Advancing on Chaos and the Dark

Business Week reports on Silicon Valley’s alternate reality:

In Silicon Valley, all the Sturm und Drang of 2011 seemed as relevant as the Cricket World Cup. High Unemployment? Crippling debt? Not in Silicon Valley, where the fog burns off by noon and it’s an article of faith that talented, hard-working techies can change the world and reap unimaginable wealth in the process. “We live in a bubble, and I don’t mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world,” says Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. “And what a world it is: Companies can’t hire people fast enough. Young people can work hard and make a fortune. Homes hold their value. Occupy Wall Street isn’t really something that comes up in daily discussion, because their issues are not our daily reality.”

The article goes on to question the long-term viability of an insular culture as a mechanism for continued innovation, something I think is worth questioning. The rest of the world lives much differently than the people in San Jose and San Francisco, and they need products and services that are unique to their own local circumstances. This isn’t to say that Silicon Valley is going to go bust, but rather that it isn’t the whole story when it comes to innovation. 

Roger McNamee, a longtime venture capitalist and managing director at private equity firm Elevation Partners, also wonders if Silicon Valley techies have grown insular. “Too many startups make products for people like them, which is predictable, but not interesting,” he says.

Herein lies the real question: does our relatively centralized system of higher education contribute to this effect? Should Chile and India and Brazil be sending their best and brightest to Stanford, to become absorbed in the Silicon Valley Alternate Reality to the point that they are no longer capable of solving problems in their own countries?

It’s worth considering.