Valley Still the Center of Tech Innovation

Via The Mercury News, Valley still the center of tech innovation

Social Sqeeze

“Silicon Valley is rapidly becoming to technology what Manhattan is to banking, finance, publishing and advertising: a head office, employing only the highest-paid professionals. Production and back-office administration are done elsewhere. [...] Manhattan’s population is either very rich or very poor, with a middle class that commutes into the city. [...] Silicon Valley is in the middle of a similar squeeze.”

The Emergence of the Creative Class

“The new jobs instead come from start-ups, a few at a time. Because it’s so expensive to do business here, the start-ups only put the chief executive, researchers and top marketing executive in Silicon Valley. Everyone else is hired in Sacramento, Tel Aviv or Shenzen.”

“Despite the economic problems the San Francisco and Bay Area region has suffered in recent times, it has more than held its own as a leading knowledge economy when compared with its counterparts.”

What this means to me, at the risk of sounding harsh: Outsourcing is a good thing. If software can be written more cost-effectively in Hyderabad, then software-writing jobs should move there.

The vacant cubicles in Silicon Valley will soon be filled by workers performing tasks that are more important — and more economically valuable — than what came before.

Related: The 2003 Siliicon Valley 150