Tuesday, May 22, 2018

I think Silicon Valley is running on fumes.

There are literally no new products coming down the pike. Anything that CES had to offer would be hitting the shelves now. And unless there are people walking around with boxes around them or bitcoin mining which doesn't add anything to the economy there is basically nothing else. It's really depressing.

I saw an iPhone commercial last night in which it's best new feature was being able to take pictures of you from any angle paparazzi style. It's like people are monkeys in the zoo looking at their own reflection. I mean, remember when cell phones were a whole sector!?

It seems to me right now all funds have been diverted into completely useless shit.

I even saw someone from faraday future few days ago and they did not instill me with hope at all. I don't even know what their problem is. Just make a car and drive it around The Valley! Make it cool and people will buy it.

1 comment:

  1. Capital of Texas RefugeeSaturday, May 26, 2018 8:34:00 PM

    A different perspective from a different coast then ...

    "You're doing this kind of tech here? What about Silicon Valley?"

    "Does it look like we need their money? Our major investor is a Latin American bank, and they have more money than most of the Bay Area investors. They're not into this for the fast turnover, they're into this because they want in on the ground floor."

    The real Silicon Valley bubble is that y'all have been pitching each other on each other's projects, and so there's this feeling that there's huge support for what you're building.

    Meanwhile, there are these people who look like they have no support at all, with little to no media buzz at all, but they're being funded by billionaire banks very quietly because they actually have a use for the tech.

    Because most people seem to think that hype = success, there's this feeling that Silicon Valley is where everything tech has to be done, and perhaps that might be true for a certain kind of startup that needs eyeballs and users. But if the investor behind a startup is a bank that's going to push the technology down on the bank's depositors and users, then you don't necessarily need to ask for permission, only for forgiveness later.

    Tech that people eventually become obligated to use really can be done anywhere. The market for it isn't hype, buzz, or even acceptance, it's the companies and governments who have a use for it.

    You didn't see anyone giving a crap about that reusable chip card, did you?

    It sure did have lots of hype in the Bay Area, but the real buyers of chip cards are large companies, banks, and governments ... and you didn't see them feeling too bad about the bulk pricing of the individual cards, did you?

    That product might have had a market for the people who would have possibly become obligated to use such a thing, but they weren't the actual purchasers of the cards.

    How many nice-sounding projects are there in the Bay Area that sound great to end-users but that have no actual market in terms of people with purchasing power?

    I suspect it's quite a lot.

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