
A guide to the things Silicon Valley ‘invented’ that already existed - happy-go-lucky
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/09/14/a-guide-to-the-things-silicon-valley-invented-that-already-existed/
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vegashacker
This so called "guide" only has four things on it?

There are so many examples of this. What about Lyft itself? Isn't that just a
"taxi"? By the (low) standards of this article, sure. Obviously though, that
characterization would miss something since the entire taxi industry has been
upended by the ride-sharing companies.

I think what the author did was think of four companies that were obviously
silly in her mind, and characterized them as not wholly original inventions.
Which of course they aren't. The thing is, it's rare to find the company that
is. Sure it's easy to make fun of Soylent (not saying they're bad or good--
just easy to make fun of), but I'm surprised by the author's shortsightedness
on something like Lyft Shuttle. I don't know a single person who's said,
"Buses? They're great as they are. That's a solved problem."

~~~
geofft
Buses are amazing. I think the only innovative thing about Lyft Shuttle is
that it avoids the class implications of taking a bus.

~~~
surfmike
The only innovative thing? It also takes advantage of mobile phones to
aggregate and coordinate passengers and drivers (much like regular Lyft),
allowing smaller cars with more frequent service, and responding to demand.
That's quite an innovation over a traditional bus.

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SippinLean
> Soylent, What already existed: SlimFast

When you're talking about meal replacement the actual ingredients matter a
_lot_. Slimfast has 4x the sugar of Soylent and only half the fat.

Consuming ~2000cal of Slimfast would mean ingesting 180g sugar! That can _not_
serve as a replacement for 100% of your meals.

Then there's the issue of artificial sweeteners, missing nutrients in
Slimfast, etc.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I went on a 100% Slimfast diet 5 years ago. After 3 days I wanted to die. I
quit, I felt horrible, and I only lost about 2 pounds.

I went on a 100% Soylent died this year for 1 month. I honestly never felt
better. I lost 8 pounds. It was _difficult_ , mostly because I missed my usual
McDonald's breakfast, but it was definitely sustainable permanently.

I do think Slimfast needs to try and buy Soylent or they will be gone in 15
years. They do have similarity, but to not respect the innovation of the
Soylent Team is beyond fucked up.

This article belongs on Buzzfeed, not the Washington post.

~~~
f-penelope
Lost 30 pounds in 2 months on SlimFast 15 years ago and maintained my weight
ever since without it. Love it!

------
wldcordeiro
Did anyone else expect the article to go into more detail? I had been
expecting it to use examples and commentary to talk about how to identify
reinvention in Silicon Valley.

------
Redoubts
> “When I hear about Soylent, it’s almost as though SlimFast never existed,
> like Soylent emerged from the ether. Because it’s made by and for men, now
> we call it tech.”

What the hell?

~~~
sidlls
What?

There are plenty of "tech" things that are male-centered. Specifically young,
single, tech-industry male centered.

~~~
xanderstrike
They're not the same thing by a long shot. Slimfast is essentially a weight
loss oriented protein shake, it's got almost no fats or sugars. Slimfast
themselves don't even recommend using it for every meal, or using it long
term.

Soylent is an actual meal replacement. You can consume nothing but Soylent for
as long as you want to. It's not geared towards weight loss, just as an
alternative to food. It provides complete nutrition.

Also I can't find anything on the site today, nor can I remember any
advertising in the past that would lead me to believe it's a gendered product.
SlimFast aggressively advertises towards women, sure, but I fail to see how
Soylent is geared towards men.

~~~
Spooky23
The only innovation with Soylent is its triumph of marketing babble.

They have have taken what is possibly one of the least attractive products
imaginable -- a product that is expensive, tastes awful and initially afflicts
many people with diarrhea... and successfully marketed it.

~~~
pdimitar
As a partial counter-point, you should be aware that diarrhea is a very common
symptom for the first several weeks when one changes their diet substantially.
Drinking more water, eating foods that are easier to digest, ingesting more
vegetables -- all these things trigger your body to flush itself.

For most people what looks to be a diarrhea in reality is a mildly violent
reaction to the changes of your feeding habits and thus the changes in your
metabolism. In rarer cases, I've known people consuming Herbalife who, even
though they admit they feel MUCH better, occasionally puke -- that's the rarer
form of the body flushing itself.

So this seeming diarrhea is very normal in the first phases of weight loss --
or even simply starting eating healthier and ingesting more water without
aiming for a weight loss.

------
raverbashing
This is priceless

> What it “invented”: Lyft, but for people who are cool with traveling on a
> set path in a shared vehicle for a lower rate.

> What already existed: A bus.

Some of these seems to be about "exploring" problems that don't exist for
people outside of the SF bubble. Squeezing oranges is good

------
arkades
Unrelated gripe:

NYT articles launch my NYT app and make use of my subscription.

WaPo articles launch their website, which proceeds to try to strong-arm me
into a subscription. Every time, and forgetting my login between events.

One of these is owned by a tech giant, and the other gets it right.

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mc32
Fair but also misguided characterization. Square, tor example.

Founders said at first they tried selling it (marketing it) as a credit card
transaction facilitator. I.e. "hey merchant, would you like to be able to
accept credit cards?" No. Not really, stop asking me.

They come back, "hey merchant, would you like to be able to make sales you
wouldn't otherwise realize?" Why, yes, where do I sign up?

Point being, it's really important to recontextualize so as not have to
overcome the burden and baggage of what you're replacing or enhancing.

------
danso
Why not include Apple, which neither invented the mobile phone nor the
portable music player?

------
talyian
I wasn't convinced about the value of Paul Graham's recent "General idea,
small delta" essay until I noticed how easily you can just use those 4 words
to justify these things.

Even the obviously laughable stories like Juicero - surely there's issues with
bad execution, but as long as there are "juice bars" selling a glass of pulped
vegetables for $8 that people are willing to buy, I'm willing to say that
there's a niche for a better-executed and perhaps better-targetted juice-
related tech product.

------
HillaryBriss
Bodega - for some reason, the author doesn't mention the already extant,
amazing vending machine technology in Japan

it's interesting that some people take the angle on this story that Bodega
wants to put immigrant run NYC bodegas out of business. but that's just one
angle on the story.

another angle is that, inevitably, some of the employees of SV's Bodega will
be among the population of much lauded, indispensable, highly educated
immigrant programmers, earning high salaries and contributing their unique
talents to "the most dynamic and creative economy in world."

still another angle is that any current corner store employees whose jobs are
eliminated by these new high-tech vending machines will be "free to pursue
other, more profitable careers" (a favorite argument of certain economics
writers).

yet another angle is that the WP author is an unimaginative Luddite who
doesn't want new efficiencies to be introduced into the marketplace and can't
see that these vending machines might complement existing corner stores, etc.

journalists are great. they can always spin a story like this in a direction
that lets them fling sh*t at an upcoming enemy of the people (in this case,
Silicon Valley corporations).

~~~
geofft
The Luddites were good and well-intentioned; owners of capital later redefined
the term to mean people who are irrationally afraid of all technological
progress, after shooting the Luddites.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite)

~~~
HillaryBriss
yes. ok. but, people today assign additional shades of meaning to "Luddite."

also, one can compare the activities of the original Luddites in England to
the activities of the author of that WP article.

the original Luddites "destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest"
because business owners were using that machinery to "to get around standard
labour practices."

in a similar way, one might argue that this journalist is damaging Bodega's
reputation (a critical element of any startup's "machinery") because it gets
around a standard immigrant labor practice (starting and working in NYC corner
shops).

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austenallred
This is ridiculous.

> What it “invented”: Lyft, but for people who are cool with traveling on a
> set path in a shared vehicle for a lower rate.

> What already existed: A bus

If your argument for "it already exists" sounds like "it's like a mix of this
and this but mixed with this and it also does this," then maybe it's actually
an entirely new thing?

You could make silly sounding arguments like this for literally any invention.

~~~
mikestew
_Please let me know how I can summon a bus to pick me up where I 'm at and
drop me off where I want to go._

Lyft Shuttle doesn’t work that way, why should a bus?

 _If your argument for "it already exists" sounds like "it's like a mix of
this and this but mixed with this and it also does this," then maybe it's
actually an entirely new thing?_

Lyft Shuttle sounds like a bus by my reading (having never used it). How is
Lyft Shuttle an entirely new thing? IOW, fill in the blank: “Lyft Shuttle is
not like a bus at all because___”.

~~~
surfmike
Because it allows more frequent service by taking advantage smaller cars with
more frequent service, as well as scaling almost perfectly to demand. This is
made economically possible by using mobile phones to aggregate passengers, and
by allowing freelance drivers to work and be paid for trips they make.

~~~
mikestew
Thank you, that was an informative explanation.

