Other challenges to SV’s preeminence are more fundamental than the tech diaspora
The article reminds me somewhat of an earlier O’Reilly piece, which taught me that the man’s got a bit of  social consciousness in his critiques of SV:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23657403" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23657403</a><p>I suspect the Pollyanna tone is why people aren’t actually engaging with the material in it. Applying machine learning to medical science is indeed exciting, but it’s hard to envision what exactly is the product that causes “The nexus of machine learning and medicine, biology, and materials science will be to the coming decades what Silicon Valley has been to the late 20th and early 21st century.” Not to mention, I would wager most commentators are not equipped to address his point about SV being unable to deal with medical regulations, seeing as there’s been medtech startups that have already attempted to flout FDA regulation.<p>&gt; The hubs where that knowledge can be found are not the special province of Silicon Valley<p>Isn’t South SF a biotech hotbed?<p>His points about regulators actually doing able something substantive towards big tech platforms, and the end of “casino capitalism” also feel too Pollyannaish for our current lamentable moment. Maybe it has to all get worse before it’s foreseeable.<p>O’Reilly certainly calls it out as he sees it with the social commentary:<p>&gt; When the “superstar firms” ruthlessly compete with smaller firms that come up with fresh ideas, not only starving them of talent but often introducing copycat products and services, there is decreased innovation from the market as a whole. Cities are dominated by a new class of highly paid big-company employees driving up housing costs and forcing out lower wage workers; wages and working conditions of workers in less profitable industries are squeezed to drive the growth of the giants. Their very jobs are made contingent and disposable, with inequality baked in from the beginning of their employment. Governments are starved of revenue by giant companies that have mastered the art of tax avoidance. The list is far longer than that.<p>Honestly, this article’s a great read.