

Tell HN: PG's Trends List from BOS 2009 - javery

PG just finished his talk at Business of Software 2009 where he listed trends he would bet on and trends he would stay away from. Here are my hopefully correct notes:<p>-Trends to bet on-<p>Innovation<p>Software<p>Efficient Markets - More information leads to a new efficient market.<p>Measurement - You make what you measure.<p>United States<p>Silicon Valley<p>Small Companies<p>Economic Inequality<p>Moore's Law<p>Things on Screens<p>Server based apps<p>Super Good Customer Service<p>Apparently Frivolous Stuff (facebook)<p>Programming Languages<p>Open Source<p>Linux will never be a factor on the desktop<p>iPhone<p>Design<p>Real-Time<p>Venture Funding<p>Founders<p>-Things not to bet on-<p>Credentials based on institutions (degrees)<p>Business School<p>The Government changing<p>Copyright<p>Restricted flow of information (everything is getting more liquid)
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aaronsw
Presumably PG will the full text of his talk on his website in a couple days,
as he has with all the others. Is there anything gained by reading this list
of bullet points a couple days in advance? This doesn't seem particularly time
sensitive.

~~~
dasil003
And frankly a bit obvious for anyone visiting this site.

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df07
I have to say that this talk played out basically exactly like pg's "List of N
Things" article (<http://www.paulgraham.com/nthings.html>). In particular,
these quotes seemed apt: "a few main points with few to no subordinate ones,
and no particular connection between them", and "I use it when I get close to
a deadline. If I have to give a talk and I haven't started it a few days
beforehand, I'll sometimes play it safe and make the talk a list of n things".

It wasn't very useful, or interesting, and just seemed like a talk for the
sake of giving a talk, with maybe years of knowledge behind it, but very
little useful or new information actually conveyed.

~~~
pg
_very little useful or new information actually conveyed_

Really? So e.g. the scifi test, the point about design and open source, hotels
and efficient markets, the unified theory of the decline of empires, and
economic inequality following automatically from higher resolution were all
things you'd already thought about? They were all surprises to me.

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mrduncan
It's interesting that although this list seems a little vague, other than
"iPhone" I'd argue that this would have been just as accurate 10 years ago.

Does anyone know if the BOS talks are going to be available online?

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mark_h
Dharmesh Shah (OnStartups) has a bit more detail in his twitter feed:

[http://search.twitter.com/search?q=&ands=&phrase=%23...](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=&ands=&phrase=%23bos2009&ors=&nots=&tag=&lang=all&from=dharmesh&to=&ref=&near=&within=15&units=mi&since=&until=&rpp=15)

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run4yourlives
If you can't bet on the government change, you can certainly bet on copyright
remaining as is and/or becoming more restrictive.

Copyright reform is our collective wet dream, but there are powerful, powerful
organizations and a lot of jobs riding on continued restrictions. It's the
trade tariff of the 21st century, and it isn't going anywhere without a
serious fight.

~~~
wmf
I wouldn't be surprised if copyright laws get more restrictive yet less
enforceable. The result is that you can't bet on copyright actually _working_.

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cjoh
PG is absolutely dead wrong on betting the Government won't change. At the end
of the day, the Government is STARVING for innovative technical solutions, new
ways to communicate with people and getting validated online. There's a ton of
money to be made on great, smart tech to sell to Government. And if you're a
start-up, you ought to be thinking about whether your product is useful to
government.

Whether that's change or not, I don't know. But what I do know is, a year ago,
two years ago, three years ago the Government could care less about the
Internet or how it interacted with constituents online. Now it can't stop
talking about it.

~~~
hammertime
I think the word "Government" is too vague.

If by government you mean elected officials. Then they will be very interested
in anything that can produce more votes or money for them. I think the Obama
campaign changed how a lot of officials view the internet.

If by government you mean, established lobbyist with things to lose. There
will certainly be a resistance to change and innovation.

Overall, this list is probably too vague to start debating it.

~~~
tlb
McDonalds also recognizes the power of the Internet and they make extensive
use of it, but I wouldn't say anything fundamental has changed about their
business. I think the government's in the same boat, just 5-10 years behind.

~~~
ivankirigin
You might be interested in knowing the McDonalds has experimented with
telepresense. They thought about making booths with something equivalent to
skype with a big TV, so people at two McDonalds locations (presumably family)
could have a meal together.

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tsestrich
This might be me being a nitpicker... but how does being able to bet on
"Innovation... Software... Things on Screens... Programming Languages" help
anyone? Are these things that were up for debate?

The useful things in here are the bold predictions, such as Linux never being
a factor on the desktop, and not betting on things like business school and
government change.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. I should also clarify that I'm not
commenting on the fact that this list was posted in its entirety, just on the
list itself. I appreciate it being posted for us to review.

~~~
pg
Obviously words like "software" and "innovation" are not by themselves very
informative, because they're just titles. How do you feel about what I said
about these topics?

~~~
tsestrich
I see what you mean, and I haven't been able to find a full text of what was
said about each topic. Out of context, I saw each point as an unsubstantiated
claim that was part of a single, larger point. There wasn't an indication that
each of those had a complete discussion following.

If those were points gleaned from a larger discussion of "things to bet on",
then I stand by my original statement. However, I'd look forward to seeing
what was said in particular if each of those was a specific topic of
discussion.

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jasonlbaptiste
My guess is, these were the overarching "themes". It's the context and
reasoning that makes them insightful. Hoping more in depth notes or a video
from the conference makes itself online.

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staunch
Is there a video/audio recording available on The Internet?

~~~
javery
They are recording the talks (big camera behind me) and I think they get
posted after the conference.

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dna30
"Apparently Frivolous Stuff (facebook)"..? I'd love to hear more elaboration
on that.

~~~
javery
He was saying that facebook on the surface seems very frivolous, its basically
online gossip at first glance. But there is huge potential in it and that
things that can appear frivolous can have huge potential. (twitter falls in
this category too)

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caffeine
I wasn't at the talk - was there anything he said that particularly surprised
you? The list above looks like the fairly standard list of "what's going on
now"...

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rms
>Linux will never be a factor on the desktop

Never?

~~~
3pt14159
Never, ever, ever?

Even as I write this from my Ubuntu 9.10 machine while coding ruby in emacs in
the other screen space because Unix based development is so much easier than
Visual Studios++?

Even though
[http://digg.com/linux_unix/the_PERFECT_mp3_player_for_Linux_...](http://digg.com/linux_unix/the_PERFECT_mp3_player_for_Linux_geeks_Linux_friendly_hardware)
has 1000+ diggs and is the only reason my coworker is buying a specific mp3
player amongst the hundreds of options?

Even though Linux can be downloaded for $0, and in most of the non-western
work, more than $300 dollars for an entire computer, let alone operating
system, is stretching a very thin family budget?

In my view Windows is good for 2 things. Running Excel and computer games. And
even that is starting to change. <http://www.worldofgoo.com/> is fully Linux
compliant, and even the boys and girls making Natural Selection 2 are talking
about making a Linux version.

Hell, even most of the awesomest games have been ported through wine (like
Team Fortress II). Microsoft will always be around, but more in the way that
IBM will always be around. It's only a matter of time before Google makes the
web browser so dominant and piracy makes non-SaaS based software so
unprofitable that it won't matter whether you use an NT kernel (or Direct X
whatever) or not. Flash is, hopefully, going to go the way of the dinosaur as
HTML 5 comes out, and by that point what is the value proposition that
Microsoft has? "Ugh, our software can run a really freaking awesome
spreadsheet program!" Excel is great. I'd dual boot it if it were an operating
system.

