Until very recently I lived in Bodrum, Turkey. One of the things it's famous for is the castle in its bay. "Castle" in Turkish is "Kale" (pronounced as cah-lay, close to rhyming with "valley"), so I used to joke that I worked in "Silicon Kale".
I am sitting here rolling my eyes as I read this article. Really what it comes down to is that state's in general want tech because tech industries tend to bring in greater wealth and with economic wealth you have lower unemployment.
However, as a person born and raise in the Detroit suburb's, it's hard to imagine that Detroit or the surrounding region's would ever be a location for tech innovation.
You have a VERY large percentage of the labor force with no skill's beyond manufacturing (auto industry), heavy small business tax, a youth population that is migrating out to southern and western locations of the country, a non-premium climate (winter 8 out of 12 months), heavy labor unions, and no serious push from state officials to move internal perception towards an industry/economy of technology.
Until the state as a whole begins actively pushing for industry reform and SERIOUS incentives, Michigan will continue to follow it's current course which is very little tech talent, very few tech oriented companies, high small business tax, and very low incentive to start any type of innovation.
As another resident of the Detroit Metro, you make the world you want to see. To say you can't ever imagine the Metro being a location for tech innovation is crazy to me.
Detroit and Ann Arbor both have decent start up support structures and they'll increase with time and energy.
I highly disagree.
Beyond medical/bio, Ann Arbor is way to small to support any large scale change in the overall state market. While it does have it's own small footing, it has little resource to expand outside of it's own due to it's location. The location has corn fields to the north, west, and south. To the east...between ann arbor and detroit you have...Canton, Plymouth, Van Buren, Romulus, Taylor...all of those are heavy manufacturing communities.
Which goes on to my prior point. You have to change culture in order to do that. The culture of the state is manufacturing with some bio/medical (Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids).
Any innovation can really only come from 1 of 4 places... Detroit (metro), Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Grand Rapids. Ann Arbor has a small scene, but doesn't have the ability to grow without passing of that scene to a larger community. Lansing is primarily government and manufacturing. There is Michigan State University (50k+ students), but it's a school with a primary focus on agriculture and not techonology. This leaves Detroit and Grand Rapids.
In regard's to Detroit, let's think about it for a moment.
It is very much like taking the idea that you can easily change the culture and mindset of silicon valley from tech to manufacturing and industrial. The people in silicon valley and the surrounding area do not have the skillset as a whole to provide that type of industry. As well as through generations, the mindset of the people as a whole is not directed towards a manufacturing environment. This is what is going on with Detroit. You have had a VERY large portion of the economy (65%+) purely based on some type of auto manufacturing. This is why Detroit city is at around 20% unemployment and the surrounding metro is around 8-10% unemployment.
Now..this leaves us with Grand Rapids. Which actually is a viable candidate. It has a younger generation overall, an international airport, a moderately sized city with room for expansion, and a vibrant downtown.
Then..we have to look further at the ability to grow a tech environment. Is there the skill's needed? Are there investors available to fund companies in this area? Are there incentives to stay in the area?
In reality, all of those answers are relatively "No".
You can get better talent in a warmer climate with the same exact (if not better) opportunities (funding, viability, community backing, tax incentives..etc) in other cities with a better climate (yes, climate is really a big deal)...such as Charlotte, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle.
Unless Michigan does something drastic like being a startup tax-haven, having major incubators, or the like; it will never happen. Too many other places offer the same or much better, but in a more comfortable climate.
(In case anyone think's climate isn't a big deal, try moving to Alaska or Montana. They offer break's for startup's, but when was the last time you heard anyone taking those states up on their offers?).
"per capita" bro in a population of 100,000 people.
That could be 1 person giving a company (doesn't have to be a startup) a large sum, in which the per capita would sky-rocket.
The discussion isn't over whether someone can run a startup successfully in Michigan or Ann Arbor. The discussion is whether Detroit (or Michigan) can become a technology hub. After being born in Michigan and living their for 25 years, I can easily say that while there is deffinately the ability to build and run a startup, the ability to change the industry of the state (or even just Detroit) is really next to impossible unless the city/state was willing to go to drastic measures to attract talent/encourage startups (low/no tax, office space, incubators, free money startup capital...etc), and educate the public on their goal's.
Even is the state was able to give every startup no taxes for 10 years and startup capital, the response from the general public would be "why are you helping them?!, I am the one without the job. Why aren't you trying to attract more manufacturing?!"
While I love my state, it's not a viable place to build any startup. A high small business tax, and small talent pool that most state's face when asking themselves "how can we bring in more technology?"
Back to Ann Arbor...
It's a nice cozy city with a major university. In regards to work force, where are you getting employee's? From the college? That's like the valley pulling it's entire work force from Stanford. In regard's to a startup boom in Ann Arbor, where are the people going to live? The city isn't large enough for any large scale change. Can you build multiple Google's, Apple's, or Amazon's there? Is the city viably committing to building out it's infrastructure in order to have this be a silicon valley?
Building a startup is one thing, creating an entire industry is a totally different animal. The state in general is committed to manufacturing as it has been for 100 years. In 15 years there will be a new generation of politicians and then maybe we will see if the climate changes. However, I can assure you that from a bureaucratic level, there is no such strive for a "silicon valley" in michigan.
Simply put: people want jobs. They see the west coast. They see tech as high paying. They want high pay. They want tech. However, the cost of getting that is going to be much greater in monetary and sacrifice than people will/are willing to do.
"The region is plagued with astronomical rent and real estate prices, heavy traffic, and a hyper-competitiveness that leaves depression and anxiety in its wake"
The rent, real estate, and heavy traffic issues can be avoided with a little urban planning.
Look into Detroit, but the Triangle area of NC (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) is one of the best for startups, currently. Google just setup shop in Chapel Hill, there are plenty of startups in Durham and Raleigh, a number of major tech corps in the area, three large universities nearby, etc.
There is an ideology that silicon valley stands for and the reality of the place. Those two things may be very disparate concepts, but that's another debate.
I think the popular use of the silicon valley comparison is an attempt to get at the ideology rather than the reality of the place.
Well they don't solve "technical" problems, so I'm wondering what they are doing in Silicon Valley.
Or perhaps we should acknowledge that Silicon Valley these days is mostly about becoming the biggest brand in service-mediation, and running on external funding while making net losses year after year, and in the process pushing everybody else out of the market. It is not so much about technical innovation anymore. Look at how a lot of open source software is written in Europe and monetized in the US.
I'm fairly sure the staff of Uber would strongly disagree with you there. The logistics they manage must be vast. Dealing with the real-world is messy and hard.
Uber is the archetypical example of a Silicon Valley company projecting it's narrow US-centric-view onto the rest of the world.
From what I gather, taxi businesses in the US seem to be in the hand of Mafia-like criminal organizations. That's not the case in most Western-European cities with good and cheap public transport and well-regulated taxi systems.
If I can get from anywhere to anywhere at any time for little money already for the last 30 years, what's the point of a service like Uber, especially Uber with their shady business practices and aggressive stance towards established labour laws.
Singapore has a great, well regulated, honest taxi industry with ample taxis just about everywhere and a plethora of ways to order them from apps to call centres and taxi queues. Yet I find myself using UberX practically all the time except if there is literally a free taxi flashing green right in front of me (and even then I'll hesitate).
Uber offers me these small things that stack up:
- automatic transaction
- google maps destination (one less thing to explain to the driver)
- happy drivers, always
- slightly higher air conditioning temperature by default (taxis like to blast you with cold air and you have to ask them to put it up)
- lesser chance of a bumpy driver
- a chance to meet and chat with a new person, who isn't necessarily a professional taxi driver, and from that a fun life story or two
And that's enough to make me switch and even evangelise the service.
Then I go abroad and I get google maps "taxis" with no need to take out foreign cash, and it's warming somehow.
I live in Western Europe, and I welcome Uber after years of waiting 20-30m in the cold or torrid sun for a car that should have gotten there in 10m, getting berated for taking short trips, having friends and tourists scammed by drivers taking much longer routes than necessary, etc.
Their latest move - after getting a court order to ban Uber, which they fortunately were too incompetent to get right - was trying to leech tourists by asking for a flat fee for any trip starting at the airport that would be enough to cross the whole city.
Regulations protecting the safety of citizens (both inside and outside the taxi) might be necessary, and Uber should be punished if they violate them. But competition shouldn't be regulated away, and Uber for all its flaws has given a well overdue kick in the pants of complacent companies.
I don't know about the rest of Europe but in Scotland the taxis are definitely in the hands of gangsters. The drivers will tell you as much. I'm not sure what the reason is but I'm guessing it's because it's a cash-in-hand business that would be easy to use for money laundering.
Here's some real problems which Uber addresses:
- taxi services being run by organised crime
- taxis wasting fuel driving about looking for fares
- massive shortage of taxis on a Saturday night in the city centre
- having to wait on the street in a queue for a taxi rank, probably in the rain, in a crowd of drunk people
- people getting mugged/assaulted because they had to walk home because they couldn't get a taxi
- being totally surrounded by cars but unable still being unable to get from Point A to Point B
- owning a car and a drivers licence, being unemployed, and not being able to put your skills and capital goods to use
- taxi drivers not knowing how to get to your destination
- not being able to get a taxi because you don't have cash
- not knowing when your taxi is going to arrive
- not having any log of the fact you ordered and got into a taxi, in case no one ever hears from you again
Ironically in ex-communist Russia, they don't really have these problems because people apparently just flag down any car on the road and hitch a ride, probably for a little cash.
I'm pretty sure that creating a fleet of self driving cars operating on dynamic dispatch would have worldwide ramifications. But I see your point re public transport.
That must be a different company. The Uber I know is that evil company lead by incredibly arrogant *ssholes trying to aggressively price-dump taxi drivers (that don't make a lot of money to begin with) out of their jobs by employing-but-not-really-employing a cheap workforce without paying their part on the drivers insurances. Basically an illegal taxi business ;)
Yes, that's the story that people like Evgeny Freidman paint, when they started seeing their rent-seeking investment - buying medallions and charging drivers hundreds of dollars to rent them so that they could work - begin to drop.
The average rate a cabbie paid to take a taxi out for a 12-hour shift climbed 11 percent, to about $85, between 1990 and 1993 (...) In 1993, 32 to 45 percent of the income of a fleet or lease manager was profit, or $16,000 to $21,300 per car, up from $5,500 to $9,800 in 1986, according to the taxi commission.
Lease drivers rent the medallions, and usually the taxis, for a day or a week from their owners or a middleman. Depending on the owner and the night of the week, a lease driver pays $72 to $100 to take a car out for a 12-hour shift, or about $450 to $650 for a weekly lease. The driver must also pay for gas, at $15 to $20 a night. Drivers keep whatever fares and tips they collect, but they often start a day's work $100 or more behind.
Please don't take this as me defending Uber, I agree with your general sentiment, but your salient argument against them is a bit misleading. Almost all taxi companies in major cities in the U.S. use a similar "employment" model for the drivers. Honestly, the only major differences between Uber and the old school firms is technology, customer support, and ubiquity. Uber is no more abussive really to drivers and is also just as corrupt (maybe in slightly different ways, but still the same level).
Except then dynamic dispatch won't be fast enough, so they or a competitor will have a fleet of self driving cars driving around 24/7 most of the time empty so that there is always a nearby car ready.
The kind of market "efficiency" seen in the housing market where huge amount of property is left empty.
"Many articles and lawsuits have documented the region’s lack of diversity and history of sexism and sexual harassment."
Glass houses time! Michigan has the 10th highest female / male pay gap in the nation, it's been rated with an F by NARAL, and 47% of Michigan residents have no access to paid sick leave. I know it was a slick ding to break out, but if you're interested in making a distinction with California on inclusion of women and issues of sexism, michigan is lagging in this area by some key metrics. Maybe work to be done at home before worrying about other states.
There's even a wikipedia page for this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_%22Silicon...
My personal favourite (in an face-palmy kind of way): http://i.imgur.com/WKYF1o9.jpg