
Will Silicon Valley remain the best hub of tech in the next 10 years? - FahadUddin92
I want to move to the valley as its the hub of tech. Costs are high and moving to the US is difficult. Will US remain the hub of tech in the next 10 years? Do we have other options like Singapore?
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matchagaucho
_(Disclosure: I live in SF Bay area with a bias towards it 's long-term
success)_

It's difficult to predict anything 10 years out.

But when projecting industry trends within a geography I look to Financial
Services (FS) as a comparable.

Both Tech and FS sell "virtual goods and services" with a distribution model
that does not necessarily lock them down to a location.

But even after the great depression of 1929 and repeated stock market
collapses, New York is _still_ a major FS hub.

So, it's really the people and local supporting infrastructure in a region
that keep an industry going; not the distribution model.

I assume Silicon Valley will remain a leading tech hub in both consumer and
enterprise tech in 10 years. The supporting infra is taken for granted.

Same thing can similarly be said about L.A. and the movie making business.
Nothing prevents other locations from making movies, but it's hard to beat a
century of built-up supporting infrastructure.

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bogomipz
>"But even after the great depression of 1929 and repeated stock market
collapses, New York is still a major FS hub."

I don't think that a very good indicator. There is a difference between the
tech industry and financial services. Financial services depend on markets
that have a well known and established opening and closing time. In the US the
markets are very much tied to 9:30AM to 4:00PM in the Eastern time zone.

How would that work if Wall Street were to move to US Central Time or Pacific
Time? Would workers be expected to get up in the middle of the night?

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gumby
> I don't think that a very good indicator. There is a difference between the
> tech industry and financial services. Financial services depend on markets
> that have a well known and established opening and closing time. In the US
> the markets are very much tied to 9:30AM to 4:00PM in the Eastern time zone.

That hasn't really been the case for quite some time. A majority of option and
equity trading now happens directly rather than on open exchanges and is thus
immune to "market hours". Forex is 24 hour. And London is still the finance
powerhouse despite not being in the largest economy (and not being in the
Euro, but manages the vast majority of Euro bond trading) and in fact being in
a country the rest of whose economy is a basket case.

But physical propinquity still matters, it seems, for the human intangibles.

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bogomipz
>"That hasn't really been the case for quite some time. A majority of option
and equity trading now happens directly rather than on open exchanges and is
thus immune to "market hours"

Its not just the actual exchanges like the NYSE or NASDAQ but all of the other
participants - the investment banks, the hedge funds, the ratings agencies,
the analysts, the financial press. Following the sun, the day breaks first on
the East Coast in the U.S. So yes while it could move to Boston, Mass,
Charlotte, N.C. or back to Philadelphia where incidentally it was before Wall
Street its probably limited to the boundaries of the Eastern Time Zone in U.S.

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Jabanga
I think without a doubt it will remain the best tech hub in the world.

The change that may occur is that Silicon Valley, while remaining in the lead,
will see its centrality diminished by the emergence of decentralized funding
using ERC20 tokens, aka the token sale model, which is quickly approaching
traditional venture capital volumes [1].

I don't believe this would hurt SV's economy, as the decline in funding
friction, while having very geographically distributed direct benefits, will
have the second order effect of expanding the tech sector, and with it, tech
companies operating in sectors not currently amenable to these new
nontraditional enterprise structures and funding models.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_funded_crowdfu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_funded_crowdfunding_projects)

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MrQuincle
What will be the underlying factors?

\+ The move towards more embodied intelligent machines, be it home automation
systems, internet of things, autonomous cars, or robots, makes it likely that
location is still gonna be important and we will still see hubs indeed. Remote
work for software is one thing, for hardware or hybridware it's more
difficult.

\+ Ten years might not be long from a technical point of view, but this is
about people migrating to other places. Population dynamics might not as fast-
paced as tech.

\+ One thing is inevitable: a financial downtime between now and then. How the
Valley will react, depends... It means fewer venture-backed new vultures on
the market, a less crazy search for personnel, etc.

\+ Economies of scale will always apply. High densities of companies, people,
universities, homes, and other entities, will lead to higher and higher
productivity. If you really want to compete with the Valley you'll have to
work on these metrics as a region. Check
[https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/12/why-denser-cities-
are-s...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/12/why-denser-cities-are-smarter-
and-more-productive/4049/).

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refurb
A great analogy might be the biotech industry. The Bay Area was dominant for
most of the first 30 years. Much of the original research was done at UCSF and
Genentech was the first biotech company.

SF is still doing well, but it's no longer #1 when it comes to biotech VC
dollars. That title goes to Boston now. And I can say that working in the
industry, Boston has much more buzz when it comes to biotech than SF at this
point.

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mhermher
Where does San Diego fall in that list? Just curious.

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refurb
San Diego used to be a hot-spot for Biotech. Back in the early 2000's, nearly
every major biopharma company had a site in San Diego.

Most of them closed. Pfizer still has some R&D there. There are a couple mid-
sized biotechs there, but it's be a rough last few years. Similar to Seattle.

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andrewmb
To provide more of a direct answer, I think that Shenzhen has really great
long-term prospects as a tech/innovation hub. Very large number of investors,
existing and large tech/innovation/industry cluster (consumer electronics),
and long-term government incentives. You can already start to see the momentum
building. I've seen major changes since first doing business there (Feb 2012)
and even over the past ~2years that I've lived there.

However, the prospects of moving there are not significantly better than the
US. China is opening up new classes of visas and making certain business
licenses more accessible, but my general impression from being in the
ecosystem and talking with locals and foreigners is that it's difficult to get
a sustainable business off the ground. The immigration situation (if that is a
goal) is bleak.

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infiniteparamtr
The boom in Silicon Valley is largely because of the internet. This has
resulted in much of the world connecting and becoming capable of equal
economic input/output - therefore the next "place like Silicon Valley" could
ironically be anywhere and everywhere, since information is now far less
exclusive.

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jy1
10 years is not too long. You should think about what you think are game
changers in the next 10 years. I think self-driving cars, on-demand
everything, VR, crypto-currencies, video will be the future. Thus, Silicon
Valley is unlikely to be dethroned.

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crispytx
It seems like the local governments are intentionally inflating housing prices
which I think will end up driving companies out of town. I know I sure as hell
don't want to move there.

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SirLJ
The VCs are the driving force I would say...

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shmerl
These things should spread.

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Temasik
Singapore? Really? LoL The culture there is cheap the only good thing here is
the tax

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urlwolf
Agreed. I did my research and SG is not sustainable for my vertical (data
science)

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cykosyc
i live in Phoenix, AZ and tech start ups and companies are relocating here and
somewhere I hear that Phoenix will be the next Silicon Valley and tech hub

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cykosyc
oh and cost of living is not that high either :)

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Huhty
Hard to predict based on Trump alone.

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sillysaurus3
It's important to be substantive if you raise a political point. Otherwise
it's just Trump graffiti.

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touchofevil
You could consider Silicon Beach (Los Angeles) instead. Rents are cheaper and
google and snapchat are located there.

~~~
ojbyrne
Google's headquarters are located in Mountain View (Silicon Valley). They have
satellite offices all over the world, so the presence of one in LA doesn't
really support your point.

