Society and Information Technology in Second Life

Wednesdays, August 29 - December 12 , 2007, 4-6, SLT/PT, 7-9 pm ET on Berkman island in Second Life

 Course homepage - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

 

Instructor: Scott MacLeod (not on Harvard's faculty) = Aphilo Aarde (in Second Life)

http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

Sep 19 2007 Soc and Info Tech in SL class transcript

 

 

 

[16:00]  Boston Hutchinson is Online

[16:00]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Aphilo!

[16:00]  You: Hello Boston!

[16:00]  You: Greetings.

[16:00]  You: How did you find Becca's course on Monday?

[16:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Very interesting

[16:01]  You: It's helpful to see Second Life from the beginning.

[16:02]  You: Learning Scratch and building things in SL will also be interesting for many.

[16:02]  You: Will you continue to take the course occasionally?

[16:02]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, I guess. I'm getting more interested in Croquet. And yes, I think I'll keep going to the course.

[16:03]  You: I'm curious to see if Becca touches on Croquet.

[16:03]  You: I haven't seen her mention it in the syllabus.

[16:03]  Boston Hutchinson: The weeks identified as "synchronous" are not open?

[16:03]  You: I know very little about it.

[16:03]  Boston Hutchinson: I tried to run it

[16:04]  You: The five dates she mentions specifically are not open.

[16:04]  Boston Hutchinson: It didn't find the server on my LAN

[16:04]  Boston Hutchinson: so I'll have to figure that out before I can do anything.

[16:04]  Gayle Cabaret is Online

[16:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Croquet doesn't seem to have public worlds yet

[16:05]  You: Croquet offers fascinating possibilities. How and whether it becomes ubiquitous, or what folks engage it are interesting questions.

[16:05]  Boston Hutchinson: I guess you need a business model to motivate somebody to build things for the public

[16:06]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, I've started thinking about possible uses of it that might draw a crowd.

[16:06]  You: Perhaps, - email didn't have a business model.

[16:06]  You: The open source movement didn't have a business model.

[16:07]  Boston Hutchinson: Well you need some motivation to get the developers to do the things that motivate lots of people to join.

[16:07]  You: In Becca's class, we'll also touch on Yochai Benkler's "Teh Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Freedom and Markets"

[16:07]  Boston Hutchinson: Hmmm. SL seems to be a game for most users

[16:07]  You: We'll touch on the motivations of Hackers this evening.

[16:07]  You: Benkler's thesis is that there is a mode of information production that is nonmarket based.

[16:08]  You: And even Charlie Nesson yesterday in an online Berkman Lunch talk on the future of the Internet clsoed with the thought that capital plays a not significant role in some respects in the Internet.

[16:08]  Boston Hutchinson: Sure. I don't think it has to be specifically capitalist or market-based to take off, but it has to offer things that lots of people want.

[16:09]  You: the motivation for Hacker's was to make software, as a cultural expression, almost.

[16:09]  You: Hackers often make money, too, but especially in the 1970s and 80s, there were many who weren't wroking for money.

[16:10]  You: Hello Pam!

[16:10]  Boston Hutchinson: I'm not so interested in the free v. cpitalist issues as in just making something that will have a mass audience.

[16:10]  Pam Renoir: Hi guys!

[16:10]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Pam!

[16:11]  Pam Renoir: Sorry to interrupt - i guess i am a little late with the download

[16:11]  You: Yes . . . well let's look at the history of the Internet to see how it became a worldwide network.

[16:11]  You: Not at all, Pam

[16:11]  Boston Hutchinson: The download surprised me too.

[16:12]  You: which download?

[16:12]  You: The update on SL?

[16:12]  Pam Renoir: they made us download a new client for the IE problem

[16:12]  You: Yes . . . those glitches arise occasionally . . .

[16:13]  You: Let's begin with looking at the raw materials of this information revolution.

[16:14]  Parriah Janus is Online

[16:14]  You: In the industrial revolutions, it was energy, iron, coal, metals, chemicals, early communcation systems, etc. and synergies from these that clustered together and created widespread socioeconomic changes.

[16:15]  You: In this reovlution, the raw mateiral is Information/knowledge

[16:15]  You: The argument I'd like to make is that Knowledge is value in the IT revolution.

[16:15]  You: Where is knowledge

[16:15]  You: today?

[16:15]  You: Sometimes in universities, and sometiems in research labs.

[16:16]  You: Scientists geenrate knowledge - it's generated by human minds and bodies.

[16:16]  You: So in this IT revolution, human minds are the critical source of value.

[16:16]  You: This is a founding concept of this class.

[16:17]  You: So the founding discovery of the IT revolution is the transistor

[16:17]  You: in 1947

[16:17]  You: It happened in Bell Labs in NJ

[16:17]  You: Three people gained the Nobel for this.

[16:17]  You: Shockley was the leader of the team.

[16:18]  You: He saw extraordianty possibilites of the transistor

[16:18]  Emuishere Boa is Offline

[16:18]  You: And he created a whole network of scientists at Bell

[16:18]  You: But Bell Labs could not take advantage of it.

[16:18]  You: They were a telecommunications monoply.

[16:18]  You: And they couldn't go into another business due to anti trust laws.

[16:19]  You: Otehr businesses had to pick it up

[16:19]  You: But busiensses were not interested.

[16:19]  You: Shockely tried to create his own lab

[16:19]  You: (RCA and Raytheon at the time, also said no - vacuum tubes are enough).

[16:20]  You: He was deptressed

[16:20]  You: So Shockley came to Palo Alto because his mother was there!

[16:20]  You: He had the Nobel and nothing else.

[16:21]  You: This in part typifies aspects of the IT revolution - serendipity has been really significant.

[16:21]  You: But later Shockley became a Stanford Professor.

[16:22]  You: Pam or Boston?

[16:22]  You: Are you familiar with any of this history?

[16:22]  Boston Hutchinson: Some.

[16:22]  Pam Renoir: only from what you had conveyed at the last class i attended

[16:22]  You: It's a fasinating story, in many ways.

[16:22]  Boston Hutchinson: But I tend to forget the names and dates.

[16:22]  You: OK. So a company named Beckman Labs

[16:23]  Boston Hutchinson: I would add Claude Shannon to the list

[16:23]  Boston Hutchinson: He defined information

[16:23]  You: - midsize company

[16:23]  Boston Hutchinson: It didn't have a precise meaning before that.

[16:24]  You: yes . . Shannon helped to define information theory.

[16:24]  You: in a far reaching way

[16:25]  Boston Hutchinson: Unfortunately, I can't remember his work very well, but it was essential to the computer revolution, and even to telecommunication. Even to the telephone.

[16:25]  You: But it was the migration of knowledge and the emergence of the semiconductor that made the IT revolution so widespread.

[16:25]  You: Yes . . . in may

[16:25]  You: many ways.

[16:25]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[16:26]  You: So with Beckman, Schockley started a very early semi-conductor business.

[16:26]  You: And he could do that because a whole netowrk of Paol Alto electronic companies was forming.

[16:27]  You: And this was because Stanford was supporting entrepreurial companies.

[16:27]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...

[16:27]  You: Stanford had an entrepreneurial attitude.

[16:27]  You: But the emergence of these companies was accidental!

[16:27]  You: Actors are necessary for this story.

[16:27]  Disconnected from in-world Voice Chat

[16:28]  You: A man named Terman, who graduated in the 1920s played a key role.

[16:28]  You: He wanted a Ph.d. in electrical engineering, also went to MIT - got his Ph.D., worked at MIT

[16:29]  You: And then got tuberculosis, so went back to California

[16:29]  You: He decided to take a post at Stanford, and later became a Dean.

[16:29]  You: He wasn't a great reearcher or engineer, but could identify great minds.

[16:30]  You: He was initially experimenting on radar technologies which lead to electronics.

[16:30]  You: He was asked why enigineers didn't make soemthing practical.

[16:31]  You: Hewlett and Packard, founders of HP, were studying at Stanford at teh same time.

[16:31]  You: They were working in a related area.

[16:32]  Parriah Janus is Offline

[16:32]  You: But had no money. There wasn't a lot of money for innovative research at the time, so Terman took $700 of his own money and gave it to HP

[16:32]  You: WWII started and HP's devices became very valuable.

[16:32]  You: they sold millions to defense.

[16:33]  You: That Terman moved to CA because of TB, and that he lent HP money, was all somewhat accidental,

[16:33]  You: but is emblematic of the IT reovlution.

[16:33]  You: After WWII, HP was very establisehd.

[16:33]  You: And Terman became a provost of Stanford.

[16:33]  You: This case can be amplified

[16:34]  You: Terman during this time was convincing Stanford to use assets they had - land - to start companies

[16:34]  You: In 1951, Stanford Intdustrial Park was startedd.

[16:34]  You: IT had acces to Stanford faculty and studnets.

[16:35]  You: And any companies that wanted to use land here had to approved by Stanford for a long term lease.

[16:35]  You: Terman convinced establisehd companies to be its first tenants.

[16:35]  You: Hewlett Packarad was one of the first.

[16:36]  You: During the 1950s, under the initiative of Stanford, there were a cluster of innovative companeis around Stanford

[16:36]  You: leasing land in SRI

[16:36]  You: So Shockley moves to teh west.

[16:37]  You: he saw that the cluster of companies in the SRI and around Palo Alto, was up to the level of organization or scale of east coast companies.

[16:38]  You: But Shockely's move to the west, and his decision to go into electronics, led to bringing with him the best minds from Bell.

[16:38]  You: And these minds were the raw materials of the information revolution.

[16:38]  You: 6 came from Bell

[16:38]  You: In particular there were 8 young engineers.

[16:38]  You: And 2 were from other labs

[16:39]  You: They all wanted to work with Shockley

[16:39]  You: One was Bob Noyce, who later became known as the mayor of silicon valley.

[16:39]  You: He would go onto work on integrated circuits at Intel.

[16:39]  You: But Shockley's company falied.

[16:40]  You: He was very stubborn.

[16:40]  You: He wanted to work on microcircuits, but not in silicon.

[16:40]  You: He wanted to work in gallium arsenide.

[16:41]  You: Other young engineers saw taht silicon was promising, and chose to work with that, and they later proved to be right.

[16:41]  You: So these 8 engineers left Shcokely semi-conductor.

[16:41]  You: It became an empty shell.

[16:41]  You: And Shockley became a professor at Stanford.

[16:41]  Luna Bliss is Offline

[16:42]  You: Shockley invented microelectronics, and migrated knowledge to silicon valley.

[16:42]  You: The eight engineers that left Shockley

[16:42]  You: started Fairchild semi-conductors

[16:43]  You: And each split to create their own company.

[16:43]  Rajah Yalin is Online

[16:43]  You: These included Intel, AMD, etc.

[16:43]  You: IN all, 140 companies were spun off!

[16:43]  You: Amazing!

[16:43]  Pam Renoir: from just 8 engineers?

[16:44]  You: So in 1959, integrated circuits were invented.

[16:44]  You: And the Defense department accounted for 50% of the market.

[16:44]  You: Research programs also expanded dramatically for microelectronics.

[16:45]  You: In 1957, something else happened.

[16:45]  You: Sputnik was launched

[16:45]  You: this was the 1st human made satellite circling the earth.

[16:45]  You: It also represented possibly America becoming 'backward'

[16:45]  Path Wyler: howdy

[16:45]  Sariah Chihuly is Online

[16:46]  Path Wyler: /wave

[16:46]  You: http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[16:46]  Path Wyler: al gore huh?/

[16:46]  You: Hi Path - we'r talking about the history of the internet

[16:46]  Pam Renoir: lol

[16:46]  Sariah Chihuly is Offline

[16:46]  You: America became worried that the soviet system was overtaking America in technological development.

[16:47]  You: So the defense department responed with money for technology.

[16:47]  Sariah Chihuly is Online

[16:47]  You: In 1959, a race to the moon began, as well

[16:47]  You: And after these extraordniary events

[16:47]  You: The Military got involved with technology.

[16:48]  You: Microelectronics, computers, and telecommuncations - the three main aspects of this IT revolution, on the one had, and genetic engineering, on the other

[16:49]  You: all shape the IT revolution

[16:49]  You: due to time, I'm not going to explore in too great depth the genetic revolution here.

[16:50]  You: Except to say that Stanford and UCSF started recombinant DNA - gene splicing - in hospitals.

[16:50]  You: But what's signifcant here is that culture is very important.

[16:51]  You: ... that is the thinking about what to do with this innovations.

[16:51]  You: And what was unique of these developments in the SF BAy ARea were thre

[16:52]  You: three developments

[16:52]  You: 1 the process was decentralized.

[16:52]  You: 2 it focus was to make things micro

[16:52]  You: 3 researchers opened up source code and processes to the public

[16:53]  You: And this was very different from east coast corporate culture, - from IBM and ATT, for example.

[16:53]  You: The most extraordinary events of this technology revolution came from

[16:54]  You: 1 an entrepreneurial attidtue, partly originating from Stanford

[16:54]  You: 2 that technology migrated from major research centers, and then the role that military money played

[16:54]  You: and 3 the cultural revolution that was occuring - from the counterculture.

[16:55]  Sariah Chihuly is Offline

[16:55]  You: Thoughts? Observations? Questions?

[16:56]  You: Let's take a little break here and then look a little more analytically and systematically at waht created Silicon Valley as the site of this revolution.

[16:56]  You: in terms o f1 raw materials, 2 capital and 3 labor.

[16:56]  Boston Hutchinson: I'm a little skeptical about the view that silicon valley was the source of everything

[16:57]  Boston Hutchinson: Certainly it was key to the new business culture

[16:58]  You: I'm emphasizing Silicon Valley due to the role it played in all three areas of this revolution ME. computers, and telecommuncations, but RT 128 - Boston, also palyed a significant role.

[16:58]  Boston Hutchinson: But the east was still a major source of ideas and innovation, as well as more established structures that got a lot of things accomplished

[16:58]  You: But see annaLee Saxenian's "REgional Advantage" for a more in depth analysis.

[16:58]  Shava Suntzu is Online

[16:59]  Boston Hutchinson: Ok

[16:59]  You: http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition-Silicon/dp/0674753402/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-1287003-8414448?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190246359&sr=8-1

[16:59]  You: Here's an amazon link - but break time . . .

[16:59]  Parriah Janus is Online

[17:00]  Boston Hutchinson: Information theeory, the space race, the military research and funding all were centered in the east. Also, IBM gets a bad rap, but they were extremely competent and creative.

[17:01]  Boston Hutchinson: It was really business tactics that won in the west I think as much as culture

[17:03]  You: Tactics perhaps, in that much of this happened serendipitously.

[17:03]  You: And in terms of microelectronics, computers, and telecommuncations - the backbone of the Internet, in a sense - these all significantly developed in Silicon Valley and the SF Bay Area.

[17:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, true. I think software was a somewhat different story.

[17:04]  You: IBM was the key player in main frames for decades.

[17:05]  Sean18 McCarey is Offline

[17:05]  Boston Hutchinson: They were also key in aerospace

[17:05]  You: But what makes the IT revolution so amazing in some ways is that we all have computers, and this happened largely due to the developments on the west coast

[17:05]  Boston Hutchinson: Though aerospace computing started at MIT

[17:06]  You: These made the Internet possible in large part.

[17:06]  Boston Hutchinson: I think the west just won on business tactics, not technology.

[17:06]  You: Yes, the developments you mention are all part of the general milieu in which the Information technology revolution developed.

[17:07]  Boston Hutchinson: But I guess I'm not disagreeing. I think innovation happened in the east also, but as you point out, the revolution came from the west

[17:07]  You: Do check out the Berkeley Professor AnnaLee Saxenians book - she provides an empirical basis

[17:07]  You: for some of these claims.

[17:08]  Boston Hutchinson: OK. Thanks.

[17:08]  You: And she points out that it was a milieu of innovation that played such a pivotal role, on the west coast

[17:08]  You: Certainly, the east coast innovated remarkably, as well.

[17:09]  You: But let's get to some specifics.

[17:09]  You: 1 Raw materials 2

[17:09]  You: 2 capital

[17:09]  You: 3 labor

[17:10]  You: There are some unique characteristics to these - specific forms which took shape in Silicon Valley.

[17:11]  You: 1 Raw Materials - I'm making the claim that knowledge and information generating capacity are central, and that this is new relative to prvious industrial reovlutions.

[17:12]  You: That the initial signficant innovation occurred, while not exactly in Universities, but in Bell Labs, and then diffused west, migrating knowledge westward as well.

[17:12]  You: And this led to the semi conductor and the integrated circuit.

[17:12]  You: 2 Labor

[17:13]  Boston Hutchinson is Offline

[17:13]  You: Highly skilled labor was required to make chips, and later other aspects of the IT revolution - highly skilled technical and scientific labor

[17:14]  You: And that these arose and developed in Stanford and Berkeley - with a market origin

[17:14]  You: (Hopefully Boston will come back).

[17:14]  Pam Renoir: he probably just crashed

[17:14]  You: Probably

[17:15]  You: (He went to MIT and is a very skill programmer).

[17:15]  You: (IN terms of gene splicing - this had more points of origin - Stanford, Maryland, DC, Virgina, and Harvard).

[17:15]  Boston Hutchinson is Online

[17:15]  Pam Renoir: wb Boston!

[17:16]  You: Hello Boston!

[17:16]  You: You: (IN terms of gene splicing - this had more points of origin - Stanford, Maryland, DC, Virgina, and Harvard).

[17:16]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi!. Sorry. SL seems to have a bug or 2. :)

[17:16]  Pam Renoir: you are kidding!

[17:17]  Boston Hutchinson: froze competely

[17:17]  You: It's slowly getting more reliable, hence all the updates

[17:18]  Boston Hutchinson: BTW: there was a word processing microcomputer built at MIT in the 60s. It was as army project

[17:18]  You: So, another key aspect to the IT revolution was the cultural developments that took shape signficantly in the SF Bay Area, and Silicon Valley.

[17:18]  You: Interesting . . .

[17:18]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Offline

[17:19]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[17:19]  You: (The first digital transmission, which included a form of word processing occurred in the late 60s).

[17:19]  You: among 5 universities.

[17:19]  You: But what was unique about Silicon Valley culture, was the ability to innovate by thinking new applications, that weren't there before.

[17:20]  You: This occurred in other Universities, as well, but SV created a milieu of innovation, that was very widespread.

[17:20]  You: And this stems directly from 1960's cutlures

[17:21]  You: ...including thinking differently, and rebellion against the establisment

[17:22]  You: In a sense, people in the 1960s who were exploring these things didnt' want a revolution, they wanted their revolution, and this also signficantly influenced the development of computing.

[17:22]  Bruce Flyer is Online

[17:22]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Offline

[17:22]  You: This culture was extremely important, especially in the BAy area.

[17:23]  You: And it led to alternative forms of computing, including the development of the personal computer - the PC.

[17:23]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[17:23]  You: Hello Bruce!

[17:23]  Bruce Flyer: good evening!

[17:23]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Bruce!

[17:23]  Bruce Flyer: Hi!

[17:23]  Pam Renoir: Hi!

[17:23]  Bruce Flyer: :-)

[17:23]  You: This computer was originally called the microcomputer.

[17:24]  You: It came directly from the Homebrew computer club in Sausalito, Menlo Park, and San Francisco.

[17:24]  Jagger Valeeva is Online

[17:25]  You: In finding codes that made computers talk with one another, they created a whole world around a new langue.

[17:25]  You: Countercultural scientisits, like Stewart Brand, for example, in developing the Whole Earth Catalog with its emphasis on system's thinking made the counterculture public

[17:26]  You: He, for exmaple provided a bridge between counterculture and society.

[17:26]  Bruce Flyer: i am not sure what you mean by "language" above

[17:27]  Froukje Hoorenbeek is Offline

[17:27]  You: But to back track a little. . . -computer languages, compilers, and then TCP/IP for example.

[17:27]  You: to backtrack a little . . .

[17:28]  You: Since knowledge / information generation was so central to this revoltion,

[17:28]  You: it became part of University policy to produce computer scientists.

[17:28]  You: And this is to get back to an observation you made earlier, Boston.

[17:29]  Bruce Flyer: but there are two levels going on here -- one machine protocols and the other involving culture and human interations

[17:29]  You: In the 1950s, Berkeley and Stanford produced less than 1/2 the Ph.D.s in comptuer science compared wtih Harvard and MIT

[17:29]  Bromo Ivory is Online

[17:30]  You: Then Stanford decided to fund engineering signficantly, and Berkely got money fromt he State.

[17:30]  Boston Hutchinson: well, I don't think there was actually a "computer science" that far back

[17:30]  Boston Hutchinson: they may have been math majors or EEs

[17:30]  You: (True . . . we'll get to that in a while, although I'm focusing primarily on the cultural developiments, Bruce).

[17:30]  Boston Hutchinson: some were in physics

[17:31]  You: True . . . primarily engineering, physics, etc . .

[17:31]  Bruce Flyer: much of what is taught in CS departents today is perhaps too applied to be called science

[17:31]  You: In the 1960s, however, Stanford and MIT produces 4 times as many Ph.D.s in computer science related fields as Harvard and MIT.

[17:32]  You: So there was a deliberate government policy in California to support

[17:32]  You: computer science related fields, and thus knowledge generation., in conjunction with Stanford's entrepreneurial attitude.

[17:33]  Bruce Flyer: science cannot easily be outsourced to other countries. programming can be

[17:33]  You: Calif. state government, and the state in the form o the military, viewed the technology revolution

[17:33]  You: as a business investment in part.

[17:34]  You: Yes, Bruce,

[17:34]  You: Check out this:

[17:34]  You: You: But see annaLee Saxenian's "REgional Advantage" for a more in depth analysis. [16:58] Shava Suntzu is Online [16:59] Boston Hutchinson: Ok [16:59] You: http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition-Silicon/dp/0674753402/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-1287003-8414448?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190246359&sr=8-1

[17:35]  You: as well as Annalee Saxenians The New ARgonauts (Harvard)

[17:35]  You: Actually, she makes a different case . . .

[17:36]  You: Examining whether there's a brain drain from other countries to the US, when foreign students come to US universities, get Ph.D.s and then work here,

[17:37]  You: her research suggestst that about 50% return to their countries of origin, often after they have become successful entrpreneurs in teh US,

[17:37]  Jon Seattle is Offline

[17:37]  You: and thus represent a kind of brain circulation

[17:38]  You: R&D does tend to remain localized in research centers and in Unversities, much of which is in the developed world,

[17:38]  You: but nevertheless, a brain circulation does occur, as

[17:39]  You: Hello ChUnit

[17:39]  CheUnit Fizzle: Hey

[17:39]  You: as students wtih Ph.D.s return to their country of origin.

[17:39]  You: We're having a class on Society and Information Technology - tonight the beginnings of the Internet

[17:39]  Bruce Flyer: are't the hot areas of R&D today moving away from CS but are still focused in information management and processing?

[17:39]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[17:39]  CheUnit Fizzle: o ok

[17:39]  You: http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[17:40]  You: I'll also post the transcript from this class there.

[17:40]  CheUnit Fizzle: you guys do any realestate class

[17:40]  You: Yes, Bruce

[17:40]  You: not here CheUnit, but at large participation is welcome

[17:41]  You: here's a link to Saxenians most recent book which I mentiond above:

[17:41]  You: http://www.amazon.com/New-Argonauts-Regional-Advantage-Economy/dp/0674025660/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-1287003-8414448?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190246359&sr=8-2

[17:41]  You: The New ARgonauts, w hich will give you more empirical evidence for some of these claims.

[17:42]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[17:42]  You: So due to state policy and entrepreneurial attitde around Silicon Valley, and the SF Bay Area, Stanford and Berkely came to produce 4 x as many Ph.D.s as harvard and MIT, in CS related fields in the 1960s.

[17:43]  You: So that's a little about labor, and knowledge as teh basis of the IT revolution

[17:43]  You: 3 capital

[17:44]  You: Microelectronic and comptuer businesses in the 1950s and 60s

[17:44]  You: Becase they have to try something new

[17:44]  You: were RISKY

[17:44]  You: They were very RISKY

[17:44]  You: Companies have to be stubborn adn keep trying.

[17:45]  You: And startups failed on average 7 times!

[17:45]  Gayle Cabaret is Offline

[17:45]  You: So one might conclude that venture capitalists like to give money to failures!

[17:45]  You: And int he 1960s, when the tech reovlution was about to explore, no capital was available.

[17:45]  You: So two kinds of special capital developed :)

[17:46]  Gayle Cabaret is Online

[17:46]  You: 1 Capital that was designed to be lost (these companies failed on average 7 times, remeber).

[17:46]  You: And 2 capital that was designed as speculative

[17:47]  You: Who gives away money and does not ever expect a return?

[17:47]  You: (money that is designed to be lost)

[17:48]  You: The government.

[17:48]  You: Who can do that?

[17:48]  You: But why?

[17:48]  You: Not really.

[17:48]  You: (International pride and competition?)

[17:48]  Bruce Flyer: global advantage?

[17:48]  Rajah Yalin is Offline

[17:48]  You: It's because they expect a return down the line

[17:48]  Bruce Flyer: keep Microsoft in US and not India

[17:48]  Bruce Flyer: ?

[17:49]  You: It's not guaranteed, but in this case the governments investment did come back to them

[17:50]  You: In part, Bruce, but remember this is the 1950 and 60s, and only the very beginning of the Internet

[17:50]  Bruce Flyer: the military significance of info tech perhaps

[17:50]  You: And the part of the government that doesn't care about cost, but only performance, is

[17:50]  You: is the military.

[17:51]  You: Exactly, Bruce . . .

[17:51]  Boston Hutchinson: Competition with the Soviets was a major driver of goerment research then

[17:51]  You: But in pouring money into chips in the 1950s, and 1960s, there was no clear idea, whatsoever, what would occur.

[17:51]  You: Yes, Boston, that was part of the climate

[17:51]  Boston Hutchinson: there was plenty of money for the space program in the 60's. not so much later

[17:51]  Bruce Flyer: i wonder whether "the war against global warming" will prove to be as great a source of R&D soon

[17:52]  You: true

[17:52]  Boston Hutchinson: and space and missle development were driving the microcomputer developments.

[17:53]  You: and waht role computing will play - (the decoding of the human genome occurred 2 years faster than anticipated, due to computing).

[17:53]  Bruce Flyer: it is amazing to me that we went to the moon with the computers that were available in that era

[17:53]  You: Yes, Boston . . . the possibilities of thes . . .

[17:53]  You: :)

[17:54]  You: So, in the climate of the cold war, when you have to survive, you don't count money.

[17:54]  You: Computer companies could fail.

[17:54]  You: What made Silicon Valley original, was basically unlimited funds from teh military

[17:55]  You: If finally you get the right chip, you get military superiority

[17:55]  You: And it worked out exactly that way.

[17:55]  You: 20 years later, the US outperformed the Soviet Union - by 1984.

[17:56]  You: So, you have a purely military strategy, and in the 1970s, all the money that poured into technology paid off.

[17:57]  Bruce Flyer: i see it more economically. the soviet union broke apart for economic reasons. can chips save the US from the coming crunch when so many people retire at about the same time?

[17:57]  You: So the other source of capital - speculative capital - originated because when you win

[17:57]  You: you win really, really big.

[17:57]  You: Also, true

[17:57]  You: The reward for all this investment came alittle bit later.

[17:58]  You: And when the industry developed, people from teh industry became rich.

[17:58]  Bruce Flyer: what is good for MS is good for the US (a little later)?

[17:58]  You: So to conclude, venture capital money origitnally came from inside industry.

[17:58]  You: Through starting to work with establisehd firms

[17:59]  You: And so with these special raw materials, concentrated in the SF Bay Area,

[17:59]  You: something else happens

[18:00]  You: 2 key things happen around these technological developments

[18:00]  You: an industrial structure of special companies which are suppliers

[18:00]  You: and a network of companies which are devleoping knowledge of what they do best, and Universities are doing the same.

[18:00]  You: Saxenian examines this in Regional Advantage.

[18:01]  You: And complex organizations around networks has been a very consistent pattern throughout history.

[18:02]  Bruce Flyer: so it is not the technology itself but the knowledge economy that generates wealth?

[18:02]  You: So let's conclude there, for this evening, with thoughts and observations, perhaps.

[18:02]  You: That's the argument

[18:02]  Boston Hutchinson: Personally, I think the west coast innovation was in business tactics, not in technology

[18:03]  Boston Hutchinson: they won, so now they claim they invented the stuff.

[18:03]  Whitelight Christiansen is Online

[18:03]  You: What do you think about the Ph.D. production evidence, thus influencing knowledge genaration in new ways on teh west coast, B?

[18:04]  Boston Hutchinson: I doubt it.

[18:04]  You: One question is how, and what's the evidence to support it.

[18:04]  Boston Hutchinson: 1st, there was no CS dept at MIT in 67 when i started

[18:04]  Pam Renoir: or did those wanting to get a Ph.D go there because of the companies?

[18:04]  Boston Hutchinson: there simply wasnt CS yet

[18:05]  You: I don't have the book with me (i"m in California), but I'll see if I can eventually find some salient passages from Saxenian's "Regional Advantage."

[18:05]  Boston Hutchinson: there were EEs, mathematicians, phuysics majors, and a surprising number of humanities majors inventing this stuff

[18:05]  You: interesting - I'll try to get the relevant chapters.

[18:06]  Boston Hutchinson: computer languages were an east coast invention--a group of IBMers visited Hal Lanning at MIT. He expounded a new idea... and they went back and wrote FORTRAN

[18:06]  Bruce Flyer: is this a guest speaker?

[18:06]  IIIIAGPIIII Vita: :D

[18:06]  IIIIAGPIIII Vita: yes

[18:07]  You: Yes . . . I develop my argument focussing on Microelectronics, Computers, and Telecommunications.

[18:07]  Bruce Flyer: shall we call it an evening?

[18:08]  You: Which eventually helped make the Internet ubiquitous - I think I might nuance my arguemtn by examining the role of languages . . .

[18:08]  Boston Hutchinson: Well, the guidance systems of the missles and Apollo were done at MIT, buying parts from Fairchild, Raytheon, and othes

[18:08]  Boston Hutchinson: the design was driven by NASA, the military, and MIT

[18:09]  You: yes, in privileging the IT revolution vis-a-vis ME, computers, and telecommunications, I don't specifically examine those aspects of it. . .we'll

[18:09]  Boston Hutchinson: the electronics, i admit were happening in CA

[18:09]  You: carry on with the Internet next week, as well

[18:09]  Boston Hutchinson: those guidance systems were the first microcomputers

[18:10]  Boston Hutchinson: OK. Great. Thanks!

[18:10]  You: And the chips emerged in SV in the 50s

[18:10]  Bruce Flyer: thank you Aphilo. good night all. :-)

[18:10]  You: Great!

[18:10]  Bruce Flyer is Offline

[18:10]  Boston Hutchinson: Good night Bruce.

[18:10]  You: Thank you for your interesting observations.

[18:10]  You: Good night.

[18:10]  Pam Renoir: thanks - good night

[18:11]  You: You're welcome

[18:11]  Boston Hutchinson: Good night, Pam.

[18:11]  Boston Hutchinson: Good night, Aphilo. Thanks again. I hope I don't argue TOO much!

[18:11]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[18:11]  You: Good night, Pam . . .

[18:12]  You: It's a pleasure . . . it stimulatates interesting conversation

[18:12]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[18:12]  You: Thanks!

[18:12]  You: I still don't have great internet access, but let's chat soon . . .I'll explore croquet more.

[18:12]  Boston Hutchinson: I have a few resources for some of this... e.g. my father was a key player in microcomputers in the 60s

[18:13]  Jagger Valeeva is Offline

[18:13]  You: I'm interested in learning more

[18:13]  Boston Hutchinson: and I'd like to explore croquet.

[18:13]  You: Not only is your knowledge of the time interesting, I'm also curious

[18:14]  Boston Hutchinson: He led the group that designed the Apollo guidance computer. Knew Noyce and Kilby and others before they were succesful

[18:14]  You: in seeing counter arguments and evidence to counter Saxenian's research.

[18:14]  You: Was he at MIT?

[18:14]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes.

[18:14]  You: Interesting . . .

[18:15]  You: We'll let's talk more . . . Saxenian's work is well grounded, and somewhat compelling, but in explaining ME, computing, and telecommunications.

[18:15]  Boston Hutchinson: grad studet in physics at Harvard -- quantum mechanics. He became an expert in electronic component reliability which was crucial to the early computers

[18:15]  You: she focuses specifically on the cultural geography.

[18:16]  You: very interesting . . .

[18:16]  Boston Hutchinson: more the business culture

[18:16]  Boston Hutchinson: I think cuture is key here. But the intellectual developments were not so focused in the west i think

[18:16]  You: There were so many developments at the time relating to the IT revolution . . .

[18:16]  Boston Hutchinson: IBM was great, but it was probably hard to innovate there.

[18:17]  You: I agree . . . look over some of the arguments I made here during the week, and let me know whether you think they hold up vis-a-vis ME, computers and telecommunications, as one key bases of the IT revolution

[18:18]  Boston Hutchinson: ME?

[18:18]  You: They really developed the mainframe.

[18:18]  Boston Hutchinson: o. tx.

[18:18]  Boston Hutchinson: sorry, im missing that

[18:18]  You: Microelectronics.

[18:19]  You: Great, let's chat soon . . .

[18:19]  Boston Hutchinson: There's no doubt that the key businesses evolved in the west, but I don't think the ideas all or even mostly originated there

[18:19]  Boston Hutchinson: OK. Very interesting class.

[18:19]  You: Shockley at Bell Labs in New Jersey. . .transistor . . . west coast . . . Silicon Valley