investors remotely.

A few people are doing this already. More and more will in future.

(Are we _really_ supposed to believe it's always better to build Internet
companies in meatspace? Hmmm.)

I know there are downsides to remote working. Guess what? There are epic,
catastrophic downsides to working in SV meatspace too.

I'm looking forward to the day a few decades from now when what's left of SV
gets turned into a museum, while the rest of the planet gets on with doing
cool fun stuff... elsewhere.

~~~
quanticle
Honest question: how does one get started working remotely? I understand that
it's easy to keep finding remote work once you've already done a few remote
gigs. But how do you break in?

~~~
lmm
Either you apply to a remote job - there are plenty here on the monthly "who's
hiring" threads. Or you get your current company to allow it as part of
negotiations. An annual review makes a good setting - ask for a big raise,
then offer working from home as an alternative (it'll save me money on my
commute, so I won't need the increase).

------
calgaryeng
This is only tangentially related to "Why Silicon Valley Works", but am I the
only person who is frustrated by "famous" VC's saying that "founders should
stop worrying about their valuation"?

I can't get over this. This is like a used car salesman telling you not to
worry about the cost of the car, just to remember that there are free weather
mats included!

I feel that there is a connection here as to "why Silicon Valley" works from
the perspective of VC's in a position to influence founders. However I'm not
feeling particularly eloquent today and haven't fully formed these ideas.

~~~
Bahamut
I thought about the valuation problem for a little bit when my company
finished raising its Series B, and I came to the conclusion of not worrying
about the valuation independent of hearing the quotes, as an engineer. Here's
the important point - the valuation means little until an exit. Any valuation
beforehand is only a step in that direction. All work needs to be done to
maximize the value of the company in preparation for that day - anything along
the way is a distraction from that end goal.

Granted, it is a necessary distraction for many of these companies, since they
require VC funding in order to expand operations.

------
batbomb
>> The focus in Silicon Valley on long-term compensation is also important.
Nearly everyone wants to get rich but they’re willing to wait to do so.
Conspicuous consumption isn’t that cool; not too many people drive Ferraris or
talk about their vacation homes.

Instead, they talk about how healthy they are, their diets, or the climbing
gym.

~~~
hawkice
I'm no fitness master myself, but, far from begrudging the paleo-crossfit-
organicos out there on their latest PR (am I using the lingo right?), I'd like
to say, from those of us nodding and smiling:

Being healthy is great! Keep it up! :)

~~~
Dewie
I think that the point is that it is the new status-symbol.

In my experience (not Silicon Valley), status symbols in the form of material
possessions have taken a back seat to status symbols in the form of fitness
and "experiential materialism" (frequent travelling, exotic and varied
experiences).

~~~
hawkice
I don't disagree with the thrust of what you are saying, and I am particularly
amused that in the age of almost infinite variation deliverable through the
internet there is a kind of odd counter-signalling effect to avoiding that (I
also like travel and have been doing it constantly for more than a year,
though, so what do I know).

Describing physical fitness as "the new status-symbol" seems pretty bizarre to
me, though. As a status symbol it probably predates humanity.

~~~
batbomb
Physical fitness itself isn't a status symbol, per se. How people conduct
their personal physical fitness is what has elevated it to a status symbol.
Things like when, where, how often, how public, what activities/exercises, and
even what they wear to work... that's the new status symbol.

A ridiculous recent example is the Trulia co-founder rowing to Hawaii with his
wife for the cause of...

wait for it....

the fight against sugar.

~~~
jessaustin
Thanks for mentioning this I hadn't heard of it! Sorry, I think it's awesome,
and not because I care what other people eat.

[http://www.fatchancerow.org/blog/2014/8/4/zero-miles-to-
go-d...](http://www.fatchancerow.org/blog/2014/8/4/zero-miles-to-go-divorce-
papers-still-untouched)

------
AndrewKemendo
Sam misses some hugely critical pieces, for example:

1\. Good IT infrastructure

2\. Plurality of high tech companies' headquarters

3\. Proximity to major technology focused academic institutions

4\. Legal infrastructure that enables innovation

All discussed previously here:

[http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/25271/silicon-
valley%E2%...](http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/25271/silicon-
valley%E2%80%99s-defining-characteristics/)

and here:

[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=124508](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=124508)

------
zoba
Another reason I think the valley works so well is the audience its news
outlets have. If you have a great product but can't get news coverage on it,
its going to be hard to get growth without a large marketing budget. However,
if you're friends with a friend of a Techcrunch write, its much easier to get
covered and start to get a core group of users who love your product - and are
tech savvy enough to understand that features that don't exist yet will be
coming, and they should be patient.

If you try to bootstrap a startup without using SV's media outlets (as would
be the case for people who don't have connections to these folks), you're
going to have a much harder time.

~~~
basher
Is asking tech journalists you've just met to write about your startup
considered annoying?

~~~
Emphaticdotco
All depends on the "how". If you make the effort to show that you understand
their coverage niche, and make sure that you actually fit into it, and also
have (or can package) your story as something newsworthy then go for it.

------
dsugarman
I think the physical location is kind of a fallacy. For example, there are so
many super smart and talented developers in DC working for government
contractors because they may not be exposed to the startup option. Most people
now have to move to Silicon Valley to focus on long term compensation, but
often there is a stronger force of their local network (friend, family &
significant others) who keep them stationed near by. Having quality startups
in new geographical areas is probably the key ingredient to bringing in talent
and capital, not the other way around.

~~~
throwmeaway21
> so many super smart and talented developers in DC

As one of those developers working in DC I can tell without a doubt that the
majority of us do it because we get paid a large amount of money.

I make more here than I ever could in Silicon Valley. Plus the cost of living
is around half. Last I checked a one bedroom in SF was around $4k per month. I
pay just over $2.5k here in DC (with a parking spot!).

------
derwiki
Interesting to hear YC classes framed as "we help each other." I thought there
was a fair bit of internal fighting to end up as a "featured startup" from the
batch. Conversely, my startup just went through the Hackers and Founders
accelerator, where each startup is given equity in the other startups in the
class. This is a great incentive to help the other founders in your incubator.

------
axavuj05
Throw-away account for obvious reasons:

> "Silicon Valley works because there is such a high density of people working
> on start-ups and they are inclined to help each other"

Bull shit. With all due respect to Sam--who no doubt knows what he's doing and
saying and has become very successful--he is undoubtedly living in a bubble of
his own. While I've found people generally open to the idea of chatting over a
coffee, I've run across _very_ few people that go out of their way to help. In
fact, I more often find people who will either offer to help, and don't, or
are so self-absorbed that they can't stop talking about how great/impressive
they or their startup is without bothering to ask about you or what you're
doing. I've even asked for a meeting with and gotten the following response:
"I'm very busy. Let me know how you think you can help me and I'll think about
it."

I've been trying to tell myself that it's just my luck: That it's not socio-
economic or pedigree based (race or school) or that some people here don't
have basic people skills and don't know how to carry on a conversation. That
maybe it's just the luck of the draw that I run into more people that I'd
classify as "ass holes" than not, but I'm coming--very late--to a sad reality:
it _is_ about socio-economic status--even more than that, it _is_ about
pedigree (yes, both race and the school you went to). It _is_ about manners--
most people don't have them. AND, it's about gender as well! I'm not a woman,
but I'm willing to bet that if I was a woman, things would be a shit ton
harder for me than they already are. I'm not a 20-something white male that
went to Stanford and it's impossible for me to imagine how hard things would
be if I had a vagina [0].

These are things we don't want to talk about. Thank god a conversation about
gender is taking place, but there's another conversation about elitism and
race that hasn't even started yet.

> "One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that you need to have pre-
> existing connections to get value from the network."

Complete and utter bull. Maybe in Sam's world, sure! White? 20-something? No-
kids? Harvard/Stanford? B2C? Let’s chat!

Early-40's/Late-30's? Not-white? Married w/ kids? Not-Harvard/Stanford? B2B?
Nope. (Don't bother to apply to YC either).

The reason Silicon Valley works is because there's a new-boys _network_ that
helps out those that check most of the right boxes. But here’s the good news:
There are other networks. Networks of people in their 40’s. Networks of people
that are from a specific ethnic group. Networks of people that went to the
same (non-Harvard/Stanford) business school as you that _are_ willing to help
out. Are most of these networks as big and powerful as the circles Sam roles
in? Absolutely not. But are they out there? Yes. One of the marvels of Silicon
Valley is that because there are so many people out here, there’s a semi-
decent chance you might find someone in one of these networks that will meet
you for a coffee, offer to help, and try to make something happen for you. Is
it likely? No, but possible, yes? And that—the possibility of something
working out despite the odds—is what entrepreneurship is about. [0] - What
It's Like Raising Money As A Woman In Silicon Valley
([http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/07/what-
it...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/07/what-its-like-
raising-money-as-a-woman-in-tech/))

~~~
garry
> Complete and utter bull. Maybe in Sam's world, sure! White? 20-something?
> No-kids? Harvard/Stanford? B2C? Let’s chat! > Early-40's/Late-30's? Not-
> white? Married w/ kids? Not-Harvard/Stanford? B2B? Nope. (Don't bother to
> apply to YC either).

YC does not discriminate in this way. We fund lots of people working on B2B
and enterprise ideas, who are married with kids, who are in their 30's, 40's
and yes older too. This claim is just plain false.

~~~
throwmeaway21
While that may be true to a certain extent I'd be willing to bet a sizable
amount of money that the majority of founders that YC funds are in fact white,
male, hailing from a wealthy family, graduated from a prestigious college, and
are under 30 years old.

And while you or other YC partners may defend that fact with the fallacy that
it's just a numbers game, as in those are the majority of applicants, I can't
help but remind you that age discrimination and class warfare is rampant in
the valley.

------
thebyrd
"not too many people drive Ferraris or talk about their vacation homes" unless
you're in Palo Alto, Atherton, Woodside, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Los Altos, etc.

That's probably why there's been a geographic shift to SF.

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WWKong
It does work if you are a VC. Tons of talented folks living in dorm like
conditions (some living out their car), working long hours, in the hopes of
striking it rich one day. Most fail. Some succeed proped by blogs owned by
VCs. It is a nice machinery. The world mostly gets another music discovery app
or another ad targeting company.

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ch4s3
This is a pretty thoughtful and to the point article. You might summarize it
by saying that SV success is defined by Community and Capital. It makes a lot
of sense that rich networks backed by money make an area successful. It would
be interesting to explore the effect of capital from within the community vs
external capital inflow.

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schtinky
> Conspicuous consumption isn’t that cool; not too many people drive Ferraris

99.9% sure I saw Sam pulling out of De Anza College at SUS 2014 in a Lotus
Elise.

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larrys
"I wrote this for the FT, but it's behind a paywall. Since I wrote it, I feel
like it﻿﻿'s probably ok for me to post it here.﻿"

Well legally it's either ok and the contract (written or otherwise) allows you
to post a copy or it doesn't.

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rvn1045
'This seems like the future to me – large groups of independent companies,
loosely tied together.'

This could also work against YC (Or many startups in the valley) very easily.
I mean all these companies are being created in a time of easy money, what
happens when the money dries out? Will they all fail? Since they are so
correlated with each other's success.

~~~
rhizome
_Will they all fail?_

Not all of them, no, but a lot will.

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dba7dba
"Nearly everyone wants to get rich but they’re willing to wait to do so.

... A focus on making a lot of money in the long term at the expense of short-
term opportunities is essential to building companies that have a huge impact
– they take a long time."

Sounds like a good advice for CEOs and politicians in DC. Focusing on the long
term goals...

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pikachu_is_cool
The Silicon Valley works because of the toxic culture of "work until you die".
[1]

[1] I grew up there. Never going back.

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mempko
I would like to ask a.radical question. Is Silicon Valley actually working?
Because if you throw a lot of money at something, even if it is bad, will make
it better. Given the amount of money banks an investors are throwing at the
valkey, is it successful given the output?

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2D
It strikes me, as do a few other posts and comments from YC that this is an
incredibly American centric view of the world. I've heard PG say "just
consider moving here" but without a visa as a startup that's very difficult.

------
sparkzilla
For anyone interested, I have compiled many of Sam's interviews at
[http://newslines.org/sam-altman/](http://newslines.org/sam-altman/)

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general_failure
Another weakness of the valley is the lack of a visa. We would have atleast 5
times the number of startups, if there was an easy way to remain in the united
states and start a company for immigrants.

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lolwutf
'I wrote this for the FT, but it's behind a paywall. Since I wrote it, I feel
like it﻿﻿'s probably ok for me to post it here.﻿'

If the FT paid you to write it, I feel like it's probably not ok to post it
where you'd like.

~~~
sama
they didn't pay me.

~~~
crj
get paid

