Coach Thrasher

Silicon Valley Social Valuation

Wow, here's a juicy Silicon Valley bit: Michael Arrington is smacked down by Loic Le Meur at LeWeb for being American. This is really representative of my own experience here in SV as well. We take ourselves too seriously, as though nothing else matters besides work and our role therein. We don't develop the deep relationships that people do in other parts of the United States. When opportunities arise that require those deep relationships, we fail to identify them, or take positive action.

This concerns me, more now than ever. The world economy is down, and I strongly believe accelerating downward. Things (products) are getting devalued, yet economies like the United States have made strategic assumptions about consumerism, and are relying on people to buy more things to get us out of the mess. But that doesn't look likely to happen. We seem to have created a negative feedback loop: the less we buy to protect ourselves from the bad economic times, the worse the economic conditions get.

How is this related to Michael Arrington's smackdown? Well, I believe things that aren't material will have more value as the economy declines. One of those things is personal relationships. As such, I assume people that are morally or socially bankrupt will have a harder time than others, despite their absolute financial position. Unfortunately, the US, and particularly Silicon Valley culture, doesn't seem well positioned to take advantage of that value. We're not all bankrupt, but the perspective that Le Meur's post highlights is a point on the social gradient allowing a deeper evaluation, or valuation, of personal value than other neighbors in Silicon Valley allow.

Posted at 01:45PM Dec 13, 2008 by jason in General  |