Eva's Café

Is Silicon Valley Funding the Wrong Stuff?

During my research, I stumbled upon an interesting article where Christopher Mims presented his interesting view on Silicon Valley VC funding startups, published in The Wall Street Journal on July 6, 2014.

What has been funded lately in Silicon Valley?

  • Social networks that allow you to send only the message “Yo” to your contacts.
  • Food-delivery services valued at $400 million.
  • Startups that deliver rolls of quarters to your home (just $27 for $20 in change!).

It isn’t hard, looking at a lineup like this, to conclude that Silicon Valley has jumped the shark. The entire Bay Area appears to have given up on solving anything but its own problems: those afflicting the same 20-somethings who are building these startups.

That’s a pretty cynical take on what’s going on in technology.

And what about Google and Facebook buying everything in sight for billions?

But, to my surprise, the partners of one Silicon Valley venture-capital firm made the very same case to me: That their kind had lost its way—and, in the world of startups, money wasn’t flowing where it should anymore.

Read more here: http://online.wsj.com/articles/is-silicon-valley-investing-in-the-wrong-stuff-1404688048

Regards, Milorad.

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6 thoughts on “Is Silicon Valley Funding the Wrong Stuff?”

  3. ashleybayles says:

    Hi Milorad,

    Thanks for posting this. It is especially interesting as Kendra just posted an article about a hackathon where users were creating apps to solve social problems. Why does it seem that most of the big money is interested in the less useful applications of technology, when with that money we could definitely be developing some solutions to unique problems that exist all over the world. Is it because we are less familiar with the situations that other countries face so we don´t even know they exist in order to try to solve them? Or is it apathy? Or are startups doing great things, but the ones that get the publicity are the types of startups that are examples in articles so we rarely hear about the amazing ones?

  5. ashleybayles says:

    That second article from the NYT, while commenting on how billionaires are helping with research through philanthropy, raises another issue:

    ¨The success begot a global rush to turn basic discoveries into treatments, a field now known as translational science. It also inspired rich donors to shower new money on disease research.

    Many of their efforts are rooted deep in personal or family trauma.

    Sometimes, by sheer force of genetics and demographics, that impulse may risk widening historical racial inequalities in health care and disease research, disparities that decades of studies have shown to contribute to higher rates of disease and death among blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups.

    A review of these campaigns finds that, as with cystic fibrosis — which mainly strikes people of Northern European descent — a significant number are devoted to diseases that disproportionately affect white people.¨

  6. Kendra Grant says:

    There are two interesting articles related to this discussion.
    At ISTE I attended a SPED evening with a focus on startups in the special education field. There are very few venture firms who will even consider funding education startups that focus on content or service; even less that will support special education. The company Arc Capital Development (http://arccd.com/) specializes is funding this area. The presenters included:
    C8 Science – http://www.c8sciences.com/ – AHDH
    RoboKind – http://www.robokindrobots.com/ – very cool robot that has expanded beyond Autism (http://www.robots4autism.com/)
    Read the full article here – http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/07/22/special-education-innovations-564/

    The second article relates to my thoughts around the lack of women venture capitalists and women in startups. Most startups have a very definite male profile and as such their startup often focuses on certain types of technologies and issues. That isn’t to say there aren’t men doing great things, for example I just saw a excellent pitch by Raise Your Flag – https://raiseyourflag.com/landing but I wonder what would happen if this article was true. http://time.com/2962804/tinder-women-and-the-question-every-investor-should-ask/

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