Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonwatkinspdx | Hacker News Reader

If the presence of wealth in a nation was the sole factor in growing entrepreneurship then the gulf kingdoms would have dethroned silicon valley decades ago.

There's obviously a whole lot more involved in the decision making of wealthy people looking to start their next venture.

View on HN

I never said wealth is the sole factor for a tech hub/ecosystem.

California is creating a huge incentive for billionaires to leave. So they are more likely to move and take their experience and move the tech ecosystem.

It's fine with me. I don't live in California. Boston lost the tech ecosystem with government regulation around non-competes... maybe California will lose it over a wealth tax or even the threat of one.

It would probably be better for the whole country if less wealth was concentrated in California and the wealthy moved to red states. Probably Texas.

What kind of revisionist history is this? Boston “lost” the tech ecosystem because its main players were too entrenched in the mainframe/minicomputer business to pivot quickly enough to compete with the Silicon Valley microcomputer revolution.

Silicon Valley is a start-up culture which can only thrive where non-competes are illegal. 'Main players' rarely pivot and create new business divisions that can compete with all the start-ups. I'm not saying the main players were not too entrenched, but that there is a reason that the Silicon Valley microcomputer revolution happened there. Fairchild's children and all that came after.

This is wild stuff. SV had its origins in Fred Terman, the halo effect of Stanford, and that Shockley happened to have been born there and decided to move back. By the time the computer club was around it already had enormous momentum.

I'm no fan of noncompetes, but you are vastly overstating their impact.

https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/2/13/14580874/google-self...

Freedom to create corporate spinoffs (which, contrary to GP, is itself government regulation —- one freedom that would be surrendered upon moving to Texas) is one aspect of SV’s success, but it’s far from the only factor and by no means essential. How do you think Massachusetts (and Texas) grew to be tech hubs in the first place? (A: university spinoffs and government funding and luck, just like SV.)

I think you’re right. Most people dream of becoming rich, not “filthy” rich. So taxing >100 million should not impact things, and there are plenty of other reasons to move to the US

Many people dream of doing things.... not being rich.

Bill Gates dreams of eradicating polio. Is $100M enough? No

Elon Musk dreams of colonizing Mars. Is $100M enough? Absolutely not.

The gulf kingdoms have a tiny fraction of the wealth in silicon valley alone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com