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Minnesota is on the cutting edge of medical technology. I don't think there is a need for another "silicon valley" it was needed when the military needed a securable research base. Its played out its massive development and global impact but its still going to be the most dynamic tech zone in the world for the foreseeable future.
Its a lot like Hollywood in movies and culture. Now there is Vancouver and Bollywood who have obvious advantages but lacks the high end infrastructure that hollywood has.
China has HUGE issues that are fundemental and structural and obvious to even the blindest person. The lack of patent protection will come to bite them in the ass when it comes time to develop their own innovations to stay in the game. You can steal from the rest of the world all your life but you'll always be a day late and a mile short on selling it to other nations.
SV in a lot of ways prices itself out of the market what with the utterly absurd housing prices in the area. Salaries have to be quite large to compensate. There has to be a good reason for that to be worth it - and sometimes it is, but there is clearly no necessity in a lot of cases for the Bay Area premium on everything. It's essentially another finance center now.
China certainly has its problems with innovation and thievery. The question is, how much will that hurt? Their technology is undeniably improving.
On June 05 2017 12:28 LegalLord wrote: SV in a lot of ways prices itself out of the market what with the utterly absurd housing prices in the area. Salaries have to be quite large to compensate. There has to be a good reason for that to be worth it - and sometimes it is, but there is clearly no necessity in a lot of cases for the Bay Area premium on everything. It's essentially another finance center now.
So you think the alternative is to have companies all over the country who pay moving bonuses to people? Probably cheaper than SV, but still same stupid problem.
On June 05 2017 12:28 LegalLord wrote: SV in a lot of ways prices itself out of the market what with the utterly absurd housing prices in the area. Salaries have to be quite large to compensate. There has to be a good reason for that to be worth it - and sometimes it is, but there is clearly no necessity in a lot of cases for the Bay Area premium on everything. It's essentially another finance center now.
So you think the alternative is to have companies all over the country who pay moving bonuses to people? Probably cheaper than SV, but still same stupid problem.
That generally shouldn't be much of a problem for companies concentrated in well-developed regions whether or not they are SV. People move for work and it's not a problem if there's plenty of game in town and the average turnover isn't 5 seconds like in SV.
The problem is SV has a critical mass that is very hard to distribute. From the businesses side, they need specialized engineers which just can't be found elsewhere in large enough numbers. Even in SV, good engineers are in high demand but elsewhere they are just not available. So what does your company do if a critical engineer leaves the project, or you want to staff up a project to meet a timeline but you don't have a SV office? You might have to pay more in SV, but at least it's an option.
From the employee side, even ignoring the human side of leaving where you live (roots, weather, schools etc), it's a big risk. Tech companies go under/do layoffs all the time. Part of the allure of SV is the ability to find a new high paying job in a month if the worst happens. Other cities might only have a handful of good companies to work for, and failing to get a job at those means you'd have to move again. Probably back to SV.
It's a powerful feedback loop that has been running for decades and will take a long time to reverse.
In SV, it's quite easy to go and find a new job. Hell, I know one incompetent person with a fake diploma who has been "gainfully" employed in SV for decades now. But all else held equal it's kind of a shitty place to live, between rent, insane traffic, and other generic overpopulation problems.
I think it's quite untrue that you can't find employees/employers as soon as you leave SV though. You might have to look a little harder, but you also have less issue with the fact that people last about a year at many of those tech companies. The turnaround is usually closer to the average three months for a new job in most places, but your job also lasts much longer. That goes for both sides.
Not that that means SV must fall apart - that concentration of individuals is certainly meaningful - but it's also not necessary for many. At any rate, the larger software industry, rather than SV, is more properly the software side of that "high tech industry" that is one of the US's still existing major advantages in the world market.
Incidentally, if they are both made in the USA, I don't see any reason to favor Ford over Toyota, and so on. Functionally, they're both American, regardless of where the corporate HQ is.
Rumor mill has it that NK has rockets they could use to land a kill on US carriers. It's a rumor so the proof is somewhat sparse (besides that NK was doing a test just now) but it doesn't actually seem too far-fetched for NK's current strength of missile tech.
This is going to have to be resolved conclusively soon.
On June 05 2017 13:25 LegalLord wrote: In SV, it's quite easy to go and find a new job. Hell, I know one incompetent person with a fake diploma who has been "gainfully" employed in SV for decades now. But all else held equal it's kind of a shitty place to live, between rent, insane traffic, and other generic overpopulation problems.
I think it's quite untrue that you can't find employees/employers as soon as you leave SV though. You might have to look a little harder, but you also have less issue with the fact that people last about a year at many of those tech companies. The turnaround is usually closer to the average three months for a new job in most places, but your job also lasts much longer. That goes for both sides.
Not that that means SV must fall apart - that concentration of individuals is certainly meaningful - but it's also not necessary for many. At any rate, the larger software industry, rather than SV, is more properly the software side of that "high tech industry" that is one of the US's still existing major advantages in the world market.
Incidentally, if they are both made in the USA, I don't see any reason to favor Ford over Toyota, and so on. Functionally, they're both American, regardless of where the corporate HQ is.
It has a lot of upsides as well. Weather is fantastic, tons of good ethnic food, short trips to awesome outdoors areas, lots of entertainment options, world class public schools. Traffic and rent are the bad parts but it's a pretty damn good place to live if you can mitigate those. Depends what's important to you I guess, but it's a popular place to live.
Not saying every business should be in SV and every employee should be as well, but there is a ton of momentum that will carry through long after it stops "making sense". That said, many companies disagree with you and choose SV to invest their billions because of the logistical issues, not as a fashion statement.
I would be careful to assume software companies outside of SV keep their employees any longer. They're subject to the same issues of technologies going out of date or complex projects failing that companies in SV are. It's the unique market in SV that makes it advantageous for employees to jump jobs so often (thus reducing tenures).
Well the guy is candid enough to publicly admit he only ever pronounced his drain the swamp slogan because the crowd liked it. And his audience is stupid enough not to see how and why that would be offensive to them.
Trump apparently thinks he is still at the apprentice, and clearly his supporters don't notice or don't see the problem.
Well the guy is candid enough to publicly admit he only ever pronounced his drain the swamp slogan because the crowd liked it. And his audience is stupid enough not to see how and why that would be offensive to them.
Well the guy is candid enough to publicly admit he only ever pronounced his drain the swamp slogan because the crowd liked it. And his audience is stupid enough not to see how and why that would be offensive to them.
On June 05 2017 13:25 LegalLord wrote: In SV, it's quite easy to go and find a new job. Hell, I know one incompetent person with a fake diploma who has been "gainfully" employed in SV for decades now. But all else held equal it's kind of a shitty place to live, between rent, insane traffic, and other generic overpopulation problems.
I think it's quite untrue that you can't find employees/employers as soon as you leave SV though. You might have to look a little harder, but you also have less issue with the fact that people last about a year at many of those tech companies. The turnaround is usually closer to the average three months for a new job in most places, but your job also lasts much longer. That goes for both sides.
Not that that means SV must fall apart - that concentration of individuals is certainly meaningful - but it's also not necessary for many. At any rate, the larger software industry, rather than SV, is more properly the software side of that "high tech industry" that is one of the US's still existing major advantages in the world market.
Incidentally, if they are both made in the USA, I don't see any reason to favor Ford over Toyota, and so on. Functionally, they're both American, regardless of where the corporate HQ is.
It has a lot of upsides as well. Weather is fantastic, tons of good ethnic food, short trips to awesome outdoors areas, lots of entertainment options, world class public schools. Traffic and rent are the bad parts but it's a pretty damn good place to live if you can mitigate those. Depends what's important to you I guess, but it's a popular place to live.
Not saying every business should be in SV and every employee should be as well, but there is a ton of momentum that will carry through long after it stops "making sense". That said, many companies disagree with you and choose SV to invest their billions because of the logistical issues, not as a fashion statement.
I would be careful to assume software companies outside of SV keep their employees any longer. They're subject to the same issues of technologies going out of date or complex projects failing that companies in SV are. It's the unique market in SV that makes it advantageous for employees to jump jobs so often (thus reducing tenures).
None of that is strictly untrue. Interesting thing about "world class public schools" - I have some family that lives there, who sent their kids to private school for a long time and was afraid of California public school. The private school eventually consisted of almost all Asian and Indian students and instructors, which they deemed to be a problem (in I suppose you could say a racist sense if you like, but it was more "foreigner in your own school" sense). And to their surprise the public schools were easily better. It certainly has all the perks of a big city but also has LA caliber congestion problems, which is quite appalling.
I would stick by my "longer tenures" argument though. True, there are some clear benefits of hopping jobs. It's not the only place that you can find such an ecosystem - the D.C. intelligence contracting industry (great for ex-NSA workers!) and the New York tech industry are two other examples I'm familiar with. Part of that is increasingly good offers, but part of that is also the fact that startups can go belly up in a few months and leave you hanging out to dry. In most places a dozen six month tenures makes you look like a manic hopper. And given that it always takes time to get situated in a new company, that's not increasing your productivity, it's increasing your number that is a gauge of perceived worth. To be fair not every company in SV is like that and I see some long, fruitful tenures, but that does mean that if there are a few decent choices for employment in town (like in any big, industrial city) then it doesn't really matter that you don't have as many choices as in SV.
Point of all this is, it's important to see SV for what it is: a center of finance and one of multiple tech centers in the country. It's not a magical paradise where dreams come true or "the source of American innovation" as particularly dreamy individuals would suggest. It has its merits, but also its demerits, and much of its hype isn't really warranted at this point. Just see it for what it is rather than talking in dreamy terms about what it's hyped up to be.
All recent terrorist attacks have been done by residents, or even citezens of the western world. There is no flood of terrorists, and travelbans could easily make the internal threat worse.
Also, why are all these relatively small attacks the most important news in the world, and every major politician is finding a way to use them? Why can't anybody see we are scammed? The terrorists and the politicians both end up benefitting from eachother in a disgusting way.
I guess it comes down to out endless appetite to reading about dramatic events, and the mass media being more than happy to bring them to us.
All recent terrorist attacks have been done by residents, or even citezens of the western world. There is no flood of terrorists, and travelbans could easily make the internal threat worse.
Also, why are all these relatively small attacks the most important news in the world, and every major politician is finding a way to use them? Why can't anybody see we are scammed? The terrorists and the politicians both end up benefitting from eachother in a disgusting way.
I guess it comes down to out endless appetite to reading about dramatic events, and the mass media being more than happy to bring them to us.
because people's perception of the world is based on reporting; and news tends to report on dramatic and rare events; rather than the commonplace things like only one person being murdered; or deaths by car accident. so people vote based on horribly inaccurate perceptions of reality; and thus it gets reflected in policy. the book in my sig has a lot more details of various kinds. news shows what people watch (i.e. what gets ratings); and people choose to buy sensationalist media which focuses on rare attacks, rather than things which give you an accurate perception of the world.
All recent terrorist attacks have been done by residents, or even citezens of the western world. There is no flood of terrorists, and travelbans could easily make the internal threat worse.
Also, why are all these relatively small attacks the most important news in the world, and every major politician is finding a way to use them? Why can't anybody see we are scammed? The terrorists and the politicians both end up benefitting from eachother in a disgusting way.
I guess it comes down to out endless appetite to reading about dramatic events, and the mass media being more than happy to bring them to us.
because people's perception of the world is based on reporting; and news tends to report on dramatic and rare events; rather than the commonplace things like only one person being murdered; or deaths by car accident. so people vote based on horribly inaccurate perceptions of reality; and thus it gets reflected in policy. the book in my sig has a lot more details of various kinds.
EPT
