Just a way to reinvent the wheel. Call it something new. Argue it as their own intellectual property. Demand copyright and patent protection in perpetuity. Then start collecting royalties on everyone in the world who uses a wheel. All laundered through the legal system of coarse.
Like, the quantum computing stuff is mostly just bullshit, and beyond quantum their deepest thinkers are mostly shameless but dim. Is there actually something real?
I went to SV when I decided to start a quantum software company. At a ‘deep tech’ event, I got asked why I couldn’t just get an LLM to design quantum algorithms. Many such encounters - I could write a whole essay on it! I left after a year.
Quantum computing, sensing, communication, and other stuff are real. But, like everything, sometimes get overhyped.
Silicon valley has gotten a decent case of Dunning Kruger going on, no doubt of that. Lots of breathless hype for trivial stuff. But some things actually are real tech.
Quantum computing in Silicon Valley is not simply “overhyped”. It is a parallel world using many words taken from the field of quantum computing but used in a way that is completely disconnected from the truth of the underlying technology.
That very well may be true. Thankfully, I haven't been subjected to those pitch decks. All con artists are insufferable when you have content knowledge, that's for sure.
You'll have to narrow to a specific domain to get a good answer. But a good general rule is that attempts to talk up novelty = bad sign.
Silicon Valley VCs have a tendency to back 'world-changing" or "blue sky" high risk ideas. It increases upside value, downside loss, and IMO likelihood of grift.
But good examples of SV innovation are:
- Genentech: one of the first biologics companies, created a treatment for cystic fibrosis that improved lung function dramatically (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8874241/). Now a subsidiary of Roche.
- GitHub: it changed the way we manage code for software
I have to head back to working on a project proposal, but one of the big limitations of backing "world changing" projects is that time to success can be really, really long. And in the meantime it can be hard to tell between the genuine and the grift.
Other ones off top of head though:
- Insitro - AI based drug development
- Sutro - found a way to combine ways to treat diseases, creating a more effective therapy
- Planet Labs - satellite imaging co used by orgs round the world to monitor ecology, land rights, insurance risk...etc.
Comments
Silicon valley has gotten a decent case of Dunning Kruger going on, no doubt of that. Lots of breathless hype for trivial stuff. But some things actually are real tech.
Silicon Valley VCs have a tendency to back 'world-changing" or "blue sky" high risk ideas. It increases upside value, downside loss, and IMO likelihood of grift.
- Genentech: one of the first biologics companies, created a treatment for cystic fibrosis that improved lung function dramatically (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8874241/). Now a subsidiary of Roche.
- GitHub: it changed the way we manage code for software
- Insitro - AI based drug development
- Sutro - found a way to combine ways to treat diseases, creating a more effective therapy
- Planet Labs - satellite imaging co used by orgs round the world to monitor ecology, land rights, insurance risk...etc.