FRIENDS WITHOUT BENEFITS - BY DANIEL LYONS (Newsweek) THE PEOPLE WHO RUN FACEBOOK, the social-networking company, are furious about a new movie that takes lots of liberties in its depiction of how Facebook came into existence. They're upset because much of The Social Network, which opens Oct. 1, is just completely made up. That's fair enough. But the really interesting thing about this movie is that the story tells a larger truth about Silicon Valley's get-rich-quick culture and the kind of people-like Facebook's 26-year-old founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerbergwho thrive in this environment.
The Valley used to be a place run by scientists and engineers who focused on hard science and making things. At first there were semiconductors, which is how Silicon Valley got its name; then came computers and software. But now the Valley has become a casino, a place where smart kids arrive hoping to make an easy fortune building companies that seem, if not pointless, at least not as serious as, say, old-guard companies like HP, Intel, Cisco, and Apple. The three hottest tech companies today are Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga. What, exactly, do they do? Facebook lets you keep in touch with friends; for this profound service to mankind it will generate about $1.5 billion in revenue this year by bombarding its 500 million members with ads. Twitter is a noisy circus of spats and celebrity watching, and its hapless founders still can't figure out how to make money. Zynga, which makes apps that run inside Facebook, reportedly will rake in $500 million this year by getting people addicted to cheesy games like Farmville and Mana Wars, then selling "virtual goods" to use inside the games. Meanwhile, among some longtime techies, there's a sense that something important has been lost. "The old Silicon Valley was about solving really hard problems, making technical bets. But there's no real technical bet being made with Facebook or Zynga," says Nathan Myhrvold, the former CTO at Microsoft who now runs an invention lab in Seattle. Sure, there are still entrepreneurs and investors chasing serious technology challenges in the Valley. And Myhrvold says he means no disrespect to Facebook and Zynga, which have had clever ideas and are making loads of money. "What bothers me is the zillions of wannabes who will follow along, and the expectation that every company ought to be focused on doing really short-term, easy things to achieve giant paydays," Myhrvold says. His company, Intellectual Ventures, intentionally runs counter to the prevailing trend in Silicon Valley. The only problems it tries to solve are overwhelmingly difficult, like creating a new kind of nuclear reactor and developing technologies that could address climate change and eradicate malaria. By focusing an entire generation of bright young entrepreneurs on inane ventures, we risk falling behind in creating the fundamental building blocks of our economy. The transistor and the integrated circuit gave rise to the last half century of prosperity. But what comes next? "If we distract people with the lure of easy money, with making companies that don't solve anything hard, we're going to wind up derailing the thing that has been driving our economy," Myhrvold says. We've already slipped in areas like alternative energy, batteries, and nanotech. Instead of racing to catch up, we're buying seeds and garden gnomes on Facebook. This won't end well. -- This message comes via the Google Groups "Saligao-Net" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/saligao-net?hl=en Please post regularly to keep the e-village active!
