Imagine every startup in the world moving to SF! The startup world will get trapped in a cycle of exorbitant rents/salaries and exceptionally high burn rates. This would mean that 'real' innovations would more or less die down and any company which is in an 'attractive space' and can raise money would be free to spend it on even more rent/salaries. Spending on ever higher rent/salaries so that they can 'compete' for limited resources. The situation has come down to '10 year lease deals' being the last option. The cycle will continue until we realize how we got caught in this trap in the first place!!
I would've had no motivation to move if people didn't keep telling me that I wouldn't be able to raise money because VCs didn't like to invest 'outside the bay area'!! I tried to reason with a partner at one such VC firm and he said 'that is how the world works'. Seriously?!! This is a guy trying to invest in innovation and yet is so oblivious to bringing innovation into their own sector.
It is not about Islam but about a school of thought which is not only 100% certain in its beliefs (Quran is the literal word of God) but also likes to impose it on others under the banner of "don't hurt our feelings". I've seen examples coming from Budhism (Burma-Sri Lanka), Hinduism (India), Sikhism (India), Christianity (UK-middle age Europe-African countries). People from even non-islamic religions regularly kill each other for hurting 'religious feelings'.
When someone 'hurts' your religious sentiments, you can't be sure whether it was done deliberately or for deeper reasons. I can see deep reasons in why those cartoons were published.
Anyone against free expression is kinda against science itself. Certain religions will never grow (the word of god is limited to Quran/Bible/Whatever) but science will keep growing. What happens when science ends up infringing on religious feelings? Will we be allowed to publish potential treatment for HIV found in a pig's liver in a sharia state? Even saying that "Charlie Hebdo" did something wrong is taking a step towards a world where science starts becoming bound. This sentiment can easily go out of hand in a matter of 100 years. A perfect example would be Pakistan. A supposedly liberal place 100 years ago ended up forcing its only nobel prize winning physicist into exile, defacing his grave and making sure more awesome scientists are not created. Because apparently, Dr. Abdus Salam (the nobel laureate) wasn't Muslim enough!! I wouldn't take even one step towards intolerance for the sake of our great-great grandchildren.
I'm not sure if I want to see any particular country progress as much as I want to see tech and the world at large progress. I also agree with the fact that when a lot of people skilled in one particular domain gather at one place, amazing things happen!! But would a small area 100% full of programmers be better or worse than something like SV? At what point does the innovative progress being produced by a city start to plateau? 25% full of high earning programmers, 50% full of high earning programmers, 75% full of high earning programmers?
The point that I'm trying to make is that, without a lot of empirical evidence, I think it would be a much better idea to try and create more such centers across the world. Thus, for those focusing strictly on tech progress (as opposed to American progress) it might be a better idea to let the US immigration laws be the way they are, while encouraging VCs to travel a bit more (even to other American cities, for starters) and helping the amazing culture travel to other cities. I can't understand why we focus on one particular country instead of combined innovation of the world!
The future doesn't lie in Silicon Valley being 100% full of programmers from across the world. It is just not big enough!! The future lies in a 1000 silicon valleys having a certain threshold of programmers. Just a thought.
Major public transport lines are decided based on how people travel. It would be safe to say that a well designed system would cater to 80% of the distance I travel on any given day. That leaves 20% for ride sharing if I don't feel like walking for 15 minutes.
So I purchased a nice toyota for about $15,000 about 4 years back. 600 miles per month, 25 mpg, about $100 on gas every month, about $1200 every year. Assuming that I use this car for another year, I paid out $3000 for every year + $1200 on gas=$4200 /year (I'm sure my car will last far more than 5 years).
Uber is about a dollar per mile. So every month I would have to pay $600, every year about $7200. You could try and hook me up with another person traveling the exact same route, but that is going to be a very uncertain thing even if you have the relevant technology. Even a small degree of uncertainty will lead me to buy a car.
Now if I used public transport, I would pay less than $1000/year. Plus, there wouldn't be much uncertainty. I think the world would be a much more efficient place if we tried to make the $1000 ride more convenient/efficient, than if we tried to bring down the cost of a $7200 ride (although I hope they can do it, would love to see how they do it).
I never said ride sharing is all doom and gloom, I'm just saying it will have a smaller space in terms of number of people traveling.
We already have a ridesharing system which is much cheaper than car ownership and that system is called Public transport. I'm not entirely sure how Uber could turn into a system cheaper than London's tube or Delhi's metro. Plus, these systems are raising far bigger rounds than the $1.2 billion Uber just raised.
Was Uber designed to be the cheapest form of transport? I doubt it. You have pure convenience on one end (car ownership) and pure cost saving on the other (public transport) on the other. The taxi system lies in the middle, so does Uber. Taxis will have a space in the transportation market, just not the biggest space. I might be wrong here!!
This figure might be wrong but the entire US taxi industry makes a revenue of $11 billion per year. Since US forms about 20% of the world's economy, we can assume the global taxi revenue to be $50 billion. Even if Uber takes in 20% from every ride, I can't imagine them possibly having more than $10 billion in revenue. Assuming Uber forms a 60% monopoly, they won't be making more than $6 billion in revenue. Kindly correct me if I'm completely off here.
One way for Uber to overcome this is to bet on the growth of the taxi industry in Asia. But, even in Asia, governments are pouring in massive investments into public infrastructure. When I visit New Delhi, I rarely end up in a cab because the public infrastructure isn't all that bad. Public transportation projects are coming up in even the smallest of Asian cities. If things go well, people won't need an Uber for most occasions because you'll have to wait 5 minutes for a bus/tube/{new disrupter}!
This is what might happen. Uber is going to have a massive IPO with a highly overvalued P/E (this is what the VCs are betting on). Then, after a few years, the market will realize that this world is finite, unlike their greed (have twitter's investors started realizing that?). What happens next is that everyone looses.
Uber deserves credit, just not this much!! There are other big problems the world must focus on. The short nearsightedness of humans is the biggest obstacle to our own growth.
I would've had no motivation to move if people didn't keep telling me that I wouldn't be able to raise money because VCs didn't like to invest 'outside the bay area'!! I tried to reason with a partner at one such VC firm and he said 'that is how the world works'. Seriously?!! This is a guy trying to invest in innovation and yet is so oblivious to bringing innovation into their own sector.
Sorry for the rant.