
When It’s Darkest Men See the Stars - revorad
http://steveblank.com/2010/11/24/when-its-darkest-men-see-the-stars/
======
lkrubner
There is a more nuanced view to be had of the current situation. For instance,
Richard Florida has a new book out called The Great Reset.

[http://www.amazon.com/Great-Reset-Working-Post-Crash-
Prosper...](http://www.amazon.com/Great-Reset-Working-Post-Crash-
Prosperity/dp/0061937193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290619261&sr=8-1)

Florida offers compelling evidence that the 1930s were the most innovative
decade of the 20th century. Many new business practices were invented at this
time. And this is when Hewlett Packard got going, and with it, what later came
to be called "Silicon Valley".

The 1930s were also, at the same time, the worst economic disaster in the
history of the USA. So an era can be both disastrous and very innovative.
Those are not opposites. To say (as Steve Blank does) that we are at the
beginning of an entrepreneurial revolution is inspiring. But he should be able
to see that we can have both an entrepreneurial revolution and an economic
disaster. Both are possible at the time.

This can be shown with a very simple graph. I will post that later.

~~~
lkrubner
I promised to post a graph, so here it is:

[http://www.smashcompany.com/business/if-the-usa-is-the-
most-...](http://www.smashcompany.com/business/if-the-usa-is-the-most-
innovative-nation-on-earth-then-how-can-it-have-a-period-of-economic-decline)

I offer this as a simple model to show how a country can be both extremely
innovative, yet also face dramatic long-term economic decline.

~~~
lkrubner
About rounding the numbers, sure, I could do that, but I didn't want to put
the time into it. This is what I could do in 15 minutes using Google Docs.

The graphs show the real picture. You don't need to look at the numbers.

~~~
lkrubner
Okay, I rounded the numbers.

------
paul
It's sad to see so much pessimism here. You are underestimating the power of
technology to fix seemingly intractable problems such as energy or healthcare
costs.

Here is a key quote from his post:

 _Revolutions are not obvious when they happen. When James Watt started the
industrial revolution with the steam engine in 1775 no one said, “This is the
day everything changes.” When Karl Benz drove around Mannheim in 1885 no one
said, “They’ll be 500 million of these driving around in a century.” And
certainly in 1958 when Noyce and Kilby invented the Integrated Circuit the
idea of a quintillion (10 to the 18th) transistors being produced each year
seemed ludicrous._

~~~
chailatte
You're overestimating technology innovation being able solve the ills of
government/corruption/war/debt.

~~~
paul
I bet I'm not. The printing press had a pretty big effect, and I expect the
Internet will be similarly powerful.

~~~
crux_
The internet is turning out to be more like TV and less like books/newspapers
on that front.

Signed, Someone who used to be an idealist about that.

~~~
paul
If you expect everything to suddenly change overnight, of course you're going
to be disappointed, but if you can't see things changing, you are blind.

~~~
crux_
Okay, as I'm a bit grouchy, I will bite. Here are some of the changes I see:

There's a generation rising up that largely sees privacy as disposable rather
than precious.

Groups of what I'd call the wilfully ignorant -- hate groups, cults -- are
thriving out in the information age; most of them growing far faster than they
would have been able to previously.

Decades ago, society's malcontents may have organised, marched, and changed
things. Today: they can organise, march, and be ignored due to our society-
wide ADD and the incredible media sophistication wielded by the powerful.

Or, more often, they can do none of that, vent on the net, and still be
ignored.

Then there's the huge, undeniable, centralisation going on. Even without evil
being actively done within organisations like Facebook or Google, it creates
huge vulnerabilities for abuse, as we've already seen.

There are all of the extremely bright people who ought to be contributing to
the next technological revolution(s), instead looking to reinvent online
marketing.

In short.... I do see change. I don't see much change for the better -- not
when it comes to "reshaping the face of society" kind of change, in any case.

How's that for your daily dose of cynicism?

~~~
ntoshev
It's easy to be a cynic, and it's hard to argue with one. But cynics don't
change the world for the better. Your opponent in this argument has done it.

------
thetrumanshow
Wow, its so optimistic, I hate to say anything to the hurt of the optimistic
message. However, it feels to me like what is happening in the software
startup world is that, thanks to the falling cost of launching a product, the
pie is not only being distributed to the smaller guys, but it is also
shrinking... because the small guy is willing to put out a competing product
in some cases just for the fun of it.

Edit: One more thing... I think the end-game here is perfect competition, and
I don't think that will be good for anyone.

~~~
astine
Well, in market economics, 'perfect competition' is usually considered a good
thing. It allows for maximum innovation and and the maximum alleviation of
'scarcity.'

I think the problem is that so long as this new wave of entrepreneurship is
limited to web-startups, we're going to see diminishing returns. There are
only so many ideas that can reshape the way we do communicate and do business
while remaining within the confines of a webapp. Future startups will
presumably have to chase smaller and more niche problems in order to remain
relevant.

~~~
PakG1
A byproduct of the maximum alleviation of scarcity is that there is no more
economic rent for firms. This means that web/software entrepreneurs in general
wouldn't be making huge money, they'd only be making enough to cover their
opportunity cost of their next best alternative.

In this scenario, people would be motivated to do it because it's either the
only thing they know how to do, or their true passion and more important to
them than anything else. Either way, while the consumer wins, the entrepreneur
loses in terms of cash (but maybe not in terms of personal fulfilment).

------
swaits
When it is darkest, men see the stars.

~~~
kboutin
Thanks for this; I could not make sense of the title. I am not a native
speaker of english

------
wazoox
I'm afraid he doesn't see the underlying trend about higher energy
availability from the end of the 18th century up to just a couple of years
ago. For a more gloomy prospect, see this extremely interesting analysis of
the long decline (3 centuries) of the Roman Empire :
<http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5528>

------
shin_lao
The limit of this thesis is that I think a great majority of human beings are
looking for security more than for a job.

I'm not sure the "be your own boss" scheme is what everybody's looking for.

I however agree with the author that the West will not collapse if, we've seen
worst in the past (well at least in Europe we have).

~~~
jerf
Unless every entrepreneur is starting a company of exactly, precisely one
employee, it really doesn't have to be.

It's not about a transition to 100% entrepreneurship. It's about a big enough
rise in quantity that it becomes a qualitative change, where working at a
"startup" no longer raises eyebrows, where the social system adjusts to
accommodate this instead of considering it an exception (universal healthcare
if you're leftward inclined, breaking health insurance away from employers and
moving it back to individuals if you're rightward inclined), and so on.

------
chailatte
All the innovation and multitude of startups can't plug the sinking ship that
is the US economy. For example, how will these problems be fixed:

\- US national debt at 13 Trillion.

\- US debt held by foreigners at 4 Trillion.

\- US total debt at 54 Trillion. Unfunded social security and medicare
liabilities.

\- a costly army stationed at 150 countries around the world

\- an aging baby boomer generation, which will reduce their consumer spending
(70% of the US economy is consumer spend)

\- U6 unemployment rate at 17%

Not to mention in this economy, the web startups face

\- closed platform dominance from facebook/google/zynga/apple. if you build
something they want, they will duplicate the functionality quickly

\- too many other 'me-too' startups. all the seed camp startups are starting
to look alike.

\- lack of monetizing opportunities, as most people still don't like to pay
for things online.

~~~
philwelch
_a costly army stationed at 150 countries around the world_

I keep seeing this number, always without any kind of citation. What's really
interesting is that there are only between 150 and 200 countries in the world.
But wait--the US has an embassy in every country it has diplomatic relations
with, and each embassy has a detachment of Marines. There are 125 of these
detachments (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Security_Guard>). 125 and
150 are within the standard rounding error of urban legends, but there's
probably another 25 countries you could add to the list if you count military
advisors, peacekeeping/humanitarian missions, and even a handful of actual
foreign deployments.

It's pretty disingenuous to count 1,000 Marines distributed over 125 embassies
as stationing the US military around the world, if that's indeed what the
people who came up with this number are doing. I'd really like to see a
breakdown of this "150 countries" business.

~~~
krschultz
Especially if you count that way, what first world country _doesn't_ have
troops stationed in 150 countries?

We obviously have major detachments in Germany, Japan, and Korea. Plus the
countries supporting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (I'm sure those two will
join my first list in 20 years). Then there are a _lot_ of logistics bases
around the world. Does that really count? If we want to be able to project our
navy to the other side of the world, you need a refueling stop in Guam. So
unless we are talking about cutting the military down to a tenth of what it is
now, the # of bases is not what is driving US costs.

# of and cost of weapon systems drives it all.

~~~
eru
> what first world country doesn't have troops stationed in 150 countries?

Switzerland, maybe?

~~~
philwelch
They still have embassies. Being neutral doesn't necessarily imply being
isolationist.

~~~
eru
Do they have troops at their embassies?

