
The Secret History of Silicon Valley (2010) - rbanffy
http://steveblank.com/secret-history/
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d136o
I'm sure Steve Blank has his own hypothesis about what could possibly shake
things up and restart the cycle of innovation in SV, would love to hear it.
(that's the question he poses at the end of the lecture).

My mind wondered towards the influence of open source software, and open
solutions, across all that is tech today (ok fine, all software at least).
Technologies developed in secret were thoroughly featured in the history
covered, but today for example we have the linux kernel, an open collaborative
effort, underpinning most of what's being built for profit in the valley.

Can open source type efforts (maker movement/oss and other nicknames) change
the pace of innovation? i.e. restart the valley's cycle of innovation? Is the
valley not are the forefront any more? Is innovation in the valley being
stifled by attempts to control IP? [0]

What will shake things up?

[0]
[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297)

~~~
arca_vorago
"Is the valley not are the forefront any more? Is innovation in the valley
being stifled by attempts to control IP? "

No, I don't think SV is "The forefront", but it remains one of the
_forefronts_ , simply because of the remnant culture and money flow. That
being said, I do think it has stagnated mostly do to your rightly referenced
attempts to control IP.

What I am seeing is that many of the companies the best poised for the future
are those that are fully embracing FOSS but have learned how to adapt a
business model to still profit while supporting that FOSS. Otherwise you end
up with a company trying to go _Apple_ and fork something open and then shove
the user into a prison.

My observation is that businesses have only put up with this because the
companies that did it tended to offer support as a prereq for prison
sentencing, and companies love support as a backup. As more FOSS friendly
companies move away from user-prisons and towards _user-freedom but pay us for
support if you are a business_ model, I think more and more the old guards in
the industry are headed for a shake up.

I don't work in SV but I have friends who do, so take my opinion with a grain
of salt.

Regarding the origins of SV, the talks he gives are very interesting
variations on the _war refinement produces enhancements in tech_ line of
thinking, which I think will continue to be relatively true. Follow the war
money to find out where innovation is going on.

For example, the last time I talked to Mudge he was really stoked about all
the stuff DARPA was doing, and with programs like cyber-fast track, I think
less and less of that money is geographically limited to a single center of
innovation like SV.

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api
Been posted before, but up voted anyway since there are too many who are
ignorant of the valley's roots.

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ilzmastr
how is this not an epub? Here it is, with all images, 26MB:
[http://cl.ly/3L202v3T3i0J](http://cl.ly/3L202v3T3i0J)

made w/ nokogiri and pandoc

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dguido
This is one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) computer history
lectures. It's pretty ironic watching all the anti-government comments on this
site while most people here are ignorant about where Silicon Valley came from.
See, for example, the comments on this thread currently on the front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8978922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8978922)
or this out-of-context rando:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8980306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8980306)

Know your history! Check out more videos like this at the Computer History
Museum. If you're looking for a great followup, check out this Q&A with Dan
Kaufman of DARPA that talks about some of their current technology investments
(kind of a "where are they now" compared to Steve Blank's lecture):

* [https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory/videos?flow=gri...](https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory/videos?flow=grid&view=0&sort=p)

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny6xDCFU4nI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny6xDCFU4nI)

~~~
Htsthbjig
"It's pretty ironic watching all the anti-government comments on this site
while most people here are ignorant about where Silicon Valley came from."

The fact that one of the biggest investment of resources of all time created
silicon valley, or the nuclear bomb, does not mean that if a similar amount of
resources have been spent privately a bigger advance could be made.

In fact, the fact that the nuclear research was directed to the creation of a
bomb, and not towards energy creation, is a huge problem today, when
alternative fuel research that did not created plutonium were severed.

The creation of Silicon Valley has more to do with the emergency of the
situation that with being public or private.

In peace it is very difficult both for public or private institutions to agree
on a single place to centralize everything.

Only China have done it, in Shenzhen, because it is a dictatorship, but when
Germany wants to do it in Berlin, France wants to do it in Paris, and UK in
London. They could not agree on a single place to centralize everything for
all Europe. The same happens in South America with Chile, Brasil, Argentina,
Ecuador, they all going on their own makes them weak.

~~~
SapphireSun
I think the difference between private and public capital is that 1) public
capital is far larger and 2) private capital needs quick turn around. I can't
see private industry inventing the nuclear bomb. Any time you conceive of a
start up, the mantra is always MVP, fastest time to positive ROI. It's hard to
do research like that.

I think I could accept that you could have motivated a sufficient number of
brilliant people to work on nuclear energy instead of the bomb, but the
economics are still suspicious. There are a few fusion startups in the valley,
but the common question is why they think they can create something salable in
a reasonable amount of time, which I assume in turn injures the amount of
talent they can pull.

