

Is It Sunday Already? Seems Like Only Yesterday It Was Saturday - znmeb
http://borasky-research.net/2010/09/26/is-it-sunday-already-seems-like-only-yesterday-it-was-saturday-2010-09-26-edition/

======
jlgbecom
I like that there are perspectives that question the Silicon Valley approach
to start-ups. Although of course there's definitely good to come out of it,
there's also an extraordinary amount of ego and hype. Some might argue more
than there is good.

I'd prefer to see people focus on building entrepreneurship in other cities,
as well as experimenting with alternative forms of business structures (non-
profits, cooperatives, etc), for those who are really adventurous.

There doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all track for creating a new
technology, and a diversified tech economy is a healthy one.

~~~
znmeb
I could buy that argument _if_ people in the Valley weren't so harsh to
founders from other parts of the world and so adamant that the people there
were "better" in some significant way than, say, my home town of PDX. I've
heard a number of stories of businesses that were _told_ to move their HQ to
Silicon Valley. That's a big part of why I wrote what I wrote - Angelgate was
just the crowning example of arrogance and viciousness that seems to inhabit
Silicon Valley.

------
ryanwaggoner
_We've been treated to a post by Sarah Lacy blaming teachers' unions for the
"Why Our Schools Suck"_

Granted, Lacy might not be the best person to listen to about this, but I have
yet to hear a better explanation for why public schools can't seem to get
their act together.

~~~
sachinag
Every time I point out that educational outcomes in right to work states
aren't any better than outcomes in states where teachers unions have
collectively bargained contracts, I get downvoted. People just really want to
believe that it's about the unions instead of poor pay, the entrance of
talented women into the rest of the workforce, and other harder-to-solve-in-a-
vacuum socioeconomic factors. But again: educational outcomes in right to work
states aren't any better than outcomes in states where teachers unions have
collectively bargained contracts.

34 states and DC have laws mandating collective bargaining with teachers. Now,
it is true that in the other 16 states, there are other laws that can serve to
protect teachers. But these states certainly have the ability to engage in
ruthless combat with the unions, and they don't. I blame the voters and the
legislators - unions exist to protect their members.

The best freely available overview of this problem I've found is here:
<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/BetterBargain.pdf>

~~~
yummyfajitas
18 days ago, I pointed out that there are teachers unions in right to work
states. I also pointed out that right to work laws simply allow employees to
work without joining the union. They do not prohibit unionization or
collective bargaining.

~~~
sachinag
Yes, that's how unionization works in the U.S. However, you've said nothing
about educational outcomes, which is what I'm concerned with.

In addition, you're a bit off on the facts. There actually are three states
that expressly prohibit collective bargaining with teachers unions: North
Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. In a lot of these right-to-work states, the
unions have been able to get work rules and the like codified in state law as
opposed to within collective bargaining. Again, the PDF I linked to has a lot
off good data and cites, and yes, it does comes down pretty harshly on the
unions.

Look, I've been actively engaged on this subject for the last six years of my
life. It's clear that I'll never convince you that simply eliminating public
sector unions won't magically solve our education woes. But I can show you the
facts that the circumstances that would allow for that to happen haven't
happened.

~~~
gojomo
So you're saying that in the states where the public teachers' unions haven't
messed things up through collective bargaining, the generic public teachers'
lobby has messed things up through legislation instead?

That seems a rather fine and mostly moot point.

If it's still public school teachers' interests and campaigning that torpedoes
necessary reforms, then it doesn't matter if that's effected through a
mandatory-membership union or collective bargaining or legislation.

The same interests need to be confronted in any case, and I don't know anyone
who's suggested that "simply eliminating public sector unions" would
"magically solve our education woes". There's no magic bullet, just a bunch of
necessary reforms. And teacher's unions in both right-to-work and mandatory-
union states oppose most of the necessary steps.

~~~
sachinag
I think that's a fair characterization of my point in your first three
paragraphs. There's just not a history of being able to take on the unions and
"win", regardless of the labor laws. So let's stop trying to fight the unions
and characterize them as devil spawn since that _isn't going to work_.

I'd rather focus on the areas where there aren't necessarily entrenched
interests so we can focus on experimentation and trying to change the anti-
education sentiment[1]. Schools like the KIPP Academies have exceptional
outcomes over and over again. We need to find a way to get their techniques
wider distribution.

I believe that fighting a war of words with the teachers unions is both a
waste of time and counterproductive from a policy/results perspective. Public
sector unions just aren't going anywhere. Furthermore, we're going to have a
shortage of teachers - estimated to be as high as a million teachers [2] -
once the Boomer generation retires. Demeaning the remaining teachers (who are
generally union-affiliated) strikes me as ridiculously counterproductive. The
experiences in NYC and DC are proof that there are ways to make teachers more
accountable, reward better teachers, remove crappier teachers, and generally
change the culture in our schools without taking tactical nukes to the NEA and
AFT.

[1] Read Bissinger's Friday Night Lights for the best-written example of what
I'm talking about.

[2] <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/education/07teacher.html>

------
siglesias
It's unfortunate that the ethos of TechCrunch's reporting is founded on
Arrigonton's bizarre disregard for sober, non-sensationalist journalism. It
leads to wildly variant levels of quality in the posts, both in terms of
objectivity and insight.

------
damien_hoffman
The Valley has already created a positive feedback loop for attracting high
quality VCs and entrepreneurs. Therefore, like those who go to LA to seek
Silver Screen fame, SV will be hard to replace as THE place to be for tech
startups.

With that said, ironically technology is draining the moat around SV and
offering great opportunities to other world-class startup cities (e.g., NYC,
Boston, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, etc.). In 50-100 years I expect these cities
and a few more to have equal resources ala capital, technology, experienced
operators, and top tier entrepreneurs.

IMHO, this is one of the ways the US will get its swagger back ;)

------
rblion
SV is one of the only places on Earth where dreamers, hackers, and backers all
gather to make big things happen. My only thing is, why not apply more of our
joint efforts to solve critical survival problems for all human beings and our
only home planet? It's already happening at some degree but, as evolving
beings, we must keep raising the bar.

Maybe more people need to trip on LSD before starting up...

------
bosch
A lot of good points are made in this article including the main one of
doesn't this all serve Arrington's #1 interest (himself) in the end?

------
jrockway
Uh, what?

At least the Hitler video was funny.

~~~
znmeb
Well - maybe it was, but it was created by Kakigarden, not Techcrunch.

------
spacecadet
I had never read Techcrunch before "anglegate" was posted here, and I wont
ever read it again. Never liked the reporting style.

~~~
kjksf
I've you've never read Techcrunch before, how did you form an opinion about
their reporting style?

~~~
spacecadet
Sorry worded that funny, I didn't mean never like absolute never. I did read a
few posts early on and wasnt enthralled enough to continue, and so it felt
like never as of last week.

You know never like formatting without zeroing out data? ;p

------
techiferous
Well then, head on over to Boston. The startup scene is hot here and it's a
fun city.

~~~
znmeb
Funny you should mention Boston. Paul Graham used to say there were _three_
places to start a company - Cambridge / MIT / Harvard, Berkeley / UC Berkeley,
and Palo Alto / Stanford. And he commuted between Boston and Silicon Valley.

Then he decided Boston was not a good place to raise a child and moved full-
time to Silicon Valley. It's written up somewhere on his blog - I don't have
the link handy. I don't know much about Boston these days, but in the early
1980s when I used to call on DSP folk with Floating Point Systems, it seemed
vibrant. And the food was a _lot_ better than anything I've ever had in
Silicon Valley. ;-)

------
danilocampos
It's thin reasoning.

Does Silicon Valley have dilettantes like Sarah Lacey? Sure. But these people
are everywhere. Does it have figures whose estimation of their own importance
is over-inflated? Absolutely. Again, they're everywhere. Can you find some
events here that cost more than the value they'll provide to the median
attendee? ... You get the pattern.

The thrust could have more profitably culminated in "TechCrunch is the last
place I'd go for information on the Valley." This conclusion could be
reasonably supported by the argument. I still wouldn't altogether buy it, but
it wouldn't be crazy.

I'm just not sure you can write off an entire region because of the behavior
of one publication.

As a Valley transplant, the value I see for founding a business here is
tremendous: A huge pool of extraordinarily talented technical professionals.
Bigger, perhaps, than anywhere else. It's about people. And it doesn't stop
with having fellow hackers. You'll discover investors, of course, plus a lot
of senior people who can give you good advice from their hard-won experience.

There are people who annoy you in the Valley - big deal. Speaking from
experience, I'd rather have bickering neighbors like Arrington, Dave McClure
and Ron Conway instead of, for example, the kind of people who cherish a
certain skin color, superstition, and pickup trucks.

For me, it's a culture thing. And it's priceless.

~~~
SamAtt
It's beyond thin.

Every VC environment has loud personalities and personal conflict between
various groups. Whether it's the Valley or Chicago you're going to have these
types of stories. So to condemn the valley based on those stories getting more
press is silly. It shows the author lives in a bubble and has never
experienced what it's like to really raise money in such an environment.

Worse though is how high this got. The fact that this made it to #1 on HN
actually makes me a little queasy. I don't tend to pay attention to all the HN
is degrading talk but this makes me wonder

