The premise here is that Silicon Valley "works". What do you mean by "works"?
If you mean creating artificial wealth for a small group of already-rich folk, yes, it works. If you mean transforming one of the most naturally advantaged landscapes on earth into a traffic-choked sea of concrete where people do little more than work at creating new ways to buy and sell stuff, yes, it works. If you mean polluting what was once the most democratic communications vehicle available with social drivel and advertising, it works.
If you mean creating innovations that truly improve humanity, the Valley extremely inefficient. If you mean demonstrating that humans don't need a pleasant natural environment to survive, the Valley is on the right track.
The one thing the Valley works very well at is self-congratulation, especially among the wealthy.
>The one thing the Valley works very well at is self-congratulation, especially among the wealthy.
Yup, this is why everything that comes out of the Y Combinator's mouth should be inherently suspect: they have an incentive in romanticizing Silicon Valley because they profit off of your drinking the kool-aid.
>truly improve humanity, the Valley extremely inefficient
I think Intel, Google and Facebook have improved humanity though your tastes may vary and I enjoy Apple's shiny stuff. Those have a market cap of $1.4 tr and it's hard to think of anywhere else with similar output. Maybe like democracy it's the worse possible system apart from all the other ones?
Two of those, Google and Facebook, have made it their core business to prime humanity for a lifetime of exploitation of their privacy in exchange for so relatively very little. How the f is that "improving humanity"?
My life is quite a bit better because of both Google and Facebook, and I would say a significant portion of the amount of time I spend online touches one of those two entities. I really don't care that much about the privacy compromises for the level I use either.
My experience is at least somewhat similar for at least a half billion to billion other people, so I'd say their impact on humanity is "pretty large".
The Valley works well at convincing people that fake money is equal to the quality of real life. Market caps have nothing to do with happiness, health, and interpersonal relationships.
Market caps aren't fake money, a significant (majority?) portion is actually real money that has been exchanged in their name. It represents wealth.
My experience with family life is that happiness, health, and interpersonal relationships are generally much harder to sustain without some wealth. Not impossible, but harder.
If you mean creating artificial wealth for a small group of already-rich folk, yes, it works. If you mean transforming one of the most naturally advantaged landscapes on earth into a traffic-choked sea of concrete where people do little more than work at creating new ways to buy and sell stuff, yes, it works. If you mean polluting what was once the most democratic communications vehicle available with social drivel and advertising, it works.
If you mean creating innovations that truly improve humanity, the Valley extremely inefficient. If you mean demonstrating that humans don't need a pleasant natural environment to survive, the Valley is on the right track.
The one thing the Valley works very well at is self-congratulation, especially among the wealthy.