
Silicon Valley Has Officially Run Out of Ideas - peterkchen
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/09/12/techcrunch_disrupt_sf_butler_app_alfred_club_wins_best_startup_of_2014.html#
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mindcrime
I'm tempted to _not_ upvote this just due to the snarky nature, but there is
the kernel of an interesting discussion here, so...

Has "Silicon Valley run out of ideas" in any literal sense? Of course not. All
this article really points out is that one particular conference (TechCrunch
Disrupt) chose a "winner" that seems, at first blush, a somewhat frivolous and
non-disruptive app. Whether or not that is the case is a question I'll leave
to the philosophers.

OTOH, you could argue that this is just one more echo of the kind of argument
Peter Thiel was making when he talked about being "promised flying cars and
getting 140 characters" or whatever. And it remains an interesting question
whether or not the boom in SoLoMoGeoCatPicGroupMsgDailyDealRideSharing apps
actually means anything in terms of the emergence (or lack thereof) of new
companies based on more fundamental innovations.

My own feeling is that there are plenty of companies doing "really interesting
stuff" and the frothy wake around the silly apps is just a superficial aspect
of the way things are reported on, and a reflection of what's trendy. The
negative to this, if it exists, would be if the cat-picture startups are
actually drawing away investment and resources that could otherwise be going
to fund fusion research or something. I don't actually know if that's the case
or not, but something analyzing that aspect is a story I would find
interesting.

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johan_larson
Most ideas, like most anything, are derivative and mediocre. We tend to get a
bit too excited about the prospect of game-changing ideas. It leads us to
over-praise the merely interesting in embarrassing ways.

Personally, I think we would do well to lower our sights a bit. No golfer
specializes in holes-in-one; no baseball player only trains to hit home runs.
Similarly, we might do well to focus less on the disruptive big ideas (which
too often turn out to be merely over-hyped mediocre ideas), and more on
building useful, elegant, cost-effective systems. This will let us do well
with merely decent opportunities, and sets us up to _really_ deliver when by
chance or talent we come upon one of the great ones.

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rock57
Firstly, luckily for everyone, Silicon Valley is not equal to TC, and best
startups in SV != startups that got the most votes from TC Disrupt judges.

Secondly I strongly support the POV that throughout decades of SV history the
biggest successes weren't (and aren't) usually the ones with the most hype,
the most money, or the most hyped TC publications behind them!

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bizartist
This sort of thing always reminds me of the description of the wright brothers
and their mainstream competitor: Samuel Pierpont Langely from Simin Sinek's
TED talk:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en)
. We've hit a tipping point in SV culture where we mostly just hear about the
modern Langelys, but there are plenty of Wrights out there, toiling away in
obscurity, driven only by the promise of solving a real problem.

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eruditely
Long after the contraian-chic journalists are gone, we will still be here,
making a difference. They'll run out of wannabe headlines, same old, same old.

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YuriNiyazov
Techcrunch Disrupt is not "Silicon Valley", it is a small part of it.

