
No City Has A Lock On Innovation - Straubiz
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/08/no-city-has-a-lock-on-innovation.html
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pg
"No country, state, region, nor city has a lock on innovation in technology
anymore. The Internet has made this so..."

The first part is true, but not the second. Boston was a big rival to Silicon
Valley before the Internet, and since the rise of the Internet has actually
fallen further behind.

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msutherl
"The entire world is now a rival to Silicon Valley ... We will see Apples and
Facebooks get built in China, India, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Western Europe,
the Middle East, Africa, and plenty of other places ... Until recently,
"technology" was largely about "moving electrons on wires." Now, "technology"
is about building all kinds of interesting applications on top of the
Internet."

Hah! I know that people who work in 'web' are often myopic, but this takes it
to a new level. "Technology" is not just "about building all kinds of
interesting application on top of the internet". Technology is also about
generating and distributing power, performing surgeries, curing diseases,
designing engines, designing space ships and space suits, and thousands of
other things that are not web application development. Even Silicon Valley is
not completely about the web, it being one of the smaller areas of investment
relative to energy and biotech.

That is not to say that the 'web' and a technology sector is not of unique
importance however. If I were to offer any advice to the mayor, I would say
that we should take a very important lesson from that world, which is that
engineering and design should go hand in hand. It is not enough just to
innovate by engineering muscle – the way new technologies are packaged and
embedded in culture needs to be 'engineered' as well.

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anamax
Does Wilson invest in people he hasn't met? What fraction of his investments
are outside of his typical travel zone?

Yes, the entire world is a rival to SV, but that's not new. The relevant
question is always what resources are available and how much they cost.
Certain resources are very inexpensive in SV and very expensive elsewhere.
(The same is true of NYC, but wrt different resources.)

