The cognitive dissonance humans are capable of is amazing. To actually say “We would never allow that in our town.” in the pejorative while flying back from a trip specifically meant to learn how to be like another town.

If you’re not going to act on an author’s central point, don’t try to do any of the other parts (they’ll probably actually be harmful). If you’re not going to copy the central parts of something successful, don’t bother copying the other stuff.

The recipe for success of Silicon Valley is pretty straightforward. It has great colleges, great weather, and weak noncompetes. So people go there to start companies. And now it has a compounding cycle of attracting capital, founders and talent (recent events aside).

But a government employee from Boston can’t say that, cause they can’t do shit about it. It’s not like they’ll fix the weather or the noncompetes (too many entrenched medtech companies to change that now).

So they’ll say “they have accelerators!” and open a city sponsored accelerator and maybe some successful company will pop out in the next ten years.

> The recipe for success of Silicon Valley is pretty straightforward. It has great colleges, great weather, and weak noncompetes.

There are a couple of interesting things about these comments.

#1, nobody knows which parts of an ensemble of practices are the central parts. It's quite true that, because of this problem, people just try to copy as much as they can.

But then we lead into #2, your comments on the recipe for success. Among your central points, literally placed in the center, is "great weather". That can't be copied. You have the weather you have. What should the other 99.999% of the world do? Is there even a point in trying?

Well, the weather probably is a comparatively small factor, but nonreplicable geographic factors are actually a major factor in the success of most economic hubs, including the Bay Area (aesthetically great weather is one, but a great natural port area, and proximity to abundant agriculture, are also factors.)

Yeah, you can't copy some of those things. Geography matters, it always has.

Way too hot, hazardous weather, impossible to get around (crazy traffic congestions, no useful public transporation, bicycling being suicidal), have to go to Home Depot to get real Coca Cola.

Overall quite "meh".

it's united states overall, so it doesn't really matter.

>> crazy traffic congestion

It matters. I once pulled out of the Sutter-Stockton garage and sat in traffic for a full hour without getting to the end of the block.

Now it's SV despite all that.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Mediterr...

...or more likely, the weather is not a critical issue.

My intuition says that Silicon Valley wouldn't be possible in a beach town nor in a place that's too cold or too hot, simply because of how much the weather would distract you from work. The great thing about the weather in the Valley is that it's pleasantly bland (or blandly pleasant?).

But I think it's very likely that the weather doesn't matter at all if you don't already have some equivalent of the Stanford-Berkeley nexus and California labor law and a lot of very rich people willing to make high-risk investments.

As to “Is there even a point to trying?” No. No in two ways, in decreasing confidence.

Places that don’t have all the parts definitely shouldn’t try to copy Silicon Valley. If you can’t do things the way that they did them then... don’t try to do things the way that they did them. I don’t know how to express that without being circular.

Should any city try to become the next Silicon Whatever* at all? No, probably not. That’s simply because I don’t think there’s a city government in the world capable of doing it. Maybe there would be some benefit in the attempt, but I’m guessing it would be outweighed by the cost. It’s just not the kind of things governments actually do.

*btw all those names make feel a bit ill. Does no city’s Chamber of Commerce see the irony of branding themselves as an innovation hub by copying another city’s nickname?

Editing in more.

> #1, nobody knows which parts of an ensemble of practices are the central parts. It's quite true that, because of this problem, people just try to copy as much as they can.

I don’t know. I think sometimes people know. At least try. Like maybe my description of Silicon Valley is totally wrong. But at least it’s logical and you can choose to follow it or not.

And if you’re going to follow someone as a guru (like the tweet I linked to) then follow their belief on what’s central. And if you don’t agree then don’t follow them! Because you wouldn’t be following them anyway. You’d be following some hybrid half version of them that you created yourself.

I think things get all fucked up when people half follow systems. It’s fine if you take a tiny cohesive piece, like folding your shirts differently cause you saw Marie Kondo do it that way. And it’s fine if you go all in on Tidying Up. But when you rip through every item you own and end up with a giant pile of non-joy in your apartment that you never actually get rid of, you’re fucked. (If anyone is getting Agile flashbacks, I’m inspiring the right vibes).

Don't think it's particularly startup-friendly though.

He spends a good part of the book complaining about french research, which does not care about products impact and thus is very theoretical, but also about the heavy hand of the government in dictating where innovation happens.

He also talks about Sophia-Antipolis. It started with a boom, and a lot of tax credits to incentivize corporations. But after the subvention dried up, many companies left. It seems to me that most of the companies left do not have innovation in their DNA.

My description of why Silicon Valley happened was also based on it being in the US. I don’t think Silicon Valley happens without the rest of the US (obviously this would be so different it’s hard to compare).

I guess my point is that I was saying why the apple grew on this particular branch, and you’re asking why this other tree didn’t grow any apples at all.

"The employee non-compete clause shall hold for the greater of:

1- 6 months

2- 12 months

3- 18 months

4- 10 years

5- Until son of the son shall climb Mt Doom and steal the emerald eye from the statue of Xxyctl."

A court then crosses out the single lines that it finds offensive.

What is known to be unenforceable is restrictions on use of general professional skills. The particular IP of the non-compete must be identifiable and recorded (on an ongoing basis as part of a process), rather than vague knowledge of business secrets.

Im sure there are lots of other reasons too, any 1-1 comparison would be unfair given the differences in culture and overall direction of the societies.

I think the last point is the most important one. It also took a lot of government/military/intelligence funding to get the ball rolling, and a time where the government/military/intelligence wanted to fund specifically that, something you cannot simply copy. The weather, local culture etc were available before, but SV didn't become a major player before all the stars aligned just right.

He changed industries.

If everything else goes south, the client sues the lawyer — and the best defense is “here’s where I said that might happen.”

Spot on. EDIT: On further thought, there's a wrinkle, which is that NOT being super-conservative can be good marketing for a lawyer. In a 95% confidence situation, consider the lawyer who tells the client, "here are the pitfalls, but IMHO they're an acceptable business risk [one of my favorite formulations], so if you want to do it, then go for it!" That lawyer is likely to have a happy client who, if asked for a recommendation by a third party, might refer the third party to the lawyer.

(Of course, this presupposes that the lawyer has enough experience to be able to confidently weigh the business risks — and that a 5% disaster doesn't befall the client.)

Ultimately though, there is an important thing that GP’s friend missed out on. Lawyers do not tell you what to do, rather instead they advise you of risk on what your options are. It’s your responsibility to decide how much risk you are willing to bear.

Example: Many years ago, on the afternoon of the last day of the quarter (when lots of business gets closed for financial-reporting purposes), a software-company client's VP of sales — with whom I'd worked for years — called me and described a situation, saying "the customer wants to change our contract to say X." I asked a couple of questions and then said "there's always the possibility of Bad Situation B coming up, but it's unlikely, and it'd be manageable if it did — go ahead." The VP said "Thank you — bye!" and slammed down the phone. (That VP went on to CEO positions at two other companies and uses me to this day.)

I agree with it completely. But I've been doing this long enough that I'm not embarrassed about telling clients what I think and what I'd do if I were in their shoes, and my clients aren't the sort to just passively do what I tell them.

(It also helps that I've been a solo public-company general counsel — meaning that for a number of years I worked very closely with sales people and became acutely aware of the importance of getting deals done, as opposed to just identifying and flanging up risks.)

  >The recipe for success of Silicon Valley...

no silicon valley equivalent in sight tho

so I strongly suspect the whole thread so far it's projection and wishful thinking.

So it's not just the current conditions, need to look at history as well.

I think governmental and banking stability has hurt Italy in this regard but I am certainly not an expert.

[1] https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/technology/pdf/how-governments-fos...

Even the Enlightenment saw itself as largely backwards-loooking, again inspired by antiquity, this time in more philosophical terms. It's only since the industrial revolution that the framing has started to be more about "innovation towards the future" than "reclamation of past glory".

Also, we tend to take things we’re familiar with for granted, and overlook them when comparing different societies. So of course, ancient civilisations were terrible for other reasons, but still...

Medieval artists knew things far away are smaller, they did not knew all paralel lines have to go to one one point. But 3-point perspective is just another formal choice, simplification.

the push from local industries to large conglomerates to global multinationals was sustained by a strong economy and easy access to large banking institution that could finance their operations at reasonable risk for themselves.

the small local banks in Italy could never sustain such a growth, and production remained local, with few notable exception.

sure politicking, corruption and mafia had a part in it, as they will reduce competitiveness of a company compared to others having none of such issues (i.e. the state deciding where to build factories based on unemployment and not efficiency) but a large enough company can absorb that in the bottom line and continue operating.

Medium companies are, however, completely suffocated from this.

the Italian startup stagnation is more confounding, but my personal belief is that it's likely a result of the absurd taxation the middle class gets. It's basically impossible to build up any saving to start entrepreneurship around here, as everything in welfare comes from the middle class. And existing entrepreneurs have little incentive in branching off to new unexplored areas. Without the fuel and ferment from solo founders making it, there's no culture and no substrate to fall into if a business fails. Everyone is just grabbing at their own chair, hoping not to be knocked into poverty by the next round of financial crises.

That said, this "my personal belief is that it's likely a result of the absurd taxation the middle class gets. It's basically impossible to build up any saving to start entrepreneurship around here" reminded me that many of the people who start new companies in the Bay Area have often accumulated a bit of wealth from the equity sale of the previous company they worked for.

For example, estimates vary on how many millionaires Facebook created when it went public and its stock value grew, on the low side it is a one to two thousand. Of those, over 200 according to Crunchbase have founded or co-founded new companies on their own. I'm more familiar with Sun Micro since I joined the day after they went public and was in the first 2000 employees. Of the 1999 that came before me, over half started new companies. At least 8 that I know of became general partners in VC firms that went on to fund hundreds a companies. There are also outliers like Eric Schmidt who got both the Sun boost, the Novell boost, and then the Google boost after that.

The point being that spreading out the success of a company widely is likely a big component as well.

“Well then, sue me” is as middle-finger as it gets when quarreling with underhanded competitors or non compliant parties.

Getting justice - whatever that is, in Italy laws constantly change to favor whatever is the current favorite in power - is an such an excruciatingly long process that most will just give up and take the loss.

On top of other issues there's the fact that once SV is established somewhere, it turns into a magnet for all the new startups.

it is readily apparent that the success pillar from silicon valley were not these three.

From what I can tell, Italian universities churn out some really great programmers, which mostly end up moving to other countries where it's easier for companies to actually run. Kind of a shame -- in addition to climate, Italy has food and history going for it as well.

alumni average results and achievements will vary a lot, because of open access, and population size and economic stagnation would screw other metrics like employment rate, wages etc. other metrics like staff size are pointless as well, unless maybe proportioned by participation over population size, and then one would need to carefully define what each university catchment region it.

...and promptly relocate to Silicon Valley.

Massachusetts certainly can't do anything about winter although by "great weather," depending upon your preferences most of the world is pretty much screwed relative to the Bay area.

But great schools relative to the Boston area? They're probably as good overall.

And, while California has particularly weak enforcement of non-competes, Massachusetts recently weakened non-competes and, in any case, there's a pretty long history of people moving among tech companies in the area. And many companies in the Northeast don't have non-competes.

[1] usually this means a mix of #patents filed, number of phds/100,000 and r&d expenditure/gdp. Not sure how you would rather measure the success of silicon valley to set it apart.

That is not cognitive dissonance. They flew in trying to learn how other town achieved goal. Once they know, they are still allowed to dislike the method or part of it.

But also, I don't the the non competes are the key part, because many parts of the world have weak non competes too.

1. It's not like CA doesn't have NDAs, trade secrets, anti-poaching, IP restrictions, etc.

2. It's not like everyplace else in the world (or even in the US) you're an indentured servant who is never allowed to move to another company (occasional man bites dog headlines about a fast food worker notwithstanding)

How is that not cargo-culting?

What a poisonous attitude.

- You allow Trade Unions in your company? But how do you keep their noses to the grindstone?

- You have workers representatives on the board? How, what, where ... that's crazy !

Of course regulating to force this to happen often has unintended consequences, but then ending non-competes in Wisconsin might not lead to the next Silicon Valley either.

But we should still do it.

(I think my best explanation is that I don't look like Chris Hemsworth, but eating healthy, regular exercise and good lighting in photos will certainly improve my situation, even if the "next Silicon Valley / film stardom" is not within reach. )

He needs to flip that around... why would any employee agree to be hired when they can't leave, and can't work on things in their own time?

He doesn't understand that in this industry, it is the workers who are in short supply, not the capital. The best companies go to california and play by these rules because the best workers want to work by those rules.

In Poland non-competence exists too, but in theory - it can last one year at most and employer has to pay 25% of the last employee income (missing a single payment invalidates clause), so, giving the trouble of paying, handling accounting, etc. companies rarely use that (oddly enough, if this clause is used, it is used for sales people) and I don't see another SV build anywhere here.

Texas Instruments was also heavily bankrolled by the military and NASA, just like Fairchild. The godfather of venture capital in America is Don Valentine, who founded Sequoia Partners in 1972 - after working for Fairchild and National Semi.

There are other places that have good universities and access to capital, like New York City and Boston. Plenty of government spending has gone to tech companies there too. They have noncompetes, we do not. They certainly have their successes, but not to the same degree as Silicon Valley.

Which my understanding is you can absolutely do in California as well.

And still, we don't have anything near to SV over here.

You don’t? I mean, Germany is a technology powerhouse, with arguably the best engineering sector on the planet. It just has a different set of technology products than Silicon Valley.

If I were a public policy leader interested in building a more durable, equitable economy for my citizens I would gladly choose the German model.

- TVs: Went first to Japan and then Korea then China

- Cameras: Went to japan

- MP3: Went to the US

- Cars: We totally missed the trend to EVs

- Big engineering projects: Pretty bad track record so far, e.g. the Berlin airport. German companies are still supplying components and sub-systems to these projects worldwide, but they are rarely the general contractor anymore.

It would be nice to see that being changed, but everything that is new tech just seems to be an unsurmountable obstacle for a lot of German companies and institutions.

I'm happy with invalid not competes, but equity? How does that protect startup X against poaching from an already very successful company like Apple? They can offer (example) a real million now against the promise of millions in 2025. Or real millions against promised millions.

And even for real money vs real money they can outbid the startup easily.

Even today restricted stock grants (RSUs) serve the same purpose and act as a multiplier on compensation which is "better" if the company does better and "worse" if the company loses out to competition.

For “stuff you do at home” is there any limit to that?

Like if I’m on my own time and my own computer/internet, and I worked at say, a search engine company, and I made my own search engine in my free time (a huge project, but we’re talking in hypotheticals here)

Would my current employer in this scenario be able to sue me?

What if it’s “my own time” during the day, but I’m working from home and I switch from my company’s work to my own for 20 minutes before going back to my employers?

What if the project is only tangentially related?

> Would my current employer in this scenario be able to sue me?

They can always sue you even if it unlikely they would win.

> What if it’s “my own time” during the day, but I’m working from home and I switch from my company’s work to my own for 20 minutes before going back to my employers?

> What if the project is only tangentially related?

You should speak to a lawyer. It will depend on the details and your exact employment contract.

I live in the southern U.S. Non compete clause are 100% enforceable here, and have a ton of case law backing them. I generally won't take a job if it requires me signing it.

I have more than 20 years of experience, and I personally feel I am far more likely to bring knowledge to them rather than then providing it to me.

(Self-cite: A flow diagram with statutory citations at https://www.oncontracts.com/docs/Who-owns-an-employee-invent... )

But if say your an amateur musician your day job employer has no lien over your compositions.

I guess it would be an easy trap to fall into, but you would hope that someone going to the trouble of trying to learn about how another place did things would be a little more receptive to unexpected things.

They seem like a decent middle ground between all parties interests.

While you could rent GPU's in 2015 from AWS the competition could not deliver a GPU without calling it Alpha until the end of 2018.