Is Silicon Valley’s golden era coming to an end? | Hacker News Reader

Is Silicon Valley’s golden era coming to an end?

theguardian.com

32 pointselsewhen25 comments

Snapchat doesn't even have a Bay Area office. Also, since when is bracing for economic realities a sign that the entire organism is dying? It doesn't, this article is simply capitalizing on FUD.

As long as Sandhill road remains fully occupied by VCs, the gravy train will continue.

Snapchat has had a Mountain View office for almost 5 years.

Snapchat may not, but many of these companies have Bay Area Headquarters. I didn't bother to count but it's a lot. https://companiesmarketcap.com/software/largest-software-com...

That doesn't mean the good years are going to last forever but I think we've got a bit of time before the end.

Every time a newspaper puts a question in the title, the answer is usually "no".

For those not aware, this is referred to as “Betteridge’s law of headlines”, you can read more about it here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...

the answer being no could also mean it has already ended.

quite frankly I can’t think of one great thing that came out of silicon valley since 2014

Dramatic valuation drop at Apple?

How much research goes into an article that leads with that.

The Guardian is generally garbage but AAPL share price fell 17% today so the real question is how much research has gone into your comment?

It's a Saturday, so the market isn't even open. Not sure where you're seeing a 17% drop. Regardless, It's trading at $150, and was trading at $130 on 6/15/22.

But AAPL didn't fall 17%. It fell 1.1%, yesterday, as markets are closed today.

“Americans don’t really like big things – people get worried about concentrated power,” O’Mara said.

Hmmm....Okay? (not American)

Yes, America has fought with the concept of a central bank for a while so it got more than a dozen of them to create the federal reserve system exactly because it doesn't like concentrated power.

America has consciously busted monopolies in the past. Not so much nowadays, so some skepticism is definitely warranted. It seems that huge swathes of the economy are dominated by outright monopolies or comfortable oligopolies.

Golden age was Silicon i.e. Intel, Silver age was Internet i.e. Google, Bronze age was Social Media / Mobile Apps / SaaS.

We're now into some kind of 'common age' which I think will be different than before because we're likely going to be more distributed.

Tech is the new 'Banking' where all the kids to go to get guaranteed payouts so you'll see the culture change. It already has. No place for hippies and surfers anymore.

I actually agree the "Golden Era" is coming to an end. But it doesn't mean it is dying which is sometimes how it is interpreted.

I am just wondering if Tech are moving out of California, or if they are only moving out of Silicon Valley. And if there can be another Silicon Valley outside of California, or even US.

SV forks are hard because they need excellent weather, universities, immigrants, and a historic local tech industry.

And California labor laws including the lack of non compete agreements, etc.

In the end, it all comes down to interest rates, but news on that front seems to have gone quiet for the past month.

The FT today says recent inflation reports point towards a 1% rise next, with economists predicting rates of over 4% throughout 2023

Anecdotally the risktakers have mostly left for NYC or moved overseas. The region’s best days may be behind it.

Anecdotally, many people have moved to NYC. But I haven't seen the correlation with risk-taking you describe.

I'd say the unifying theme is pretty obvious. It's that NYC is a nicer place to live than the SF Bay Area for many affluent young people.

Now that it's less bad for their career to work remotely or at a peripheral office, why wouldn't they move to NYC?

New York City being a 'nice' place is a laughable idea. Freezing weather with rude people is the very antithesis of nice. Contrast that with weather that rarely goes lower than 45F in the daytime, relatively easygoing people and unrivaled access to natural beauty.

Affluent or not, New York City does not even begin to approach 'nice'.

Yeah, we've lived in both NYC and SF and SF is way better. Don't get me wrong, NYC is an amazing city but those winters, and those summers, and the airports are so far away.

Where's the new SV, or do you mean there's been something of a global diaspora?

Now, what about all big cities investing in SV-like start-up landscapes? Some took 30 years to build.

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