There was a point in the late ’90s where all the graduating M.B.A.’s wanted to start companies in Silicon Valley, and for the most part they were not actually qualified to do it.
And once you get instantaneous communication with everybody, you have economic activity that’s far more advanced, far more liquid, far more distributed than ever before.
The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories. People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do.
Google is working on self-driving cars, and they seem to work. People are so bad at driving cars that computers don’t have to be that good to be much better.
People are so bad at driving cars that computers don’t have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the D.M.V. and look around, you’re like, Oh, my God, I wish all these people were replaced by computer drivers.
If I want to get work done, that’s usually about 3 in the morning.
Today’s leading real-world retailer, Wal-Mart, uses software to power its logistics and distribution capabilities, which it has used to crush its competition.
More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services – from movies to agriculture to national defense.
Any new technology tends to go through a 25-year adoption cycle.
You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt.
Around ’93, ’94, the conventional wisdom about the Internet was that it was a toy for academics and researchers. So it was very, very underestimated for about two years.
These days, you have the option of staying home, blogging in your underwear, and not having your words mangled. I think I like the direction things are headed.