“The federal government has been paying lip service to the idea that it wants to encourage new businesses and startups in the US. And this is truly important to the economy, as studies have shown that almost all of the net job growth in this country is coming from internet startups. Thankfully some politicians recognize this, but the federal government seems to be going in the other direction. With the JotForm situation unfolding, where the US government shut down an entire website with no notice or explanation, people are beginning to recognize that the US is not safe for internet startups.” Not an issue today per se, but if the US government keeps this up, they do run a risk of lobotomising their technology sector.
I believe this certainity comes from assumption that nothing commes even close to Sillicon Valley in terms of tallent pool, competitive atomsphere and innovation and other places are simply no competition. So the conclusion is that companies have nowhere to go anyway.
Poor assumption. Sure its true now but people aren’t trees, they can move. Silicon valley will be around a very long time but you’ll see its distinctiveness start to fall.
Especially since for allot of these jobs they don’t even need to be “at the company” to do the work, they can be anywhere that has a high speed line.
The quickest way for Silicon Valley to fall would be for another country(ies) to create a Silicon Valley like zone, streamline immigration for high skilled workers associated with said companies and then offer certainty that the US government isn’t. The chances of that happening is almost next to zero hence the US pretty much know they can keep pushing the envelop.
Silicon Valley not only need the right business environment but also talent as well – the only way I can see things changing is if, like I said, a country not only provides a great business environment but also an immigration policy that allows those existing employees to immigrate to the new said country where the business migrates to.
There are attempts at this in some European country every year. They even happen to be mildly successfull (creating somehow IT job market in cities that used to lack it) but that’s still a far cry from SV.
Edited 2012-02-20 08:20 UTC
Yeah, but do we need another over-hyped, overpaid, bullshit-producing region?
Well most Web business is generally not cutting edge silicon valley stuff.
80 percent of sites world wide are build in PHP and hosted on Apache and Nginx.
And these except Nginx go way back and except the hardware it’s running did not even have it’s origin in silicon valley.
Pro level PHP, Ruby, Python, ASP, JSP programmers is spread across the world.
Many sophisticated code open sourced.
Many plug and play CMS systems with thousands of plug and play modules.
Edited 2012-02-20 02:24 UTC
I can say having worked in silicon valley that what you find there are mostly prima donna’s many companies have even been driven out by SF’s socialist city government to relocate in southern California or Austin Texas
I’ve seen a new startup scene flourishing in Berlin. Keep an eye at this city as a possible future alternative.
But Berlin is in Germany, where they speak German. This is not an alternative for California.
I mean, there are a lot of startups everywhere. In my country (France), most of the Web is in French and comes from french startups and established players. There are some successful services that come from foreign countries, like Google and Wikipedia because they are translated in french and the french people are very close culturally from New Zelanders and USAers. In China or Korea, I doubt they use even Google. They have their own startups and businesses that cover their needs.
So no, Berlin is not an alternative to California. It is an impression you get from living in Germany. In the English speaking world, the startups are all in California.
SoundCloud?
Hmm, have you seen the rate at which German Higher Education is providing English-only courses? Do you realise what this means in terms of skimming off talent from the UK, for example, where the costs of getting a degree are about to skyrocket, not to mention internationally? And German, schmerman: if not entirely bilingual, Germany has a pretty high percentage of proficient English speakers, unlike some other parts of ‘old’ Europe. Germany also has a relatively booming economy and cannot fill the amount of vacancies it has, which means a further draw for the young and ambitious student/early-careerist
Compare that with France…sorry, this is not bias, it’s facts.
It’s not just the language. It’s also the culture.
Take for instance Paypal. This startup was successful in the US because there was a need for online payments there. Where I live (France), we use CB (carte bleue) for payment. We use Paypal only when paying on American sites. Paypal would not be successful if it was not American because it fills a need in the US that does not exist in Germany. Same for Amazon. In France we already have have book shops for French books (alapage.com, fnac.com, etc). Amazon is successful because it fills a need in the US. China uses Baidu instead of Google because it fills their need better. However, nobody use fnac.com, CB or Baidu in the US. That is why Baidu will never replace Google, fnac.com will never replace Amazon and CB will never ever replace Paypal.
Edited 2012-02-20 17:58 UTC
n’importe quoi…
Most CB are Visa or Mastercard, both of them being american companies… Paypal raised to fame by allowing payement between individuals (mostly for eBay). Small business started to use it because it was cheaper for them than a regular credit card. Also at the time, it was on the few services that allowed some “safety”, now most banks provide that service as well.
As for amazon, I am rather convinced there use to be book store in the US before 1995 when Amazon was founded… like Barnes and Nobles… Which is the “Fnac” of the US, whose “.com” version is limited to the US. The reason fnac.com cannot be successfull outside of France (and some european countries like Spain) is because it came too late to the game, now there is too much competition. Amazon was the first online book seller in the world, and they grab the biggest market share in North America and Europe. And there is simply no room for any other global player.
You have your history backward. Some people use Paypal nowadays because it was popularized by American sites. Most french sites accept CB instead. As for transfering money from people to people, using RIB is the most common method and it’s free. Those who use Paypal are idiots who don’t know better.
You say n’importe quoi.
You have a misconception of what is really happening in Berlin. I am brazilian, I do not live in Germany, I do not speak german, and yet I can use english to get in touch. The “official startup language” is english, and it should be that way anywhere for a long time if they wish to succeed internationally.
Also, I did not said that Berlin is a current alternative: it’s a possible future alternative. They are doing a good job, they attract talented people from near countries (including France) and they cost less than London, for example. Just keep an eye, please. At least it will not be a surprise for you when it’s stablished.
Well I doubt it will ever replace California for the reasons I mentioned above. The Germans do not have the same needs as the USAers. Some startup will be successful in the US, I don’t doubt it but most things that work in the US will come from the US, just as most things that work in China come from China. As a side note, the Chinese market will look a more attractive than the US one in the future. That is where the big money will be made.
Except the ones that aren’t like Spotify, Skype, Gitorious etc etc.
No honest company is scared away. I doubt even the automated crooked sites offshore are scared. But if one keeps stealing stuff they are bound to get caught sometime. The FBI did a sting on one of those Nigerian scam web sites and they had to get the crook to go to a country with extradition. As with more and more OSnews it is not anything to do with any news about operating systems, just some complaint about not being able to steal movies and music.
Edited 2012-02-19 17:35 UTC
Today’s sysadmin todo list:
0. Get corporate membership with EFF.
1. Identify all applications with user-generated content.
2. Move all associated domains to a non-US based registrar.
3. Migrate DNS, web serving and other critical services to non-US based servers.
4. Migrate yourself to a non-US controlled country.
I’m sorry for US sites and users. Your government is hell-bent on turning the internet into a read-only device like TV, easily regulated and controlled. The population will be required to sit quietly and keep their eyes glued on the screen so they don’t miss the ads, with any infringers deemed terrorists and pedophiles and thus deserving of summary punishment by DHS squads.
Hopefully the internet will route around the damaged segment, and the rest of us can continue to enjoy the amazing interactivity it has brought our society
> non-US controlled country
That’s getting harder and harder every year
I think your internet startup is safe if you don’t have anything to do with GoDaddy.
I don’t know much about Jotform, but it appears the site was taken down when it shouldn’t have been, and I believe there will be some fallout as a result.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Megaupload and The Pirate Bay. There are some situations where the safe harbor cannot and should not protect you. If you KNOW your users are doing bad things and you ENCOURAGE the behavior, you’re going to get owned by the Funk Soul Brothas. If you don’t understand the difference between these two sites, let me illustrate the difference:
It’s kind of like one of those seedy Asian Massage Parlors that spring up in my town every so often. Sure, you can go in there and get a massage, so the places are legit on the surface. But if you put enough money on the table and follow the right protocol, you can get a whole lot more than a massage
Of course, the owners know about this activity, and even advertise the fact in Craigslist and Backpage. And I for one think that prostitution should be legal in the US as it is in other countries, but I am never surprised when one of these places get raided, nor do I ever hear the owners try to argue ‘We’re just like every other massage parlor in town!’, when indeed they’re not. Although there may be other massage parlors in town where the girls provide extras, they would most certainly be fired immediately if somebody complained to the owners about it.
And THAT, my friends, is the difference. There’s something to be said about INTENT. Are you running a legit operation where some of your users just happen to do bad things? Or are you running a seedy operation where most of your users do bad things, and there just happens to be legit activity in the process?
Obviously, there should be warrants and stuff, with proper procedures being followed, which looks like it didn’t happen in the case of Jotform. But it’s kind of naive to assume you can just throw up a site and assume you’re immune by the safe harbor in every single case.
Whether for JotForm or MegaUpload, intent is notoriously hard to prove, and it seems to me like “proper procedures” include a charge, discovery and at least pre-trial proceedings with defendants present prior to just killing the site. They should have a right to make their case first rather than a judge hearing a one-sided pitch for a warrant. And if this happened, MegaUpload et al would have a chance to revisit their take-down practices in light of the charges, which would be more effective than closing one site and letting another one spring up in another jurisdiction.
I don’t think that is true if it has to do with the secret service. And it was reinstated not long thereafter once an investigation by the SS was completed.
This isn’t generally the baliwick of the secret service so SOMETHING was going on. Or they THOUGHT something was going on and we likely won’t hear all the details that it involved. We may here some details, but I wouldn’t trust that we are hearing all of them.
It just happened that this came after the other recent takedown, garnering attention of the same sort when I doubt the circumstances were similar.
That’s not usually how it works. I mean, in ‘the real world’, if your businesses is accused of criminal activity and you get raided by the cops, you are shut down immediately. You don’t get to run your operation while a trial is taking place.
Again, I don’t know what the process normally involves before somebody gets shut down and/or if all of these procedures were followed in Jotform’s case, but I suspect there is enough fallout in this case that we’ll find out one way or the other.
Since the site has now been restored, this is probably gonna be better for Jotform in the end; a whole lot of people (like me) who had never heard of Jotform are going to know about them now.
Well that’s great for you. But all the customers whose code broke because of this are pissed as hell. What good is it to get 10K new customers at the cost of 50K who leave. And bad remarks are far more damaging to most companies than praise.
It’s outraging that USA claims right to shut any website, or to process extradition of the citizens of OTHER COUNTRIES [from other country to USA].
How this is even [legally] possible? it’s so reduculous I can’t even find words for it.
And how can you make law based on law precedenses? for christ sake …
I’m just sick of this USA’s imperialistic way of being.
They can have whatever rediculous law they want, but I don’t want them to impose it on other countries.
Figthing terrorists? fighting piracy? bullshit! USA just wants to extort as much money as they possibly can limiting human rights to total minimum.
Outrageous.
Cuddoz Gentz,
I have the perfect place for the new Sillicon Valley.
ITS GREECE!! The perfect place for all geeks to go!
They will enjoy enormous IT projects when all the staff arrive plus the Greek Sun, Greek Islands and Greek Food.
No more rotten pizzas from untrusty pizza deliveries, no more sad weekends with the best thing to do is debugging your past programs from university! Every weekend you will able to enjoy trips in 2500 islands of greece, Cold Coffee called Frape or Fredo, swimming in clear water, and many sun on the beach for the ex SUN (Solaris) lovers!
You will only need to bring your swimwear and your slippers!
Also at no extra cost, you can have in every bar / club that is open every day from 12 o clock midnight till morning..
Why wasting your time in a sad place like Sillicon Valley? Come now to Sillicon Sea and live your life!
Bonus: Burn a building every weekend some bad law come to parliament!!
This is just a funny text, not to be taken seriously guys!
So..
LOL where you are!
Why cold coffee when you can have Ouzo:-)
Dude, where do I sign up?
Edited 2012-02-21 12:26 UTC