
Ayn Rand's Objectivism and the Silicon Valley ethos have a lot in common - jasoncrawford
http://jasoncrawford.org/2012/10/ayn-rand-and-silicon-valley/
======
geebee
I don't get the same impression from Silicon Valley. In fact, I sense a lot of
ambivalence around government regulation, not universal opposition by any
means. I think a lot of high tech executives see a useful role for government
that goes well beyond the more Randian notion of minimalist government.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, largely within the current debate
about "job creators."

Many sectors of the economy are staffed by people who "need jobs." Towns are
devastated when corporations pack up and leave, and they try to fill the gap
by courting new businesses. I think this often happens when the workforce is
unskilled and is heavily dependent on the employer for gainful employment.

To some extent, silicon valley turns this on its head (I've heard it referred
to as a reverse field of dreams, if you come, they will build it). You don't
attract companies, you attract the workforce, and the companies will follow. I
think the high tech business community generally recognizes the general
attractiveness of a city as a big factor in getting the kind of workforce they
need, and may see the government as a partner in creating or sustaining this
environment. I also think "silicon valley" recognizes a particular synergy
with research universities, for both core technologies and an educated
workforce. If you look at rankings of graduate engineering schools, you'll see
that the have a much higher concentration of public universities than the
usual "prestige rankings" of undergrad programs... and private universities
like Stanford and MIT of course receive very large amounts of government
funding.

High tech just isn't one of those fields were the job creators employ
unskilled people who would otherwise be unemployed. There are so many issues
involved in getting the right environment of infrastructure, educated
citizens, and so forth.

Remember when Obama said "you didn't build that"? There was a big uproar, and
of course some people took it to mean that Obama claimed people hadn't built
their companies, rather than the infrastructure that allows these companies to
thrive.

I'm swear I'm not trying to drive home a political point. I was disappointed
with the response, but not because I'm necessarily agreeing with Obama - I
just thought that this could have lead to an exceptional and much needed
debate about the relationship between government infrastructure and job
creation. Just because you support it to some extent doesn't mean you think
it's being done well right now. The response could have been "no, my company
didn't build that, but private enterprise could have handled some or many of
those things more efficiently that government will. Orr alternatively - yes,
the government should do this, but there's a far better way to go about it."

It's probably asking far too much of a political debate to hope to see a good
discussion, and I've drifted too far off topic. But all in all, while I think
that there is probably a wide range of opinions about the interrelationship
between gov'ment and private enterprise, I just don't see much demonization of
government coming from silicon valley the way you do from some other sectors,
and I do think it's because high tech entrepreneurs are aware that at least
some of the big issues around infrastructure, research and development, and an
educated workforce will involve the public sector as well.

------
kylelibra
This is probably a reaction to this: <http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/24/travis-
shrugged/>

~~~
jasoncrawford
I actually wrote most of this post about two months ago. Finished it and
posted it recently after talking to some friends who were at YC Startup School
and also seeing that article (which was pretty bad, IMO).

------
rprasad
Ayn Rand and Silicon Valley have very little in common, unless you are arguing
that Silicon Valley has embraced unbridled greed. Indeed, open source, open
_anything_ is contrary to Randian ideals. Rand would embrace the RIAA and the
MPAA and their defense of property rights. Rand stands in opposition to almost
every value that has made Silicon Valley worth celebrating.

~~~
Cieplak
I'm not sure why you were down-voted, because I think you make a good point.

My impression of Rand's philosophy, based on reading the Fountainhead, is that
people should strive for excellence, and not necessarily greed. I think that
the RIAA and the MPAA fall more into the Peter Keating archetype than they do
into the Howard Roark archetype.

