Silicon Valley Just Ain?t What It Used To Be?And That?s a Good Thing

Dan Lyons raises a provocative question in his latest Newsweek article: Is Silicon Valley still solving hard problems? After all, the "silicon" in Silicon Valley comes from its being the birthplace of the microprocessor. The magic of shrinking circuits gave rise to the computer industry, the Internet, and all of its offspring. In contrast, Lyons suggests that today's Silicon Valley companies are not tackling big enough challenges that could fundamentally alter the economy and or how people live. He points to Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga, "the three hottest tech companies today," as proof that Silicon Valley is nothing more than Silly Valley. There are so many things wrong with Lyons' argument that I don't know where to start. For one thing, he hangs the entire thing on quotes from Nathan Myrhvold, the former Microsoft CTO who is now best known as a patent extortionist. So I guess it's Myrhvold's argument. But using a patent troll's complaints about the lack of "real" innovation in Silicon Valley as your main example is flawed. Let's separate the argument from its source. The question on its own is still important, and should not be rejected out of hand

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