The Next Silicon Valley | Hacker News Reader

The Next Silicon Valley

measuringmeasures.com

109 pointsjaf12duke18 comments

Finally, someone weighs in on this debate with a genuinely intelligent perspective grounded in history and solid critical thinking instead of bravado and linkbait. The deep roots of the entrepreneurial spirit in the Bay Area (and, really, California as a whole if you extend this argument down to Hollywood) is hugely underestimated in thinking about what has made SV, SV. It really is woven into the thread of what it means to live there, work there, and thrive there. (And this is coming from someone who's an SF transplant in NYC.)

Well done, guys. Bravo.

In some ways, this post dovetails with William Easterly's paper, "Was the poverty of Africa determined in 1000 BC?": http://aidwatchers.com/2010/07/was-the-poverty-of-africa-det... ?

Notice this, from the post:

"1500 AD technology is a particularly powerful predictor of per capita income today. 78 percent of the difference in income today between sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe is explained by technology differences that already existed in 1500 AD – even BEFORE the slave trade and colonialism.

[...]

Why do technological differences persist for so long? The ability to invent new technologies is much greater when you have more advanced technology already. James Watt had acquired a lot of tech experience in the mining industry which he used to invent the steam engine. Other people with the ability to make steel could then slap his steam engine on a vehicle running along steel rails and give us railroads."

Part of his (sobering | frightening | surprise) conclusion is that early advantages quickly become cumulative advantages that can persist for very long periods of time. The roots of Western Europe's success in the 18th and 19th Centuries might be in 1500 or even 1000. You have to look very far back in time to realize that. Likewise, the roots of Silicon Valley's advantage, according to the post above, might go back at least a century.

That's not the kind of advantage you can uproot with some tax credits, a five-year forecast, and a fistful of cash. You might need to play a game that works on the scale of decades or longer -- far longer than any politician or city booster thinks.

These kinds of ideas, whether about poverty in Africa or tech in Silicon Valley, shouldn't be taken as overly deterministic, but they should be useful to those who think about quick fixes for very wide, very deep problems.

The other advantage the valley has is newly rich people are willing to live there based on its climate. New York survives in large part because of the ecosystem of arts and entertainment focused on rich people who live there. Random City USA is unlikely to have both, but they can be better.

Wow, thanks for the link!

Wow, usually the title of articles like this turns me off. It's not yet another "can my town be the valley!" posts. It's a good in-depth look at SV itself and an analytical insight into why SV is what it is/where the next one might pop up for the same reasons.

"Efforts to duplicate silicon valley tend to fail because they attempt to follow the valley by looking at where it is now. They don't look at the century of history."

The problem is that the solution isn't to endeavor to duplicate Silicon Valley. The solution is to start small, foster communication and collaboration between existing entrepreneurs, encourage and support a research-based creative education from the youngest ages, and to cross-pollinate interested parties with each other. Essentially, to take the lessons learned from SV's history and start cultivating them at the micro level.

There are a plethora of options, but in every case the various problem solvers are not self-organized to the extent that is required to make real progress. Consider PG with YC (or any of the other tech incubators). They specialize in matching entrepreneurs with each other and with VCs. That's great. Now consider companies like 3M, IBM, and HP, that all have significant R&D branches. Woohoo, but they're often isolated from the broader community due to IP-loss risks. What about research universities, business schools, or NPO research institutes? They certainly provide value and do great work, but there is often a barrier locking out the business world (except in a few cases, where researchers and professors (and their schools) actively look for entrepreneurs to support in founding either spin-offs or private companies). Finally, what about the -- for lack of a better term -- open source community? The problem here is that "community" is too loose and lack of coordination is the norm. Even in projects that have a charismatic leader who does an excellent job stimulating communication, projects themselves tend toward isolationism.

As the author notes, it won't be possible to create another hub innovating at ludicrous speed without looking at the problem organically and starting small.

Timothy J. Sturgeon’s "How Silicon Valley Came to Be" covers this as well:

   The fact that the San Francisco Bay Area’s electronics   industry 
   began close to the turn of the Twentieth Century should lay to 
   rest the notion that industrialization and urbanization on the 
   scale of Silicon Valley can be quickly induced in other areas. 
   Silicon Valley is nearly 100 years old. 
   It grew out of a historically and geographically specific 
   context that cannot be recreated. The lesson for planners 
   and economic developers is to focus on long-term, not short-term    
   developmental trajectories. Silicon Valley was the fastest 
   growing region in the United States during the late 1970s and 
   early 1980s; but that growth came out of a place, not a technology. 
   Silicon Valley’s development is intimately entwined with the long 
   history of industrialization and innovation in the larger San   
   Francisco Bay Area.

See http://web.mit.edu/ipc/publications/pdf/00-014.pdf I had blogged about this in 2008 at http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/11/05/steve-blank-on-secre...

Three good books on how Silicon Valley came to be

"Understanding Silicon Valley" by Kenney http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Silicon-Valley-Entrepren...

"The Silicon Valley Edge" by Lee, Miller, Hancock, and Rowen http://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Valley-Edge-Innovation-Entrepr...

"Regional Advantage" Saxenian http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition...

See also this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908026

(Full disclosure: I have graduated from Popov Electrical Engineering University, St.-Petersburg, Russia)

It bothers me how every time someone mentions the invention of radio, they seem to mention Marconi, not Popov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Stepanovich_Popov)

Could it be because the history is written by the winners i.e. if Russia would be the world leader in electronics today, more people would recognize Popov than Marconi?

But even Popov gives earlier credit to Tesla:

  In 1900, Popov stated at the Congress of Russian Electrical Engineers that,

  "the emission and reception of signals by Marconi by means 
  of electric oscillations was nothing new, as in America 
  Nikola Tesla did the same experiments in 1893."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio

Marconi is relevant here because he conducted numerous ship to shore experiments across the Atlantic, before coming to New York and starting the first telegraph network.

There's a great point here that the post doesn't really go into enough detail about: in many (most?) places, business and financial types are focused on the goal of trying to find ways of making money without actually creating any value.

The mentality seems to be: Creating value is hard! Let's find a way to just make money off "immaterial" assets, financial manipulation, pure marketing and reselling, etc.

In the valley, people still look for ways to make money by making things that people want.

The NYC financial mindset has little to do with it. It's more useful to compare SV with Route 128. In the late 60's both seemed to be roughly equivalent: dominant technology schools, an educated population, and a strong hi-tech business base. But there was a strong cultural difference. If an engineer left HP, he would be encouraged, and often HP would be a customer. If you left DEC, you were a traitor. You were the enemy, never to repatriated. May your children burn in hell. In the end cooperation beat out secretiveness and destructive competitiveness.

For more info, see entire book on this topic by AnnaLee Saxenian: http://books.google.com/books?id=gnh2Rb1rcMIC

Thats sort of the idea we were going for by explaining the background - that there is a reason the bay area is filled with a million product obsessed early adopters. It is cultural. It has deep roots. It cannot be easily reproduced, so you'd better work with what you have instead of copying silicon valley.

Agreed "Create more value than you capture" (Tim O'Reilly) is the thing to strive for

With that said, we we need a balance of the two. "Immaterial" assets are, in many ways, necessary prerequisites for an economy with enough liquidity to finance entrepreneurial ventures.

(Though I'll gladly leave that to 'the other guys.' Creating value is much more fun than providing for it.)

SV as "the digital Florence". I like that.

They do not see the past. They do not see the context, or the trajectory. They are Heisenberging the valley at some snapshot in time.

Can't wait to use Heisenberg as a verb in some idel conversation. Pure win.

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