I see that already the much imitated, never duplicated Robert Scoble has a very flattering write-up of a very informative meeting we had last night in downtown SF. I was going to wait to see what he has to say about it, and he's definitely got a complete lock-down of what I think on the subject.
If this is the first time you're hitting the site, here's the deal: so much of what goes on in Silicon Valley is totally dependent on the goodwill and lack of oversight of a 535 old men and women in a town several thousand miles away who, given a reason to get on their soapbox, could cut the entire industry (which is a driving force behind the U.S.'s economy) down at its knees.
As I told Robert, the tech industry just doesn't care about Washington until they're being screamed at by a bunch of old men in an ornate room and they see their Venture Capital or Market Cap go through the floor. And when the old men start looking at you funny, bad things happen.
I'm going to be posting in the next several days a series of fictional "case studies" on companies that have done wrong, could be doing wrong, and how they could do right and either dig themselves out of the hole they're in, or keep themselves from putting the shovel in the ground in the first place. You'll also see my plan for how the little guys and the big guys can stop trying to kill each other just long enough to keep the old white guys off their backs. It's never happened before, but that's because as Robert puts it,
So I don't need to tell you there's some good stuff on the way, so please watch this space. I'm heading back to the east coast within the next few hours and then I'll be able to better keep up on what's going on in DC as it happens instead of from a 3 hour time lag.
Hopefully I can catch a webcast of the FCC's do-nothing meeting on Monday and report from there, as well as get some other cool stuff out onto the tubes for your discussion.
Disagree? Shout loudly. I encourage it.
See you from back in DC.
If this is the first time you're hitting the site, here's the deal: so much of what goes on in Silicon Valley is totally dependent on the goodwill and lack of oversight of a 535 old men and women in a town several thousand miles away who, given a reason to get on their soapbox, could cut the entire industry (which is a driving force behind the U.S.'s economy) down at its knees.
As I told Robert, the tech industry just doesn't care about Washington until they're being screamed at by a bunch of old men in an ornate room and they see their Venture Capital or Market Cap go through the floor. And when the old men start looking at you funny, bad things happen.
I'm going to be posting in the next several days a series of fictional "case studies" on companies that have done wrong, could be doing wrong, and how they could do right and either dig themselves out of the hole they're in, or keep themselves from putting the shovel in the ground in the first place. You'll also see my plan for how the little guys and the big guys can stop trying to kill each other just long enough to keep the old white guys off their backs. It's never happened before, but that's because as Robert puts it,
"Because we don't care."You should care, and I think by the time this is all over, you will.
So I don't need to tell you there's some good stuff on the way, so please watch this space. I'm heading back to the east coast within the next few hours and then I'll be able to better keep up on what's going on in DC as it happens instead of from a 3 hour time lag.
Hopefully I can catch a webcast of the FCC's do-nothing meeting on Monday and report from there, as well as get some other cool stuff out onto the tubes for your discussion.
Disagree? Shout loudly. I encourage it.
See you from back in DC.
I feel like I am reading a blog post (if they existed then) from 1997.
But, this isn't a dig at you. It's just proof that it's deja vu all over again.
The truth is that there is a small army of tech policy people in DC and Silicon Valley who care very deeply about the issues you raise on these pages. However, we need to be fortified be a new group who equal the energy and innovation of the products and services that they create and provide. Welcome.