Silicon Valley's Swan Song?

by Kris Fri May 25, 2012 10:03 pm

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the news of the death may be somewhat exaggerated, but the article does make valid points. I am inclined to think facebook especially is counter-productive to the extent it is a time bandit.

http://business.time.com/2012/05/25/is-innovation-dead-or-doing-just-fine-thank-you/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

by Petrichor Fri May 25, 2012 10:18 pm

As long as the future as envisioned in the movie "Minority Report" has not come to pass, silicon valley will continue to innovate - location-based, individualized and targeted advertising, new ways of HCI like Leap, Watson-power within iphone like devices - these are some of the stuff that I am definitely expecting will come to pass before the decade is out.

So, definitely a premature call on end of innovation!

by Idéfix Fri May 25, 2012 10:23 pm

This is a case of reading too much into one company which is past its peak: Facebook. There is plenty of innovation going on in the valley. The sorts of things I can do with my cell phone were not possible just 5 years ago. And it won't be surprising if cell phones will be seen by today's infants in the same light that today's teenagers see transistor radio sets.

by Kris Fri May 25, 2012 10:24 pm

atcg wrote:As long as the future as envisioned in the movie "Minority Report" has not come to pass, silicon valley will continue to innovate - location-based, individualized and targeted advertising, new ways of HCI like Leap, Watson-power within iphone like devices - these are some of the stuff that I am definitely expecting will come to pass before the decade is out.

So, definitely a premature call on end of innovation!

>>>>I am not completely pessimistic either. The facebook comments just struck a chord.

by Kris Fri May 25, 2012 10:30 pm

panini press wrote:This is a case of reading too much into one company which is past its peak: Facebook. There is plenty of innovation going on in the valley. The sorts of things I can do with my cell phone were not possible just 5 years ago. And it won't be surprising if cell phones will be seen by today's infants in the same light that today's teenagers see transistor radio sets.

>>>Facebook being front and center on people's minds makes it loom large right now. One of my friends, who is a serial entrepreneur type of guy views companies like twitter in the same light, but I don't think even he thinks it is curtains for SV.

by Petrichor Fri May 25, 2012 10:42 pm

On an unrelated note, I was asked an opinion on the wisdom of venturing out into 2-3 years of Invt Banking slavery, followed by Business School and into Management Consulting at the end of it vs. 'real' Policy wonkish work in global health policy. I said the latter would involve probably some higher order of math, applied towards solving several issues beginning with analyzing supply chains for vaccines and predictive modeling of spread of infectious diseases applying some of the same techniques that FB uses to analyze its userbase or FinCEN uses to track anti-money laundering. Not sure how far off I was, but we are definitely in interesting times in cross-application of techniques across several fields. We are also very close to running large-scale experiments in one field using the internet and applying it to other reallife domains.

by Kris Sat May 26, 2012 3:10 am

atcg wrote:On an unrelated note, I was asked an opinion on the wisdom of venturing out into 2-3 years of Invt Banking slavery, followed by Business School and into Management Consulting at the end of it vs. 'real' Policy wonkish work in global health policy. I said the latter would involve probably some higher order of math, applied towards solving several issues beginning with analyzing supply chains for vaccines and predictive modeling of spread of infectious diseases applying some of the same techniques that FB uses to analyze its userbase or FinCEN uses to track anti-money laundering. Not sure how far off I was, but we are definitely in interesting times in cross-application of techniques across several fields. We are also very close to running large-scale experiments in one field using the internet and applying it to other reallife domains.

>>>That we are. Oh, on the question posed to you, I would go the policy wonk route simply because it sounds more interesting. Smile

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Sat May 26, 2012 3:52 am

atcg wrote:running large-scale experiments in one field using the internet and applying it to other reallife domains.

a ted talk by esther duflo on performing randomized controlled trials/experiments to determine the effectiveness of programs in development economics:

http://blog.ted.com/2010/05/03/social_experime/

randonized trials have long been used in pharmaceutical drug testing, but only recently in economic development.

duflo is a professor of economics at m.i.t., a macarthur fellow, and co-founder - along with profs. abhijeet banerjee and senthil mullainathan, also a macarthur fellow - of poverty action lab. some of p.a.l.'s work is in india.

by Propagandhi711 Sun May 27, 2012 1:15 pm

Silicon valley has been made possible by the entreprenurial culture of california since the wild west gold rush days, the special brand of nonconformity that 60s countercultre revolution plus the endless supply of bright kids from world class universities....I dont this is changing anytime soon unless a major earthquake materializes.

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