Stanford classroom reveals the survival of Silicon Valley

As the world's most famous electronics industry concentration, Silicon Valley has always been a zhongxingpengyue-like existence, and in fact, Silicon Valley in the process of development has been repeatedly difficult, and its difficulties in the plight of the survival of the way is very worthy of our reference and learning.

Facebook investor, former PayPal president Peter Thiel, opened an entrepreneurship course at Stanford University. One of the lessons, Peter Thiel, reviewed the entire 90 's, including the Internet mania that began in the autumn of 1998. He combed through history and made these summaries:

About lessons

The lesson of the dotcom bubble is that we need to return to the real economy. If the 90 's Internet outbreak is economic from reality to virtual, then in the new century needs is from the virtual reality. So people went to housing and emerging markets. Popular investors, such as Warren Buffett, are keen on the traditional economic model to avoid the technology stocks. It is the business model that determines the profit. The love of globalisation is more than the pursuit of technology. The lesson of the Internet's collapse is that the future is too uncertain for any prophet to be a cloud.

But this conclusion may be wrong, because the driving of this conclusion is a complex reactionary mood. This sentiment contains hubris, jealousy, and widespread resentment against the 90 's. When emotion is in the mainstream, no analysis can be trusted.

In fact, people have learned a lot about the right things from the middle of the 90. The assertion that technology is king is not weakened by negative emotions. Of course, technology is not omnipotent, at least it has no protective effect on the coming bubble. March 2000 is more than just chaos to the extreme, and in many ways it is clear.

At the same time, people in Silicon Valley have learned that only differentiation can survive.

First of all, you need to understand the "do not accumulate bujikuibu, not even thousands of miles," the truth, ambitious goals and rapid advance has fallen out of favour.

Second, you have to learn to improvise. As to what you are going to do, you can't stick to your original intention, you need to experiment with time, and finally get the conclusion.

Third, 0 advertising spending. Don't rely on advertising unless your development is misshapen.

Four, getting away from socializing is a new kind of social interaction. People want an antisocial form. Google is the type of product that makes people more willing to communicate with computers than people.

The product needs to be evaluated more than the business development model. In the 1999, those smart non-technical people were doing business. And 2011, they are developing products. In the 90 's, typical CEOs were sales, like Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison. In the new century, the typical CEO should be a product maniac, like jobs.

Don't be superstitious about monetization speed. The better case is (the company) has a longer development phase and a later IPO. If your company develops quickly, you must reinvest the profits to achieve faster growth.

Finally, don't talk about the future. It will only disturb you.

With the discussion of these lessons, the dotcom community carried out a massive strategic retreat after the bursting of the bubble. Which experience is right and what is wrong is a complex problem. There are, of course, some arguments that make sense: why is it so urgent to go public in a market that is hostile to tech stocks? Other claims are debatable: never advertise? Not doing sales? Not discussing the direction of future development? We should face the reality that the strategic retreat of the Internet may have overreacted.

About Bubbles

Are we in a technical bubble?

A lot of people agree. You can go see Richter Scales's video, "Bubbles are coming again."

But now there is no bubble in our discussion, at this moment, this is a wrong proposition. When people, some people can collect some data to illustrate the existence of bubbles. It's a sense of unease to see that Stanford now has more students studying computer science.

But there are some data that the bubble theory is not true. Bubbles need to be generated by: 1 wide spread 2) persistent belief (bubble) is not true. But now people don't believe anything, and in the absence of both, bubbles cannot be formed.

The "anti-bubble" theory may sound more plausible. This argument insists that everything is normal, that people should buy houses and technology stocks normally, and you should not simply claim the existence of bubbles. But both ideas are wrong because they all go from the public, but if the public does not think about it, it is useless to do a reverse thinking.

To make sense of your current business and startup business, you need to do a real reverse thinking: start with yourself. To consider what is valuable is more useful than considering whether there is a bubble. Consider the value of the finer the better: X company is valuable? Why? How do we come to a conclusion?