I had a similar conversation with my wife yesterday. I was telling her that so much of Silicon Valley seems to be focused on low-value work. The financial investments might pay off well, but the overall value to society is low. Having been an investor, I don't fault anyone for making those investments. But I wish there was more focus on other areas.
Another commenter made a valid point that there is a lot else going on, if you're not blinded by high comp. I guess that's true for both investors and employees.
There's a lot out there that doesn't work with the current VC model. Some of it is that there are great potential businesses that aren't going to be billion dollar exits. I think a lot of these are more interesting or worthwhile things to work on. There are VCs that will invest in those, but I think the amount of equity they take is too high.
Then there are a bunch of great things to work on that require lots of capex. These are also worthwhile and interesting. Other countries are making those investments, and we're going to be in a bad place by not doing the same.
People were saying the exact same things about the heavy industry boom of the 1950s and 1960s yet a lot of the technical advances of the time underpin our life today.
Another commenter made a valid point that there is a lot else going on, if you're not blinded by high comp. I guess that's true for both investors and employees.
There's a lot out there that doesn't work with the current VC model. Some of it is that there are great potential businesses that aren't going to be billion dollar exits. I think a lot of these are more interesting or worthwhile things to work on. There are VCs that will invest in those, but I think the amount of equity they take is too high.
Then there are a bunch of great things to work on that require lots of capex. These are also worthwhile and interesting. Other countries are making those investments, and we're going to be in a bad place by not doing the same.