A VC - Latest Comments in Silicon Valley Arrogance

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

John Underwood — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:46:11 -0000

I think we can accept as fact that great innovation is often born outside the Valley.

So perhaps the better questions are:
- Why does great innovation so often end up migrating to the Valley (start-ups and entrepreneurs move)?
- Is great innovation more likely to be successful (usage, monetization, etc) by Valley or Bay Area or West Coast companies?

Not just theoretical for me: I'm a founder of a start-up in the Washington DC area with engineers in Argentina.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Steve Kane — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:46:05 -0000

hi roman

my point wasn't that great companies aren't born in Silicon Valley. Duh! I was just trying to make a nebulous joke about where the core concepts of the web were born. speaking of which, Google is mighty but it is definitely search 2.0, maybe 3.0. And Yahoo definitely did invent a cornerstone concept (indexing, not search) but i didnt include them because they *are* in the Valley. And yes yes yes of course about Andreesen and Clark and Netscape and KP. But Netscape didn't invent the browser. They commercialized it (God bless 'em!)

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

fredwilson — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:38:02 -0000

I've lived here since 1983 and have never even seen a gun!

Its the safest city in the us

Fred

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

vruz — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:45:52 -0000

if only for a matter of mere statistics, the most disruptive force, the new new thing is being cooked in the brain of a little kid right now...
(not in a big corporation, not in Silicon Valley, and possibly not in the US)

most likely a girl reading everything on the web, somewhere in Asia, but could also be African or Latin, or all of them working together.
as it's slowly becoming apparent as a result of an economy in an unnecesarily dire situation, Silicon Valley and Wall Street need a dose of humility and now really have to start getting smart.

is it any wonder why Linux was created by a finnish boy, and a 50% of Google is because of a russian guy?
look at the top of Forbes top-25 growth companies.

and it's only getting worse... or better, depends on your point of view.

as the fictional character Hubertus Bigend said in William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition"
"This business of ours is narrowing. Like many others. There will be fewer genuine players. It's no longer
enough to simply look the part and cultivate an attitude."

it all comes down to authenticity, and authenticity alone.
in photoshop and enron times, the only remaining thing you can't fake.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

daryn — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:44:34 -0000

Yesterday, when I read this, I was trying to think of how to respond. We have a vibrant web startup community here in Seattle, and while it isn't silicon valley in terms of scale, it is full of smart, rational people who "get it", with a different sort of attitude that you get down in the bay area.

Coincidental timing? Today, John Markoff has a piece in NYT called "Seattle Taps Its Inner Silicon Valley", which John Cook, one of our local tech journalists, addresses here:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsou...

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

janice — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:22:43 -0000

extra points for using the word "hubristic".

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

karina — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:20:09 -0000

lots of rus. specialists live in Silicon Valley. So the rest of them live all over the world. So Silicon Valley is not the the hub of the universe

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Carl Rahn Griffith — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:53:50 -0000

you think you've got ill-informed (hubris-esque) west coast perception problems, fred?

we are even further east than you in nyc - ie, yorkshire, england.

yorkshire. it's the new california.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Aidan Rogers — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:26:48 -0000

Is NYC as bad as it's made out on tv? I'm think of traveling there from New Zealand but don't really care to be shot.
Any advice? Is it worth going?

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

ekan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:47:23 -0000

I interned at Transmeta for a summer right before the bubble burst (2000). It was enough exposure to convince me I wanted to be in tech outside of the valley. It can be a challenge, especially in a small town of 35,000 in Indiana, but it's also got it's perks. And $.12/square foot rent is definitely one of them. As is walking to work. And owning a house without spending a fortune.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

sweller — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:00:57 -0000

loic -- I think I've been there... it's somewhere between Texas and Florida, right? ;)

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Alan Levy — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:46:06 -0000

Sometimes I wonder if it would have made sense move my company to Silicon Valley, hire a young gun(S), and try to get in the good graces of "those" in the valley. Then again, I realize that the biggest media companies, advertisers, publishers, bankers, publicists, journalists, etc have their offices 30 minutes from my house in NJ. :)

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Bryan Thatcher — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:15:48 -0000

As a New Yorker (born and bred), when ever I'm out in the Bay area talking about my product, I get snickers from the west coasters when they find out I'm from NY. or I get... your doing this, in NY?

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Roman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:51:58 -0000

Funny how in Search you failed to include Google and Yahoo!

In Social networking you ignored Facebook and myspace (not in the valley, but still west coast)

in blogging you ignored automatic and 6 apart

Seems like you manage to ignore all of the market leader...

and funniest of them all was Mosaic--Andreesen left Illinois to come to the Valley, and started Netscape with Jim Clark, a former Stanford professor, and the company was funded by KP... west coast, west coast, and west coast again...

No one is saying that there aren't good companies elsewhere--there are good companies everywhere. But let's not get it twisted, many more successful companies (especially market leaders) come out of the Valley that any other region, it's a fact and it's not a big deal.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Josh Guttman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:28:55 -0000

I'm still impressed by what a hot button this topic remains. We've had discussion threads in nextNY on these issues that have gone on for weeks with hundreds of opinions voiced. A strong business plan with passionate and committed leaders can be executed anywhere.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Josh Guttman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:28:41 -0000

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Josh Guttman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:23:38 -0000

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

fredwilson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:13:03 -0000

I am a big fan of your fine folks from NJ alex!

Fred

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

fredwilson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:06:02 -0000

Indeed

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

charlie crystle — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:45:54 -0000

doesn't really matter if you have distributed teams, or aren't in the valley but raise from there. we just did :)

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Jake — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:43:19 -0000

East Coast sports bias, West Coast tech bias. We have to live with it.

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

fredwilson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:30:01 -0000

I agree Joe

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

fredwilson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:23:01 -0000

I changed the title and added an update to the post

I feel badly

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

Steve Kane — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:18:05 -0000

my bad. my sincere apologies to the six degress folks, remember them well.

also, i forgot these categories:

consumer web
-------------------

AOL (Vienna, VA)
Prodigy (Fair Lawn, NJ)
CompuServe (Columbus, OH)

consumer e-commerce
-------------------------------
Amazon.com (Seattle, WA)
PriceLine

e-commerce platform
----------------------------
Art Technology Group (Boston)
Open Market (Boston)

ad networks/agencies
------------------------------
Yoyodyne (NYC)
Modem Media (Norwalk, CT)

Re: Silicon Valley Arrogance

awilensky — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:07:21 -0000

As a Boston transplant, I came to the Valley on a contract, and I am experiencing a lot of West Coast bias. No sympathy for Yankee devils.