Silicon Valley Is For The Sheep, Michael
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch posted a bizarre rant today about people who aren’t in Silicon Valley. He claims that “if you want to change the world and are willing to do absolutely anything to achieve your dreams, there is no better place to be.” Bullshit, if ever I’ve heard it, and on a par with what Oliver Twist was told about London.
His argument seems to revolve around an opinion that you can’t be on the cutting edge of technology, or have your fingers truly on the pulse of the Web industry, unless you live within a 30 mile radius of Mountain View, despite the majority of interesting tech companies not being anywhere near the area. Indeed, Silicon Valley is practically 95% mediocrity and 5% excellence, a ratio little better than other cities such as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle or London. Just because many are under the false impression that Silicon Valley is “the” place to be in this industry, doesn’t mean the majority opinion is one to be followed. The truly great do not tend to the mean.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the Skype guys, the Google guys, Mark Zuckerberg, and even Michael Arrington don’t tend to the mean, and certainly didn’t in the early days of their businesses. Steve Jobs was walking around with sandals and long hair back when that was the total opposite of how someone in the industry was supposed to act. None of these people were successful by moving to the then “hot spot” of their industry, and people flocking to Silicon Valley now are missing the point in a way that these great people didn’t. Real success doesn’t come from being a sheep and being merely successful by copying what the majority does. It comes from thinking outside of the box and taking far bigger risks, like being in Seattle, Europe, or wherever. The majority view usually sucks.
But let’s get down to brass tacks.. Whose sole ambition in life is to be a big fish in the tiny, piddly puddle of “Web 2.0″ anyway? It’s an industry the average man on the street doesn’t recognize and it barely gets ay respect from the technical sector as a whole. Think bigger, think outside the box, and think in terms of how you want your life to work out, rather than just trying to be some hot-shot to impress people like Michael Arrington, because that’s not something you’ll be bragging about on your death bed.
Michael also argues that Europeans who’ve really got what it takes are flocking to Silicon Valley anyway. And sure, it’s great for the select few who can get the visas (that is, they already have the money or fame that they don’t really need to be there anyway - such as Loic Le Meur). The rest need to either get jobs (and then an H-1B, etc) or have a few hundred thousand to invest to get a temporary treaty trader visa. Hardly a great business decision when you can just run the business from Europe already. You also get the added bonus of not living in neo-fascist Fortress America. A nice place with mostly incredibly nice people, to be sure (at least, most of the Americans I know are great people), but with an administration, legal and business environment that frankly stinks.
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