I generally agree with the author. I don't have hard evidence but basically feel that the culture, ethos, magic, whatever you want to call it is gone. Does this mean innovation is dead? Of course not! As the author pointed, it will just likely be more spread out.<p>Also, I think it's important to appreciate that the formation and growth of Silicon Valley was a remarkably special thing but was bound to eventually hit the diminishing returns phase of faster compute, faster internet, smarter software, etc. Silicon Valley started with a transformative and enabling technology (the transistor) and from there we built a remarkable hardware and software ecosystem over the span of a few decades around that technology. Those seem to be the two elements in order to 'replicate' SV: a transformative technology that spurs an ecosystem of technologies, all of which interconnect and benefit from each others innovation.
> Yes Amazon (which is not based in Silicon Valley) made online shopping better. However, it is fundamentally just another middleman, and will not stand the test of time.<p>Personally, I think Amazon's legacy will be AWS rather than online shopping. More than anyone else they've turned computing power into a utility. Like electricity this has made whole new types of businesses possible.<p>Edit: Still reading the article and want to note I don't mean this as a crticism. I'm really enjoying this story.
Reminds me of this quote from Michael S. Malone in The Valley of Heart's Delight (2002)<p>> When will it end? I knowingly predicted Silicon Valley's imminent demise in 1980, 1985, 1989, and 1994. Eventually, I learned my lesson. The rest of the media world obviously has not--regularly indulging in yet another paroxysm of features about how the Valley is losing its crown to Austin, Orange County, Bangalore, even Boise.<p>> Perhaps. All I know is just months after the last time I predicted the Valley's end, I found myself regularly having lunch in a Chinese restuartant in Campbell with two young entrepreneurs... The company they were building was called Ebay.
Whatever did I just read?<p>> <i>For example, Facebook is not an innovation. Facebook did not make socializing better. It made it worse. Was it at one point a new web site? Yes. Does it make money? Yes. But it is not innovative.</i><p>This is surprisingly hollow. Facebook took Instagram and WhatsApp and basically put it on steroids. Those apps couldn't have possibly been the behemoths they are now without Facebook's ample innovative, world-class sales, marketing, engineering weight behind it [0][1].<p>> <i>Next consider Amazon. Yes Amazon (which is not based in Silicon Valley) made online shopping better. However, it is fundamentally just another middleman, and will not stand the test of time. True innovation, like the silicon chip itself, stands the test of time.</i><p>No no no. Amazon is probably one of the most innovative companies right now. You don't go from selling books to building a wildly profitable IT Enterprise business to winning the Emmys by resting on your laurels or being complacent.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJl27KvUDn0&t=34m47s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJl27KvUDn0&t=34m47s</a><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18065897" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18065897</a>
I admit I'm not the most poetic of people, and often have trouble reading between the lines or finding deeper implications, but this:<p>> I would put the precise date as November 7, 2012, the day Dustin Curtis published his infamous blog post “The Best”. [...] When I first read it I thought it was brilliant satire. Then when I realized he was serious, I decided to leave myself. Dustin and his ilk had completely perverted the message of Steve Jobs.<p><i>completely baffled me</i>. I don't get this, at all! I read that mentioned post, and it looked to me like an appreciation of working for quality that went beyond simply producing goods to be sold. I feel weirdly stupid because I cannot figure out what TFA is trying to imply there.
I thought that this article was going talk about how 2020 broke apart SV and caused everyone to scatter. But to say it was 2012? No way. That totally misses out on Uber, Stripe, Coinbase, Lyft, Plaid, and many more.
Interesting how polarizing this article is.<p>I loved it and his writing style, I agree that it's rough premise and although there are counter arguments e.g. Stripe/Uber/Coinbase I think the overall argument is correct, the culture has changed.<p>But it's interesting to see so many argue that this is written in a self-aggrandizing, self-important style. Generally I agree with those people when it comes to LinkedIn style articles etc. e.g. [0] is a prime example.<p>But this one really resonated with me and comes across as extremely genuine hence my surprise at the reaction.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24901940" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24901940</a>
> [Amazon] is fundamentally just another middleman, and will not stand the test of time. True innovation, like the silicon chip itself, stands the test of time.<p>> Most importantly, Tesla continues to innovate.<p>I'm not sure what his definition of innovation is, here. Both Amazon and Tesla took existing technologies and ideas, put then together in a novel way, and iterated on them. Is it because Amazon (excluding AWS) doesn't build something physical? And if we include AWS, how can you argue that changing the way software infrastructure is managed <i>not</i> innovative?
As the author of The Best, I am quite surprised and confused by Rhinehart's suggestion that the piece marks the "death" of Silicon Valley. He does not seem to understand me or what I was saying at all.<p>Also, "my ilk" are the very people he praises, including Paul Graham and YC founders pre-2012. I'm tempted to write a rebuttal, because while I agree that there was a marked change in the startup community around that time, I think it happened for reasons very different from the ones Rhinehart outlines in his piece.<p>(For reference: <a href="https://dcurt.is/the-best" rel="nofollow">https://dcurt.is/the-best</a> )
I think one more reason is leaders who are leading nowadays compare to older times of around 2010... Leaders today want quick results, Fail-fast. These management graduates leading companies today, don't understand empathy, research investment, innovation. They don't encourage grass-root employees to spend time on their own choices and innovation.. everything had to be justified by business and ROI.. innovation is just a bucket and used to showcase to senior leadership..
I hadn't thought about Rob Rhinehart a while. He inspired many of us back in 2013 when he founded a company to solve the food problem with the engineering mindset, and all the innocence that entails. Today his blog looks like rallying cry for all the nails that got hammered down. It's very inspiring and some of this stuff takes a nontrivial amount of courage to say. He can be my movement leader any day.
> and got acquired by an advertising company<p>lololol<p>I just can’t tell what time period he is talking about<p>When was he there to watch it fall?<p>2019-2020 finally had companies moving offices into parts of the bay that many more people actually wanted to be in<p>Leave the bay area and good luck finding people to talk about some obscure package that is going to soon become treated like a unique skillset requiring years of experience
I just can't understand why someone would put so much effort into writing this. I almost stopped myself from reading it but I decided to read it anyway. I regret it. I think this same essay has been written millions of times (of course for things other than and probably more important than Silicon Valley). It's definitely been written about Silicon Valley at least once before.
As an Indian citizen in Silicon Valley who has also lived in many other countries, I would say that SV will go through lots of ups and downs (it should) but a long term bet on SV will generally pay off.
I would put the date earlier, around 2007, leading up to the great recession. I'm basing that on the vibe of the city (San Francisco), and how it took a nose dive afterwards, and never recovered.
> there is nothing special about the resources or geography of Silicon Valley that makes it particularly amenable to innovation<p>Colleges and universities?
The more interesting point for me is how the people and the politics have changed. I don't see as many hardcore geeks who breathe the stuff as a I used to, and the politics have got from more libertarian to progressive. Maybe it's just the scene growing up?
> I also learned that the biggest LPs were pension funds. The money was going to the government! Many of the Venture “Capitalists” were actually agents of the socialist pension funds<p>Snort.
tldr; The (long) article is simply wrong.<p>It's true that the startup hardware scene in SV died around 2012, since VCs don't like the risk or long timeframes, but that just means more software startups.<p>As an illustration, if you live outside SV, try telling your friends and family, "I'm quitting my day job to start (or work) at a startup" and watch their reactions. Especially in Europe or Asia.
Flagged because the author said Biden's son killed himself in his previous post. I don't think that's ad hom. It would be if he'd said it a long time ago, but it was 5 days ago.