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Are Silicon Valley's Glory Days Over?
Hugh Pickens writes "Pete Carey writes in the Mercury News that there are 'clear warning signs' that Silicon Valley has entered 'a new phase of uncertainty' in which its standing as a tech center is at risk and that decisive action by business, government and education is needed if the region is to retain its standing as the world's center of technical innovation. 'It could be that Silicon Valley has a different future coming,' says Russell Hancock. 'It's not a given that we will continue to be the epicenter of innovation.' Among the troubling indicators in the Silicon Valley Index (PDF): 90,000 jobs lost in the last two years; the influx of foreign science and engineering talent has slowed; venture capital funding has declined; per capita income is down 5 percent from 2007; and the number of people working as contractors rather than full-time employees is rising. Adding to the valley's problems is a malfunctioning state government that is shortchanging investment in education and infrastructure."
I keep telling these idiots that the first option you should look at when jobs are declining is to increase the importation of foreign workers but do they listen?
nnnnNOOOOOoooooooo....
Seastead this.
The synergy of government, university, corporation in Silicon valley
is glued there by one critical component -- the venture capital lives
down the block and they like to see how their money is spent --
daily. Perhaps others have more direct life experience but I've
definitely seen it in biotech.
As soon as the lure of big bucks goes away, tech will be a commodity
to be found in any medium sized city's office park. The cost of life in
CA is insane.
We are all in a global recession. As such, there are no "Glory Days" for anyone anywhere. I wouldn't count Silicon Valley out just yet.
My advice? Keep your current job if you can, and suck wind like the rest of us do.
Life is not for the lazy.
Does this imply that continually electing right wing governors and the like has a little bitty teenie weenie something to do with economies falling into the toilet? Could it be?
I believe you'll find it's bloated government spending that's bankrupt California. And I'd hardly call Arnie 'right wing', except perhaps by Hollywood's standards.
We're talking about California, what money?
Bad joke. If California were a separate nation, it would be the eighth largest economy in the world, right after Italy and before Spain, Canada, Brazil, Russia, India, and on and on. Australia is an entire continent, and its economy is less than half the size of California's. What Californians are pissed about is that we also have some of the highest taxes in the nation, and we have no idea where that money is all going.
Breakfast served all day!
And what people seem to not understand is that Americans bring unique skills to technology.
Whilst I'm sure America has great education and a skilled native workforce - this kind of superiority complex isn't really doing you any favours.
I do agree with you that Governments are vaguely accountable for distoring the workforce markets at the behest of large corporations - unfortunately there isn't an easy fix for that as the deck is rather stacked against the private individual in most western economies.
Part of the problem in Silicon Valley is that the venture capital community has become noticeably more risk averse than it was many years ago.
Looking at some of the Web startups that got funded in the 90s, I wouldn't describe the VC community of that era as "less risk averse" so much as "plain stupid." No sane person should have believed some of those businesses would go anywhere, yet VCs were playing a shell game, hoping some bigger company would come along to buy up their stake before the whole thing fell apart.
The role of venture capital should be to capitalize ventures, with the aim of creating wealth through innovation. Instead, VCs of that era were going for short-term profit, and many of them didn't seem to care what happened to their portfolio at all. As soon as they started getting impatient, they'd fire senior management and start dismantling the company in the most expedient way possible.
Breakfast served all day!
That's because Californians and Californian companies are some of the greediest mofo's on the planet.
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying we're mad because we have to pay taxes. We're mad because we seem to be paying taxes into a black hole.
California has a higher gross state product than any other state. It also has the highest income taxes and state taxes. Simple math will tell you that means California's income is higher than any other state's. And yet we are cutting social services, slashing development budgets, and letting roads fall into disrepair. Our schools used to rank among the best in the nation; now they're at the bottom of the list. Meanwhile we're funding a prison industrial complex fueled by misguided laws and private interests. The problem goes far deeper than "liberal policies" or "Republican greed"... the whole state government is broken.
I'm not the only one who thinks this, either. There is a concerted effort underway right now to call a constitutional convention to reform the state constitution. Californians will probably get to vote for it in November, and if they can, they will.
Breakfast served all day!
Policies that you can't argue against without putting yourself in an inferior position:
Patriot Act-->Who wants to be labeled as unpatriot in a time of grave danger?
Accounting by Fair Values-->Who wants to support "unfair" values?
Tax Relief-->Who the hell can be against relief?
etc; ad nauseam... The problem is that examples such as these are all complex laws with hordes of pages and technicalities, yet they sound FAIR, COMMONSENSICAL, HONEST, and with CA's direct democracy, Joe Average will be sucked into this type of framing trick.
I for one have always thought that ThePirateBay.org should change its name to "OurSharedCulture.org", or "AllHumanCulture.org". I REALLY Want to see a politician screaming on TV "We gotta shut down those bloody criminals from "OurSharedCulture.org"!!
this can only increase.
Until those bright and capable people get a cough and discover that their insurance is now $1000/mo and if they leave it they'll never get insurance again.
Then again, our company's group policy just increased another $100/mo (company pays half) to for a middle-aged male, excluding family. And to get that ONLY $100 increase, we had to raise our deductible and ER care now has a 50% coinsurance. 50%! Why am I paying for insurance if my first accident will drive me to bankrupty, when I could be spending that $225 on movies or something fun and just declaring bankrupty when I have an accident?!?
Oh wait, it's because I have MS and need about $2000 worth of drugs a month to keep me a productive member of society. Thank God I was employed and insured when I was diagnosed with it, even though I'll probably never be able to switch jobs again and the insurance company will probably just keep raising the rates until the company fires me to get affordable insurance again.
I'm sure contracting is great for young, healthy people. Just remember: you don't stay young and healthy for long. Enjoy it while you can.
You are right on target; I had some serious money to invest in a startup in CA, but the sheer humiliation involved with the immigration process just made me sick. Couple that with a sad growing xenophobic hatred for immigrants, from people with no understanding of economic change, and a firm belief that anyone not born in sacred american soil must not be as smart as them, as deserving as them. It's like Google and Yahoo, founded by *those horrible people==immigrants* do not employ Americans. I don't think for a second that SV is sinking; it will float because of its sheer brainpower, money, and network-effects magnetism. But the USA is--you can't live on borrowed money and think that no troubles will happen, ever. China has, with its 2+ Trillion of greenbacks, bought the USA, and it's just waiting for the receipt. F**k everything; my money is now on gold while I wait for the dollar collapse.
then your problem is the draconian, almost near feudal insurance system in usa.
Read radical news here
Either you'll have more HB1s inside America, or you'll have competition from abroad. This is a binary decision.
Err, no.
A 3rd way would be to scrap the H1B visa program and replace it with a visa that is officially an immigration visa, not a temporary worker visa. The way it is now, H1B visa holders are at the mercy of their employers if they want to immigrate because switching employers means restarting the green card process and the green card process generally works out to about the same duration as an H1B visa + renewal. So, switch employers more than once or after a couple of years and you are essentially guaranteeing that you won't get a green card. A fix to the system like that puts visa holders on an even competitive field with citizens which will serve to increase the bargaining position of all employees.
Long-term, that's better for the country anyway. We need to encourage the brain-drain into the US to continue as it is now, we've become less hospitable to foreigners and at the same time their home countries have become a lot more hospitable to highly educated workers. Changing H1B into an official immigration-path visa would go a long way towards tilting the scales back in our favor.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Dude, take your pick. Either you'll have more HB1s inside America, or you'll have competition from abroad. This is a binary decision.
Wow, this is so completely wrong that I'd think even Slashdot mods would see through the fallacy.
It's not a binary decision. The U.S. will see fierce competition from abroad whether or not we import hordes of H1-B workers during an economic crisis when unemployment is already high.
And if you think importing hordes of H1-B workers will "save" the U.S., you're a deluded fool. The main impediment to the U.S. competing is our cost of living, and no, importing a horde of H1-B workers won't help.
But of course, all of those 5.700.000.000 people from outside America aren't as smart or deserving as real Americans...
Ah, yes. You don't have a real argument, so you throw in an appeal to emotion.
Now I am fully aware that this is a fine and dandy way to waste some good earned karma, but sorry, it's much closer to the truth.
Good job, lock in your +5 with the old "I know this will get me modded down..." trick.