
'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave' - waxymonkeyfrog
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-golden-age-of-silicon-valley-is-over-and-were-dancing-on-its-grave/257401/
======
grellas
Steve Blank is a respected Valley veteran who has written highly insightful
and informative materials about the history and development of the Valley (see
<http://steveblank.com/secret-history/>) and so his opinion is worthy of note.

That said, I have been in the Valley since 1968, have watched its ups and
downs professionally since the early 1980s, and can say without question that
it is currently bursting at the seams with opportunity from every conceivable
angle. Yes, the days when silicon was king are well past their "golden" stage
but they have been replaced by an era where founders have decided leverage and
power to realize great visions without having to overcome the
resource/knowledge barriers that predominated just a decade ago, where
innovative investors have more ability than ever to leverage early-stage
situations in ways that used to be monopolized by just a few top-tier VCs, and
where the disruptive impact of technological change generally is leaving old-
guard companies staggering as startups who vigorously challenge them
proliferate - all to the great benefit of society at large. Plans are afoot at
every top-tier company - Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. - to grab control of
the whole process and eventually dictate to others how they might participate
in it, but such plans have not yet succeeded even when they once seemed almost
inevitable (thinking of 90s Microsoft here). As long as companies remain free
to innovate, there likely will be successive stages of greatness in the Valley
(and, of course, elsewhere where comparable elements exist) and it is a
mistake, in my view, to attempt to label any particular outstanding stage in
the past, or any particular mode of growth, as "golden" in some special way.
As long as human nature is what it is, enterprise will take many forms, each
suitable to its time and no one form more particularly special than the other.
The key is to capitalize on the opportunities as they exist, leaving history
to play itself out as it will.

~~~
jluan
I don't think the point you make contradicts Steve Blank's at all; to me,
Blank's thesis is that startups in the Valley no longer choose to pursue truly
disruptive technological innovation because our ecosystem now almost
exclusively rewards areas such as social media, where you have to run as fast
as you can just to stay where you are, to the detriment of "hard tech" such as
biotech, robotics, and the semiconductors of old.

~~~
temphn
Elon Musk made his fortune with Paypal, an internet company. Google made its
fortune on the internet. There is nothing that prevents people from making the
easier dollars first in something like Zynga and then going and putting their
personal $10M to work on something of substance.

~~~
microarchitect
Google is fundamentally different from Facebook because they solved a really
hard problem really well and then found an excellent way of monetizing their
solution. People still use Google today largely because it works better than
the other options out there. Further, the other options are worse not because
the others aren't trying hard enough or spending enough on search.

To me, Google falls squarely in the disruptive and hard category. I mean no
disrespect to Zuckerburg, but there's a reason Google was founded by two
Stanford PhD students and not a bunch of bored undergrads.

~~~
maigret
Funny, the more I learn about Facebook, the less I believe to this
distinction. You've got to see how much people FB hired out of Goog to see
that they've got some technical talents, and I can hardly imagine they are
idling. Facebook may not be solving all the same problems than Goog, but they
probably have an equivalent advanced DC management. See their work on devops,
PHP compiler, and how they opened their server architecture. There is a part
of truth, but I think Google PR has created itself a good image of "engineer
wizards" which may be a bit overstated.

~~~
microarchitect
Facebook _now_ have a lot of very difficult technical problems to solve and
are doing a great job solving them. But what got them here wasn't a great
algorithm, it was good execution on a fairly simple concept.

------
JPKab
"THOMPSON: Is Facebook worth $100 billion?

BLANK: In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user.
The users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody's debating whether
Facebook can make money. They're debating how much more valuable Facebook's
hundreds of millions of users can be, and how fast can they can grow that
value. That's an execution problem."

Facebook makes $4 per user from advertisers who LOSE money when they pay
Facebook. In other words, Facebook's users LOVE their product. Facebook's
customers (advertisers) get nothing from it. Click through rates suck, and
actual ROI is negative. Eventually, the new advertisers who show up and
realize it's a waste of money will stop paying for nothing, and then the
$4/user goes away. Users and the media LOVED Groupon. The businesses who were
Groupon's actual customers HATED it. This is no different. Don't get me wrong,
a billion users is incredibly monetizable. Just not the way Facebook is trying
to do it. The social B.S. will eventually fade to the real stuff.

~~~
earl
One, you presume that advertisers are incredibly naive and don't measure
returns. Obviously cleanly measuring advertising returns from fb is hard, but
it's still being done.

Second, fb can put up the first credible alternative to adsense since they
collect browsing info from their fb login and other widgets. In fact, they can
do better than adsense: fb can mix in very accurate demographics alongside the
page context. Adsense makes google nearly $10B/year and I'd bet fb could eat
half of that. And many pubs that lean heavily on adsense are desperate for a
competitor. So I'd say fb is -- at _bare_ minimum -- a $5B/year company. Plus
another billion or two from taxing every bit of money that flows through
social gaming. Plus it seems like zynga will be able to do poker for money
now. Plus I don't believe all the ads on fb proper are worthless, so roll that
into the mix.

Finally, from your comments below, you seem to think advertising in general is
worthless. If you think companies (US only) spend $400B/year because they're
stupid, then I'm too dumbfounded to formulate a response.

~~~
JPKab
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/05/17/why-i-
los...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/05/17/why-i-lost-my-
faith-in-facebook-advertising/)

Advertising isn't worthless, but advertisers are very naive. You talk about
companies spending money because they are stupid. I SUSPECT, but only Facebook
has the data to KNOW, that there is a high turnover in companies advertising
on Facebook. New companies coming in every day, but also many who realize they
aren't getting a return on investment and leaving. I think a lot of big
companies advertise on it strictly for brand presence, rather than for direct
sales. That's fine. But let's not pretend that there is remotely the click-
thru rate that Google has.

~~~
earl
You realize that brand advertising isn't measured via clickthrough, right?
Most people on the net don't click -- see the infamous natural born clickers
study. Yet nonetheless, brand advertising via display can be demonstrated to
be very effective on an roas basis via A/B testing by geo.

Also -- ctr doesn't matter as long as your cpc compares. So 1/100 the ctr is
fine w/ 1/100 the price, etc.

------
jstrate
I see a lot of comments addressed to "this guy" referring to Steve Blank.
Let's not forget he's been involved in silicon valley startups since the 70s,
including founding semiconductor companies. While they're no hello world rails
startup, he has a proven track record and a first-hand experience of how the
valley has evolved.

I suspect many of you haven't seen his take on the history of the valley,
which might give context to his views.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo>

~~~
wpietri
Yeah, it amuses me to read the number of people here saying he doesn't get
Silicon Valley. He might be wrong, but he certainly isn't ill-informed. You
can also read his 10-part history of Silicon Valley on his blog:

[http://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-
val...](http://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-valley/)

------
jonmc12
The problem Steve Blank is pointing out is one of solving quality of life
problems, and sustainability problems when there is easier money to be made in
entertaining consumers. Facebook just accentuates the point. Its a bit
idealistic to think that Silicon Valley ever really had it right or that
government funding is the solution to innovation of 'real' problems.

People have a large dimension of needs. Some of these needs, while necessary
for survival thousands of years ago, are now obsolete as a survival utility
function. McDonald's designs french fries to exploit these needs; Facebook
builds social mechanisms. These needs will always be there - but at the same
time there is a finite limit to the amount of attention on earth that can be
expended fulfilling these old-world needs - it will plateau when human
attention is exploited to the fullest. Meanwhile, there is arguably no cap for
fulfilling the set of user needs that make the quality of human life better,
and give our civilization the ability to sustain its own existence. Over the
long-term, the set of human needs that have utility in our current environment
should present the best investment opportunities - at least I sure hope so.

~~~
robterrell
Upvote and comment: for many users, Facebook is indeed solving a "quality of
life" problem -- how do I stay in touch with people? It's a first-world
problem, sure, and maybe it looks a bit like entertainment, but it's a real
problem that they are solving.

------
EternalFury
Something that has been concerning to me over the past few years is the
shortsightedness at the national level.

Sure, a national endeavor for growth can include tax policies, broadband
programs, educational reform, capital investments, flexible monetary policies,
etc.

BUT, I think one of the most important and worthwhile goal should be the
decentralization of high-growth job centers.

Setting up shop in Silicon Valley these days is ridiculously expensive.
Besides, basing a large percentage of your high-growth businesses in an area
that may be ravaged by a natural disaster at a moment's notice is clearly
unwise.

Furthermore, the success of the nation should not be tied to the fate of
Silicon Valley, or the fate of 3-5 major job centers. Hence, a national
priority should be to decentralize this economic activity across the country.

There is no catch-22 here, contrary to what people say. ("We set up shop here
because all the qualified workforce is here.")

With real estates, school expenses, public transportation capacity and
urbanization reaching unsustainable levels, there is no doubt start-ups would
benefit from setting up shop in less expensive areas, where their employees
could live without mortgaging themselves to retirement or sacrificing the
well-being of their family members.

~~~
usaar333
While centralization has its risks, the benefits of an entire industry being
in close proximity to helping good ideas spread cannot be understated.

~~~
EternalFury
Agreed, but it can also lead to herd behaviors, where every other start-up
aims to become another Facebook, Twitter, Google or whatever symbol of the
day.

------
rdl
I'm not sure if I buy his argument, but if you accept it, I think there's a
natural limiting factor: recruiting.

The best engineers will produce the best products, either for local-mobile-
social apps or space exploration. At some level, good software people are
somewhat fungible -- a great engineer could work on either, given some
orientation.

I believe the best engineers would rather cure cancer, colonize space, create
anonymous digital currencies, etc., and produce infrastructure and developer
tools which support those things, rather than work on ad networks, games,
photo sharing sites, etc., given equal access. The reason people haven't gone
into space for the past 30-40 years is that working for NASA is a horrible
experience for an entrepreneur, and creating software or technology startups
is much easier.

Now that "software has eaten the world" (which I do believe), a great software
engineer can effectively start a space company. Sure, your first 10-20
employees at a new ad network or game company might be able to make enough on
equity to do it, but employee 50 or employee 500 would sure rather be working
on something amazing like space than yet another ad network.

------
dm8
Given the macro trend of "software is eating the world", its very likely that
investors will chase $$ for dot com startups (or mobile apps nowadays). I
completely agree that SpaceX, Tesla, Google Self-driving cars are proper
engineering projects but I will try to be devil's advocate. Google (even
thought its a Internet company) revolutionized the information organization
and retrieval, we are much better because of it. Facebook connected the whole
world on the Internet. LinkedIn created professional network where it is much
easier for people to connect and benefit (especially Sales guys and
recruiters). Twitter is helping in democratic movements across the globe.
GroupOn made it easier for local SMBs to advertise. And there are companies
like AirBnB who made it possible to profit from entirely new concepts.

Of course, for every Facebook there is a Zynga whose major accomplishment is
pasting cows on the Internet. Unfortunately, too many "real engineers" are
jumping on SoLoMo bandwagon and that is hampering real innovation.

------
38f0ia
Prof. Blank's blog entries aimed at selling his "Startup Manual" are creepy.
Framed as stories of walking through the woods with former students it just
stinks of cheap, manipulative internet marketing. Is this what he is teaching
kids? Then at the end a link to his book on Amazon. Just terrible.

Thanks for lowering the bar, Mr. Blank.

"Where the money is." Indeed. Money that could be invested in more worthwhile
research. He's right. Thank God for NIH, NSF and the SBA, because now we have
educators giving in to the lure of low brow internet marketing. Sad.

------
po
_I think the valuations are a bit of a bubble, but social media is real._

In the dotcom bubble of 2001 I heard the same thing except with "internet"
replacing "social media".

 _In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The
users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody's debating whether
Facebook can make money._

This may be true but how much of that $4 per user is driven by the bubble
itself? How much advertising is coming from companies that are within the
Silicon Valley gravity well? If the (so-called) tech bubble pops, people will
still need cars, vacuum cleaners and food so how well does Facebook do with
those kinds of advertisers?

The reason a bubble is scary is because it distorts your normal metrics of
what a healthy company is. It doesn't matter how much money you're making
selling hotdogs at the boardwalk if one day people stop going to the beach.

~~~
po
Thinking about this some more the part that drives me crazy is this: _Facebook
makes $4 per user. The users are customers._

That just doesn't follow. The _advertisers_ are the customers. They happen to
pay $4 for every person right now. If the advertisers dry up - because say,
they go out of business or decide facebook isn't great value - then the
facebook users are 'worth' a lot less.

------
dasil003
Social media is not going to be "where the money is" when all these companies
founded by 20-year-olds hit the wall because Facebook is the only one making
any money off social. Eventually VCs will realize, hey maybe we should fund
some of these guys with big ideas over here. Social is just a gold rush, but
these things are cyclical.

------
varelse
TLDR: Agree with parts of Steve Blank and Grellas...

15 year veteran of the valley here, and as much as I agree with Steve Blank
that the herd money is chasing social media right now (and why not?), I don't
agree that the long-term payout investments are gone - just look at Planetary
Resources for an instant counterexample (I know, they're based in Seattle so
they don't count, right?).

But more importantly, all of Web 2.0's 30ish billionaires are as mortal as the
rest of us. The difference is that they actually can throw money at that
problem and stand a good chance of at least a modest payout (just look at
Sergei Brin and Parkinson's research). And while I agree with Steve Blank
about the importance of government funding for long-term technological
development, I think we're about to see a Cambrian explosion in biotech as
these guys try to fight off the inevitability of death. Because what good are
all their toys if they don't stick around long enough to play with them?

Meanwhile, the north end of Silicon Valley has quietly transformed itself into
a mecca for biotech and bioinformatics in recent years. Silicon Valley itself
started out as farmland and look at it now. I see this as just the latest in a
series of transformations to whatever is the next big thing.

------
robot
If you have doubts about what he means, he is essentially saying this: The
state of mobile and social has come to such an advantageous point for startups
that it is not feasible for investors to go for the hard, truly disruptive
things. And he is very right.

Thanks to Apple products, now you can reach millions of people by writing an
app. Due to the viral nature of social apps, you can now expect a useful app
to reach for the masses without spending on marketing and advertisement. Can
we say the same for anything other than mobile/web and social? No.

Until the social/mobile market matures, we will see each potential founder
working on a mobile phone application instead of attacking a non-viral problem
with a doubtful market/new technology.

~~~
AznHisoka
Have you ever launched an app that reached the masses? What do you even mean
by viral nature?

~~~
robot
A social app has a potential to go viral, e.g. spread by word of mouth or via
means built into the application. Spreading to all social contacts for
example. You can't do that with a startup involving hardware or anything non-
social.

~~~
AznHisoka
Apps that have gone viral usually have gone viral because of tremendous effort
put into marketing before the app was released. You can't expect to just
release something in the App Store, have it spam your friend's FB wall, and
contacts and expect a million users by next month. It doesn't work that way,
though the guys at Techcrunch, and Mashable may give that appearance.

~~~
saraid216
The key perception is that VCs and entrepreneurs believe apps are easier to go
big relative to hardware. It's not about whether it's easy to go big with apps
at all. I think we can agree that it's easier to build and distribute an app
than it is to build an distribute a novel piece of studded silicon.

------
crosh
Reading through these comments I feel that people are focusing on the wrong
issue. At a high-level, let's not focus on high-tech vs. relatively low-tech.
Rather, as Steve is, we should be discussing whether companies are pushing to
solve significant world problems and pushing real sciences forward, or whether
entrepreneurs and VCs are eager to tackle gimmicky but real quick buck
businesses.

I feel that we have brilliant minds looking for quick paydays, which is
understandable, but does not say much about our community. We need more
Palantirs, Fusion IOs, and SpaceX type companies and fewer email, flash sales,
and gaming companies.

------
RedwoodCity
The last commercial Fab in the valley closed some five years ago. Many of the
companies that were essential still have their HQ in the valley, but are
transferring more of their operations over seas, Applied Materials for one.

The valley has evolved over time too, and in order to be an interesting place
it must continue to evolve. I have yet to see an end to interesting
conversations, ideas, and things coming out of here.

------
Bud
Who cares what this guy thinks? He doesn't count either the iPhone or iPad
among the most important innovations of the last 5 years, but two of his 4
choices are about cars, and another is Google Goggles.

He also surmises that Silicon Valley is dead because of a few observations
about Facebook, while ignoring that Apple has become the largest company in
the history of the known universe.

~~~
recursive
He's absolutely correct. Automated cars will have a much bigger effect than
iPads. So much time is wasted driving.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is just blatantly wrong. Yes automated cars will be a huge deal, but
discounting the iPad is just prejudice pretending to be insight. The mobile OS
experience and the tablet PC are very much the next phase of evolution of the
computer. Right now the iPad is trailblazing the way as a very high markup
luxury good but even so it's proving to be enormously disruptive. When the
second shoe drops on the tablet PC revolution the entire industry and indeed
the entire world will be shaken up. In a few decades the market for computing
devices and software will be vastly larger than it is today. People in Sudan
will have dirt cheap solar powered tablet PCs. The degree of disruption on the
horizon due to these devices cannot be overstated.

Edit: how are tablet PCs disruptive? In several ways:

First, they have fewer components than any other form-factor complete computer
and are cheaper to produce. Cheaper computers means more people that can buy
computers which exponentially increases the number of people who buy computers
when you consider the developing world. This is a feedback loop,
technologically it's likely to be possible to make a profit on tablet pcs in
the near future in a price range of tens of dollars per device.

Second, they are more user friendly for average users and their form factor
offers advantages for normal users (portability, etc.) This makes them
desirable as replacements for laptops and desktops for many people, as
witnessed by the massive number of tablet pcs that have already been bought.

Third, they are excellent gaming platforms and will almost certainly compete
on equal if not superior footing with other handheld gaming devices (which
have sold hundreds of millions of devices already, not including software
sales) and even traditional consoles and pcs. That industry is already larger
than the film industry and growing rapidly, the growing market share of tablet
gaming is nothing to scoff at.

Fourth, tablets don't require the same level of infrastructure as other
computers. They have long battery life and low power usage, they don't
necessarily need a hardline internet connection or a constant source of
electricity. Someone in 2030 living in a 3rd world country could pay 1/100th
their annual income for a tablet pc which has an e-ink display and can
recharge via solar power. They could use it as an ebook reader most of the
time and use it for other purposes such as communication and whatnot when they
visit a city or someplace with free wifi or they could communicate point to
point with folks with similar devices (using them as phones or relays, for
example). That technology will change what it means to live in the 3rd world.

Fifth, the way that apps work on tablets is a natural match for line of
business apps and corporate IT deployment and management. Future generations
of tablets will make huge inroads in office computing, which is a huge
business.

Yes, today they are sometimes toys, but there is a lot of money in toys, and
such devices are far less toys than the original PCs were.

~~~
usaar333
Tablets shouldn't be discounted, but I can't see how they'll change more
peoples' lives more than automated driving.

In terms of your points. (I'm assuming tablet = pad type of computer such as
ipad, kindle, etc.):

1\. Cheaper: Is this true compared to an ultra-low cost laptop, such as the
OLPC X 1.75? They might have less components (no keyboard/mouse/touchpad), but
capacitive touch screens aren't cheap (I believe $40 in the ipad2). So unless
pricing closes in on keyboards (which go for around $10?), I see tablets as
being pricier than laptops.

2/3. Agreed

4\. Again, see #1. power consumption for low-end laptops is on-par with a
tablet if not below. (XO 1.75 is 2W. XO-3 claims 1W).

5\. Why is this so much different than a windows program?

So yes, I agree that tablets change things, but how much do they fundamentally
improve a person's life? I agree some percentage of people will be taken from
"not having a computer" to "having a computer/using it better", but in the end
the tablet is just a lighter laptop you can use standing up and with friends
easier. So ya, there's benefit, but world changing? I'd argue the laptop was
just as, if not more, revolutionary than pad-formatted computers.

On the other hand, I feel automated cars are truly revolutionary. From the
point of view of America:

1\. 1% of Americans will die in a car crash and countless more will be
injured. Automated systems will be an order of magnitude better than human
drivers, so we'll see thousands of lives saved a year.

2\. Without having to pay for a taxi driver or for expensive liability
insurance, the price of a taxi will at least halve. At this point, there is
less incentive to own cars and car ownership rate plummets, resulting in far
fewer cars being produced (and cars being utilized at much higher rates). (I'm
summarizing this famous post:
[https://plus.google.com/103583939320326217147/posts/TpN1g1oS...](https://plus.google.com/103583939320326217147/posts/TpN1g1oSVbN))

2a. Americans spend something like $300billion a year on new cars. Automated
driving will save >$100B (1% of economy) annually.

3\. Again, automated cars drive much better and can operate in situations too
dangerous for humans (extremely close driving). With a good communication
network, congestion operation will be much more efficient, leading to far less
traffic and a reduced need to build more roads.

3a. Auto insurance industry a fraction of its original size. $150B+ savings

4\. Driving jobs (taxi, truck) eliminated. That's over 4 million jobs. (2% of
the workforce). Incredibly significant and another $100B in economic savings
(of course assuming successful redirection to other economically productive
activities).

Bottom line: In addition to regaining substantial time lost driving, America
alone will save at least $350B a year. That's 2.5% of US GDP (and 25% of
transportation gdp).

~~~
zeroonetwothree
We spend something like 5-10% of our time driving. Automated driving would
allow us to save that and use it for something useful. Not many innovations
have saved people that much time.

~~~
pyre
You'll still be sitting in the car during that time (these are driverless
cars, not personal teleporters), so I wager that the extra time will be spent
on Angry Birds or watching TV on your phone.

~~~
usaar333
True, you'll see some reduction in time though:

1\. Less congestion

2\. No need to find parking

------
tnash
"In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The
users are customers."

Nope. The users are the product, not the customers.

------
drone
My take on this article is this: it's short-sided to put so much money into
one particular sector, and to encourage others to pull them out of longer-to-
realize-profit sectors. That the end result is a diminishing return in the
long run for the country, or region as a whole. This being caused by a lack of
"long-term tech investment."

However, the striking problem with the statement is that it is not backed up
by data. How much money that would've been invested in "core" technology
(technology used to enable other technology), pharmaceutical, or other
investments was instead funneled for short-term gains into social start-ups?
I'd understand that if one just read tech news, one might think all investment
goes to SV software firms these days, but I have a hard time believing that's
a fact and not just a matter of media selection.

------
akg
Innovation can come from unlikely places, especially when people connect and
come together. I don't think social is just about where the money is, I think
it can be powerful force in the way we live our lives and also a source for
future innovation. I'm not just talking about Facebook, but tools that bring
the world a lot closer together.

I wonder if people criticized the telephone as much when people instead of
"working" spent time chatting on the phone with their friends. Sure there will
be people who waste time doing that, but I think in broader terms, it will
help open up communication channels, enable new collaborations, allow a free
exchange of ideas, and also lead to more innovation. It's just hard to see
where things are going, but I would bet that they are headed in a positive
direction.

------
jonny_eh
It's easy to downplay the impact of Facebook compared to the kind of stuff
Elon Musk is doing, but it was only last year that we saw dictators being
overthrown with the help of social networks like Facebook. That's pretty cool
too, no?

~~~
yannickt
I think you are vastly overestimating the impact Facebook had on the so-called
Arab spring. Internet penetration in that part of the world is _not_ high
enough for social media to trigger an uprising at that scale. Also, just
because a dictator is overthrown doesn't mean things automatically change for
the better. See Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and much of subsaharan Africa.

------
SoftwareMaven
I like Steve Blank. In fact, he is one of my "mentor idos" (people I would lie
to emulate, but no hero worship here). I also think he is wrong.

There is no "true path" of SV that it can fall off of and be over. Instead,
there is a continued cycle of very technical people working together to build
significant equity that is then recycled for more new tech people to do the
same.

When that stops happening, SV will die. In the meantime (like any other time),
there are sparkly things drawing people's attention. And I would be willing to
wager the crop of people making big exits today aren't going to be happy
investing everything in what they just did.

------
agentgt
If he thinks the Valley is bad he should try to get investors to invest in
something long term on the east coast (Boston).

On the East coast the first question is "What are your Sales number?".(yes
they really are like Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank). And "How is this going to
scale?" (Cause lets face it social scales very well yet ironically in the east
we didn't have the vision to first invest in it :) )

------
willpower101
There must not be much going on in the world right now. So many headlines have
similar grandiose statements recently. The valley is not dead. There are
future disruptive companies being ran by two guys in a garage all over silicon
valley. Sadly, you have to have the foresight to wait five years while they
build momentum. There's never not a next big thing.

~~~
willpower101
Actually, I want to amend that a little bit. Rocket city, spaceport, JPL,
etc., I feel space travel is on the same precipice that tcp/ip and compuserve
were in the 80's. The next 20 years will be fun.

------
hristov
This has always been the case. VC money has always gone to the last stage of
commercialization of technology and not for basic science or long term
engineering projects. That is why you are supposed to have research
universities and research government agencies and foundations.

What he says is generally correct, but it is not new. So his pessimism is
largely unwarranted.

------
toddh
To a large extent the investment in all that silicon is why developers can
play the commodity game today. Many smart people are working on the next
substrate for the next revolution and everything will change again. The
differences are the breadth of the commodity wave and our consciousness of the
time between breakthroughs.

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muhfuhkuh
Wouldn't cars be the domain of Detroit or Tokyo, not the Valley? Why would it?
Perhaps the technology behind some of it would come from there, but doesn't
that start from consumer electronics anyway?

He's being a bit too forward-thinking, decrying the absolute cultural sea
change social media represents for almost all walks (and aspects) of our
lives, relationships, and ways to do business. It's, IMO, the biggest
revolution in the truest sense since the invention of the Web itself. That it
came from the Valley is just a testament to the mindboggling creativity of
that small patch of sand in the US.

We'll get to driverless cars and rocketships with HAL and novel cancer cures
and all that soon(ish?) enough; but it can't _all_ come from the Valley and
(as he correctly posits) alot of it may come from Asia. Yet it won't be
because Asia has the inside track to those innovations, or because they
poached Valley talent away (Wall St. does enough of that with quant trading);
it'll be because the money is _so very fluid_ there and doesn't sit in VC
silos to be doled out to the MIT-Stanford-Harvard-Berkeley idea factory.

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saraid216
Have you been to Detroit lately?

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delinquentme
I'm just really happy that this made it to the front page of hacker news.

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mtkd
Kickstarter is starting to fill this gap.

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mjwalshe
This trophe is older than time its self people always say that yesterday was a
golden age and those pesky kids today are ruining it.

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous
youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I
was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the
present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"
(Hesiod, 8th century BC).

SV is changing but I am sure people complained when software took over from
hardware in SV

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philwelch
The problem with that quote of Hesiod is that, for all we know, the youth of
Hesiod's time and place _were_ worse behaved than their parents. And in any
case, it's a question of how much technical innovation is coming out of an
economic center, not whether we're disciplining our kids as well.

If you want to apply some ancient wisdom, here is some: change is constant.
And it's not always for the best.

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fear91
Is it me or does this feel like a blatant Google PR article?

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nextstep
Google Goggles is an augmented reality app that basically layers Yelp reviews
over Google Maps Streetview. Did he mean Google Glass, the AR glasses that
Google made a video about? Does this guy really think that the Google Glass
project is groundbreaking? If it's so Earth-shattering, why am I typing this
on an iPad and not through some next generation AR display on my head?!

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grimboy
The fact that you're not using it yet is almost a necessary condition for it
being groundbreaking. The basic technology for the iPad has been around for
ages, but the real innovation of the iPad is getting everything working
smoothly and cohesively in a way that previous devices didn't. You may well be
using AR of some variety at some point in the future but it will be some
refined version with the kinks ironed out.

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nextstep
You're right! The iPad isn't groundbreaking, because it exists and I can buy
one today. Something really groundbreaking exists only in promo videos, has no
publicly stated timeline for release, and is only actively discussed in tech
news comment echo chambers.

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koide
The point is that the iPad has already broken ground. And that truly
innovative and groundbreaking things are yet in the drawing board.

