It seems like every few years, a huge new company grows up in Silicon Valley. I can remember Intel, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Google, Apple, and Facebook. Without looking at any numbers, I wonder if we are due for another one and it hasn't come. I am excited to try Google Glass. And they have been hammering nanotechnology for a few years. But is it possible there won't be a new mass-market producer of some new thing? Zynga is pretty pathetic.If the next big hardware innovation is in medicine, I wonder if it isn't more likely to come from Boston or some other place. And so far as software, it seems like all the kids in their garages are in Vietnam and Pakistan. The front page of Draper Fisher Jurvetson has SolarCity, SpaceX, Tesla, and a bunch of like social-networking apps.

Tesla can be huge. If they can produce affordable cars (imagine they produce something like the Ford Fiesta for $30-40k). Certainly, it's more expensive than the Fiesta, but you are saving a lot in Gas and repair. This can open the door for massive adoption.However, what if we don't have another big thing and instead these small startups (2-3 co-founders) grow into sustainable and profitable companies (30-40 employees). That alone is a "big thing".

Medicine is so hyper-regulated and conservative that nothing "big" can occur there. Yes, healthcare might be a huge part of GDP, but it's hard for any one company to create something of such overwhelming value that every consumer wants it, every doctor will prescribe it, and every insurance company and government will pay for it.Google Glass will have massive social acceptance problems due to privacy concerns and feelings of alienation by people around a Glass user. Google Glass can't be shared the way other mobile technologies can. It creates a private world that excludes the people around the user. If people look down on those self-important sots who wear bluetooth headsets, think of their opinions of Glass users ("Glassholes")?Maybe the deeper issue is that their won't be so many more big hardware innovations because the hardware space has matured. Maybe it's like the auto industry which had tons of innovation and huge performance improvements in the first few decades but then cars pretty much got as good as they could get. A car owner from 50 years ago would have no problems using the car of today.What matters now is the software, services, and data. Everyone has hardware, but what are they going to do with it? Creating apps, sites, and systems that capture people's interests is a bigger opportunity than making yet another piece of hardware with 20% more clock speed, RAM, and pixels. Moreover, it's a lot easier to become huge in software and data. Getting to a million or a billion customers is really challenging in the hardware business. But it's easy in software -- just look at Facebook, Instagram, etc.

QuoteGetting to a million or a billion customers is really challenging in the hardware business. But it's easy in software -- just look at Facebook, Instagram, etc.Software may not always require "special" skills, but that doesnt mean it's that easy, just like it's not easy winning at the lottery. How many social networks and foto-sharing companies died in the meantime? it's the usual hindsight/selection bias, why would it be any different on web2.0? I wouldnt make that my job, not hardcore enough. But how not to sympathize? I held the same view when writing the first business plan some time ago... before realizing what are the tools IBM is playing with, really.Anyway didnt the silicon valley move to berlin quite a while ago now?

QuoteOriginally posted by: quartzQuoteGetting to a million or a billion customers is really challenging in the hardware business. But it's easy in software -- just look at Facebook, Instagram, etc.Software may not always require "special" skills, but that doesnt mean it's that easy, just like it's not easy winning at the lottery. How many social networks and foto-sharing companies died in the meantime? it's the usual hindsight/selection bias, why would it be any different on web2.0? I wouldnt make that my job, not hardcore enough. But how not to sympathize? I held the same view when writing the first business plan some time ago... before realizing what are the tools IBM is playing with, really.Anyway didnt the silicon valley move to berlin quite a while ago now?Kodak had 140,000 workers, Instagram had 13. No doubt the Instagram people were some combination of clever and lucky, but it seems clear that serving the photographic needs of millions or billions of people with a piece of software is several orders of magnitude less resource-intensive than serving photographic needs through physical products that require a massive supply chain of specialty chemical makers, giant factories operating under carefully controlled conditions, fleets of trucks, and office buildings full of managers, chemists, engineers, plus many more than 13 programmers.Big things in hardware are much much harder to achieve than big things in software. Scaling is much hard.

Softwares don't require big fixed investments. You just need a computer. Tangible product development like a car requires huge capex. Imagine the cost of building a new plane or a new medicine and compare it to the cost of building Facebook (cost from the R&D to the market production). There should be a ratio 100 000 at least.

QuoteOriginally posted by: frenchXSoftwares don't require big fixed investments. You just need a computer. Tangible product development like a car requires huge capex. Imagine the cost of building a new plane or a new medicine and compare it to the cost of building Facebook (cost from the R&D to the market production). There should be a ratio 100 000 at least.FX,Nope. This is not at all true about software. It is only true in the initial prototype phase. Brooks' Mythical Man MonthAnd the history of AutoCAD , Oracle etc.