Ten Problems for Silicon Valley in the 2020s
tenproblems.com
tenproblems.com
Not a good use of $10 unless it is intended as a very very high level summary.
Any excerpt in the booklet is taken from the paper or the contribution it belongs, in order to share the researcher’s voice. All referenced papers are available for free in the internet for own consultation, in case audiences want to go deeper: think of specialistic audiences like graduate students, maybe looking for a different perspective or an up-to-date list of recent contributions.
As usual with services like these, more similar to consulting than publishing, the market will dictate how this series goes and the format of the updates to come. The Amazon infrastructure takes care of all the backend needed to make these circulate, and the occasional exposure from highly regarded communities like this will provide with valuable feedback, so thanks again.
When I follow the link there is a Kindle booklet "not available for purchase".
Update: ok, it seems to be a poorly executed Amazon listing that needs country specific URL.
Then you can buy a 63 page booklet for $10 (!) or whatever.
Basically this is an advert.
ps. This is a literature review, neither a libel nor a manifesto
Not a good use of $10.
How did this article get on the front-page?
The site seems to have gone active early in 2020 --- there's a Wayback Machine snapshot from February. The domainnexisted as early as 2006 though largely parked.
That also produces a working link to an "About" page:
WHO IS THE AUTHOR – Dr Giuseppe Cornacchia edited the booklets as the founder of the TenProblems series. He works from Italy as a consultant and applied researcher since 2003. He holds a PhD in Materials Science from The University of Manchester, UK; an MSc in Physics and Technology of Nuclear Reactors from The University of Birmingham, UK; and a Laurea v.o. (Masters’ degree equivalent with honors, five years course) in Nuclear Engineering from Università di Pisa, Italy. LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/giuseppe-cornacchia-564521129/
https://web.archive.org/web/20200314133438/https://www.tenpr...
There's a sample literature review (on agriculture) at: https://web.archive.org/web/20200322105452/https://www.tenpr...
The most valuable product is its ability to deliver platforms that empower and incentivize more people to engage with economic production. Technologies that democratize capitalism, like the PC; key digital tools like spreadsheets, word processors, desktop publishing; the internet; online communities that democratized publishing and broadcasting like YouTube, podcasting, blogging; online marketplaces that democratized retail.
> That might not be true for much longer, however. There are signs that the gilded age for consumer internet businesses may be drawing to a close.
Anticompetitiveness and ‘exclusionism’ isn’t dying, the outsized incentives for the few will always be there. There will always be a back and forth. It’s up to Silicon Valley to understand its own nature and not let itself be subverted.
I've lived in various major Western cities in NA/EU/AU and SV was cut by a different cloth. I've never met such a confluence of interesting contrarians in my entire life. I don't write that to proselytize SV or to mask criticisms of the region, I genuinely feel my experience living there was substantially different with respect to the exposure of eye-opening ideas than any other place I've lived in.
Airbnb isn't even like a crazy idea of a company, but the gist of the company was incredibly oft-putting to the majority of people I told back home in 2009. "What? Short-term rental to a stranger in my place?! No way!" Now of course, Airbnb as a concept is as 'normal' as any other large corporation. It doesn't matter that my hometown produces great engineers or has billions of dollars in funds, when the overall community is highly risk-averse and conformist, it affects the market size, investment, etc.
2. Monopolies - See Peter Theil - this is the whole point of any business and not a problem. If you look at a wide enough time scale, startups always have a chance to disrupt - you just need a paradigm shift. Look at what the internet did to Wintel. Monopolies have persisted for MUCH longer periods in industries where paradigm shifts are rare. Look at the cable, wireless or utility industries.
3. Diversity - This is only a problem for liberals - not SV. Since most of SV are liberal this is a problem only by association.
4. Outsiders - Heard of the SV term "domain expert"? SV believes in their value but the ones how are going to push for the change are the rebels. This is not really a problem.
5. Gig economy - Exploiting low paid workers to gain market capitalization is totally a feature of the United States as a whole. SV just figured out how to do it more efficiently. You can't do this in a country like Australia where the minimum wage is $20.
It is a problem for everyone is young white males are the ones building all the technology, because then the only problems we'll be solving is that of young white males. Having diverse teams builds better solutions and tech that benefits everyone in a society, not just the dominant demographics of SV
I suspect you have never stepped inside a tech company in the valley of anywhere else.
There IS a lack of women in tech and especially software engineering roles. This is bad but is something that will change now that computer science is such a popular major. There are plenty of women who are product managers and designers and those are the roles that make decisions about the product.
There is a lack of older people at startups but startups are a young person's sport. I'm in my late 30s and I don't want to be working for startups for the starting my 40s. It's tiring as hell. There are plenty of older people in larger tech companies in SV.
At least for the past 30 years, every software organization I’ve ever even heard of, much less been involved with, was dominated by Asians (Indians in particular). That’s still lacking in diversity, but your mischaracterization makes me feel more like you have a specific axe to grind.