

Does Silicon Valley noise detract from long-term value creation? - andrew_null
http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/07/27/does-silicon-valley-noise-detract-from-long-term-value-creation/

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iamelgringo
I've been thinking about the same subject the last few months, and I think
Andrew's spot on about the problem, but less so about the solution.

I live in SV, but I visit fly-over country every couple of months. When I'm in
non-costal parts of the US, I spend a lot of time researching what other
people are doing with their computers.

It's been enlightening: Most people use XP or Vista. Apple is for rich people
or designers. Facebook is the hot new hotness. No one has heard of twitter
except if they watch CNN. Smart phones are for the rich or business types
(they use blackberries). Everyone loves their iPods. No one gets twitter. Even
among non-SV geeks, using Python or Ruby is pretty rare, and no one has heard
of EC2, although they vaguely know about "cloud computing" and virtualization.

The problem that Andrew brings up is very real, but there's an easy solution
to the problem: get out of town and visit family for a while.

------
jacquesm
It's a double edged sword. Easy access to lots of people also means lots of
people competing for the same resources. So if you are not 100% on the ball
and moving that ball as fast as you can chances are somebody else will run
with it.

In more relaxed atmospheres you might have a chance to make it on a slower
pace but it will never be the hit that it could be without the power of the
bay area behind it.

It's like going to hollywood if you're a pretty girl and you think the camera
loves you. There are _lots_ of pretty girls in hollywood and they all compete
for that same attention. Don't be surprised if you end up waiting tables for
the people that did make it - and you didn't.

To be a big fish in a small pond has its advantages, you have fairly little
competition and you are almost guaranteed some exposure. But the chances of
hitting out of the park are diminished by a similar factor.

------
anurag
Vote gamed: <http://twitter.com/andrew_chen/status/2873238341>

~~~
jimboyoungblood
That's a pretty loose definition of "gamed".

Obama ran campaign ads and probably said "vote for me" to at least a couple of
people- was the presidential election gamed as well?

~~~
anurag
The US presidential election was won with influence and money. Would Obama
have won as an independent candidate? In that sense, the election was indeed
gamed. Andrew too, is trying to use his influence (his 4630 Twitter followers)
to win votes on HN. Because other stories on HN don't have the weight of
massive Twitter broadcasts behind them, I view Andrew's actions as gaming the
system.

~~~
alex_c
It only takes one or two votes to get a new story on the front page. Past
that, of course, it quickly disappears if it doesn't receive more votes - as
it should.

Not arguing for or against anything, I just think that "4630 Twitter
followers" and "massive Twitter broadcasts" is completely overstating the
issue. You only need a couple of friends who also read HN.

------
mattmaroon
I think your susceptibility to the industry echo chamber has more to do with
your personality and where you come from than where you are. There are lots of
people outside of SV who don't want to work on anything that isn't related to
the iPhone or Twitter. And there are lots of people in SV working on unsexy
but massively profitable things like Facebook apps (which were sexy two years
ago, before they started making big bucks) or whatever else.

------
johnnybgoode
I believe this is very much related to what I said about the "bubble
lifestyle" here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652562>

Perhaps it goes without saying that living the bubble lifestyle entails
focusing on the short term at the expense of the long term. As Andrew says:

 _As an entrepreneur, I can’t help but look at the short-term choices that get
made in an environment like this without some degree of disappointment. There
are many brilliant people who could be trying to make the world for the better
and really create long-term value, but instead they are engaged in..._

I share Andrew's disappointment, but from the rest of his post, it seems we
probably disagree on the cause(s). Part of my explanation is in the post I
linked to above.

------
pingswept
"they are engaged in a zero-sum game to extract as much value as possible from
the world"

I don't think this describes what a Silicon Valley startups are doing at all--
specifically, it's not a zero-sum game. Lots of startups are creating new
markets that didn't exist before them.

~~~
paulgb
You're taking that quote out of context. Andrew was referring to a subset of
startups, including the "gold-rush" and copycat companies he discussed in the
previous paragraph.

~~~
pingswept
I agree that Andrew was referring to that subset, but I don't think that
changes my reaction. I still think that startups aren't in a zero-sum game.

Do you think Silicon Valley startups generally are in a zero-sum game?

