Comment by yumraj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yumraj | Hacker News Reader

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Innovation is driven when smart people interact with other smart people, and that is the value of SV and its ecosystem.

Obviously I'm generalizing, but your (or anyone else's) remote employees may be the smartest of the bunch or even in the world, but if they are not exposed to outside influences and are satisfied in their own locales, they will remain good/great loyal employees but will never (again generalizing) become entrepreneur. Otherwise, why would you be in the SV if you could do it remotely.

So, if this remote model keeps on evolving, then obviously it will have a negative impact in the long run on SV ecosystem, since these smart loyal employees remain just then and never become entrepreneurs.

However, I think this model only works till companies reach a certain size and I do not believe that companies can scale beyond a point on a purely remote workforce. So, overall I think SV and its ecosystem is safe.

I agree with your statement about innovation.

The remote workers are getting exposed to outside influences by working for SV companies and with other remote workers. In fact, I think they benefit from exposure to a wider range of opinions than one typically encounters in SV. They also travel a lot because being fully remote gives them a ton of flexibility.

I think many of them will try to become entrepreneurs at some point. The challenge for people outside SV is always going to be funding. But starting tech companies is constantly getting cheaper.

It remains to be seen whether there is a breaking point in scale for remote teams. Zapier is now in the hundreds and it still seems to be working well for them.

To be clear, I do think people will continue to move here to start companies for the foreseeable future, and so SV is safe in that respect. Reputation and momentum count for a lot. However, I'm guessing the workforces will start to shift outside of the Bay Area.

Is it?

My experience of innovation is that it tends to be a singular affair. Not a result of group hangouts and all day brainstorming meetings but the result of a single unreasonable person who is seized by an idea that's either not obvious or - more commonly - something other people were aware of but didn't rate much.

I don't see why you'd need physical proximity to innovate in that way. Unless by innovation you're referring to product development generally.

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