Silicon Valley: The Next Decade (Part 3)
The Money and How It Is Applied
Of course, the models discussed are predicated upon the fact that the patrons and salonniers had money and were willing to spend it on fostering a community of artists and intellectuals without directly benefiting from such an “investment.”
In Silicon Valley, we have plenty of money. There will be more as the next wave of IPOs and acquisitions happen. We are also already a magnet for talented engineers and entrepreneurs because the Valley’s wealthy shower investment on promising startups as angel investors.
However, I am not so sure that the Valley’s wealthy will put in the same effort to go find the next Botticelli and invite him to come live on their estates in Atherton or Woodside, as Lorenzo would. Nor am I sure that a concerted effort will be made to host Enlightenment salons to foster intellectual and artistic discourse of a kind that can push us forward as a society toward something more sophisticated, elegant, and creative.
This effort, if Silicon Valley’s elite can rise to the challenge, will make the crucial difference.
We have the money here. But when it comes to social grace and talent, people are woefully unimaginative.
For Silicon Valley, a social and cultural “growing up” is in order. If it happens, we can expect to see a Renaissance this decade comparable to Florence under the Medicis.
This, coupled with our natural flair for technology and entrepreneurship, will help us to reach unprecedented levels of prosperity because the scale at which we can impact humanity today, right from our computers and mobile phones, is infinite.
Silicon Valley: Vision 2020
In conclusion, let’s take a walk through Silicon Valley in the year 2020.
Look around. The architecture has changed from 10 years ago. Here in Menlo Park, a cluster of contemporary houses designed by Chilean architect Bernardo Urquieta flank Olive Street leading up to Santa Cruz Avenue.
Taka a turn, and downtown Menlo Park is now a juxtaposition of almost 25 world-class art galleries, 15 nightclubs, a theater, beautiful boutiques exhibiting clothes from a new generation of multicultural fashion designers, and some 50 ethnically diverse restaurants. On any night, you can go listen to the top jazz musicians of the day, dance the Argentine tango to live musicians from Buenos Aires, or listen to a poetry reading at an alternative performing arts venue.
In fact, once a week the restaurants play host to a salon, where interesting, multi-faceted discussions and exchanges take place.
It has become surprisingly easy to meet interesting, multidimensional people in Silicon Valley these days. You walk in to any of these salons, performing arts venues, nightclubs, or art galleries, and social media follows you in. Location-sensitive technology lets you know who else is there, and based on personalization algorithms invented right here in the Valley, it will recommend whom you should meet and strike up a conversation with.
Not far from Sand Hill Road, on a cul de sac called Randall Place, stands a jewel of a museum – a private home, really – housing a most exquisite collection of photography by California photographer William Carter. This museum, modeled after the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston and the Frick museum in New York, hosts regular concerts and salons, as well as elegant dances. Here, artists in residence come to work from far and away, and in the Medici tradition, they find patrons among the Valley’s elite through their hosts.
At a piano lounge on Chestnut, the Ella Fitzgerald of this era sings. New Orleans born Ledisi studied opera and piano in Berkeley, and when she sings Willow, weep for me … the willow does, often, weep in response.
What else do you see, as you look around? Do share …
This segment is part 3 in the series : Silicon Valley: The Next Decade
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Thank you so much for sharing such well-thought out vision. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart as I too felt there was such palpable potential in the Bay Area for a true cultural renasisance.
However, I left San Jose in January 2009, and have since then I have lived in New Orleans, Tucson, Chicago, NYC, and Las Vegas. In 2006 and 2007, I held intimate-less than 20 people– Salons for mixing between different edges of artists, entrepreneur and media social circles (they rotated between locations in San Jose and San Francisco with the inaugural Salon in Menlo Park).
Your vision is possible, and the prosperity of the area makes if feasible financially. As you also articulated, it is a more of a matter of interest, desire and will.
As a former computer engineer, I can relate to the left-brained and intellectual emphasis of Silicon Valley. As someone who has also worked in marketing and managerial roles in startups, I also see the magnetic energy of the ecosystem of support and growth available to the average entrepreneur as immensely attractive to world-class technology entrepreneurs.
However, today as an artist (my own expressive preferences are moving into interactive storytelling and transmedia) I did not find Silicon Valley to offer the same level of energy, enthusiasm, appreciation for culture and arts as in other major cities of the world. Why would I live in Silicon Valley rather than Williamsburg or Berlin?
Artists, like entrepreneurs, also wish to innovate, grow and thrive. And it is not that (yet). San Francisco and Oakland being exceptions, but they are also their own enclaves, and living there one never need to venture into the South Bay.
Having said all that, I do believe that the Bay Area may be uniquely positioned because of its deep roots in hacker culture (i.e. The Homebrew Computer Club), ushering in the personal computer revolution (Apple) and its long-standing innate understanding of the Internet as an interactive, real-time medium (not to be confused with broadcast media) to be a forerunner in interactive arts–which hasn't even scratched the surface of possibility as yet. Whether that happens, again, is simply a matter of will and desire. Once it is a haven for a niche of artists, more artists will also rotate through and be drawn to cross-fertilize with the interactive artists.
Fred Wilson, a prominent New York VC, recently wrote an interesting piece on his blog about what's next in the Internet, and I agree that it is a cultural revolution. When he speaks of the "Internet ethos" that ethos is innate to the Bay Area (I assume it still is–although much can change in a few years) more so that LA or NYC–yet it is very easy to be disrupted out of any pioneering position by new pioneers.
I have been musing about holding an unconference style format of event in Silicon Valley this September to make some ripples around this cultural renaissance conception. If you are interested in being on the committee, I'd be honored to collaborate with you.
p.s. Fred Wilson's article on the cultural revolution– http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/06/investing-in-the-… and I also wrote about a microfinance fund for emerging arts (I don't believe patronage works in this day and age) here: http://bit.ly/mpUtDY
I agree with you on the interactivity point, and I also agree with you on the structure of patronage being more investments than grants. Both of those are stronger in the Bay Area than anywhere else – the innate understanding of interactivity is definitely stronger here. The understanding of small investments in nebulous ideas is also stronger here than anywhere else in the world.
So, when do we start seeing those two strengths find better formulation in streams like fashion, food, art, culture, etc.?
That’s the core question we need to explore in this context.
If we can find the answers, we have a recipe for a Renaissance.
Also, I think the ambience of creativity depends on who you surround yourself with. If enough creative people live in close proximity such that exchange of ideas happen freely and dynamically, that would give more people reason to come. For example, if there is a dance center where we make a concerted effort to invite and host some of the most innovative thinkers in the world of dance, they come an work together, and there is investment available for significant productions to emerge out of that effort, as well as potentially social dance experiences – this would be very exciting.
Similarly, in fashion, in photography, in theater, in music, in architecture – creating hubs of creativity, coupled with financially viable business ventures around them, will be what generates the excitement.
Human-centric Computing will change the way we live, work & play. Computing moving to surfaces would make devices redundant, and spaces all that more important. This would have an enormous impact on architecture/interiors & mobility, which would force the geeks to interact with architects, designers, artists… Cities will need to re-develop to this new paradigm shift, and Silicon Valley is not going to be the same again. That's a given! Just can't wait to see it all unfold
And Cheers Sramana to your evangelistic spirit !!!
My mundane vision is technology enabling a networking infrastructure that can carry uncompressed video, bi-directional audio and high-speed data through standard cables and/or wireless networking allowing devices (consumer, mobile, PCs, etc) to be networked in a way that is interactive, simple to set up and easy to use with content available anywhere in a specific environment.