What happened to building things that mean something?

[930addict]

I grew up in Silicon Valley where my dad owned a tiny engineering company that provided printed circuit design and PCB manufacturing services. He had been in business for 30 years before he retired in 2001. During that time he was able to work on some really neat stuff in both the military and commercial space. Basically if you can think of the major players in the electronics/aerospace industry my dad’s company probably did work for them. We were involved in companies like Nvidia when they were just a hole in the wall and, in fact, we knew the founders before they became gazilianaires. I remember when we received a schematic that was labeled ATM Switch. I had asked my dad what that was - I was only 16 at the time - and I’ll never forget his reply: “I don’t know maybe it’s a new type of cash machine”. LOL. We were there on the forefront of emerging technologies and saw products before they came to market. At one point we were simultaneously doing work for the big three graphics chip manufactures, Nvidia, 3d labs and ATI. We also worked on military projects like components for the patriot missile systems and the B1 bomber to name a few. One of the coolest things that I personally worked on was an experiment for NASA and having the scientist call me up to say, “Hey James. Remember that project you worked on? I just wanted to let you know it’s orbiting the planet right now in the space shuttle.” There was an energy in the valley that I really miss.

I was reading an article last night about some 23 year old that makes a half million a year by posting facts on twitter. Half a million a year for regurgitating information. He is building an app that is expected to bring in about $60,000 a week that basically ties into his tweets and allows people to like something and post comments. I am definitely missing something here. It seems more and more people are making money off of things that I would consider to be senseless. Snapchat - really? Then you have twitter and facebook. Ok. Facebook I can see has a little value but my family used another service that did the same thing years before the Zuck hit puberty. So I don’t know why facebook all of the sudden became so popular. I liked the other service better anyway. I guess I don’t understand how these people are making so much money for building stupid apps that serve no meaningful purpose. I have ideas that I am working on but they are things that can potentially have a huge impact for the users. Not like making a stick with a mount and marketing it as a selfie stick. WTF?

I hear very little about making meaningful stuff anymore. The tech leaders of today are to ingenuity what the Kardashion's are to talent. It seems that nowadays making money is actually easier if you set your sights lower.

[HardDrive]

Young people are not interested in building value. They simply want to be entertained.

[look 171]

why do you think there are so many reality shows? We like drama and its easy for the gerenal public to sit there and absorb. They make millions. A friend compiles a bunch of public info and put them together in his web site for easier access or search. He's making a killing. There are people or companies that are making meaningful products. They just can't compete with what the general public that want useless info. Too many dumb ass out there.

[GH85Carrera]

There are more ways to make money than anyone can dream.

I saw a TV report on some pre-pubescent kid that reviews toys and then uploads that to YouTube. He get millions of views and is making major money.

Good for him.

I know of a guy that does 100% of his business with a cell phone & a laptop. He has figured out a way to get a contract to deliver a product and he just sub-contracts all the work. He works from his house but he does not even have a home office. Some of the contracts he delivers bring him a six figure PROFIT. It is all driven by a good solid customer list and contractor list and his knowledge of that industry.

He delivers a quality product to the final client that meets the specifications in their proposal perfectly and the end client is happy.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by look 171

A friend compiles a bunch of public info and put them together in his web site for easier access or search. He's making a killing.

Drudge??

[john70t]

If you are Google and can listen to all the senseless chatter, you can predict which stocks are going to take off and make trillions.

(but, yes, there is a lot of focus on collecting money and not enough on producing it)

[look 171]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Drudge??

what's that????

[HardDrive]

Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

[Rick Lee]

Drudge made his bones when he outed Newsweek for sitting on the Lewinsky story. I would say that gave him some credibility as far as having good sources goes. And back then he was working out of an apt. in Hollywood, CA, IIRC. So obviously he's gonna get some good traffic on his site after that. 99% of his site are headlines linked to other sources. I really don't think I've ever gone to many of those newspapers' sites other than by the links on Drudge. I think he gets $10k/wk. for per banner ad. With the traffic he gets, companies stand in line to buy those banner ads. So where is he not creating value? He aggregates a lot of news stories, pretty diverse ones, actually, all onto one page, adds in links to the major syndicated columnists, other news sites and he delivers the traffic numbers that justify his ad rates. He might break five or ten stories himself per year that he writes about. The rest he links to. Good on him. I've read the site every single day since the Lewinsky story broke.

[Yorkie]

I think its unfair to state that the tech leaders of today are to ingenuity what the Kardashion's are to talent. Look at Elon Musk. The guy not only brought us a way to easily pay for things he brought us a very good electric car and SpaceX. Branson is paving the way for space flight. Apple made the cell phone indispensable.

I agree that Engineers are not celebrated today as they were back in the 19th century but don't think that what we engineers build these days does not matter as the conversation ends up being one of those generational battles where the old guys start complaining about the "youth of today"

[jwasbury]

I don't know that I would say no one makes meaningful stuff anymore, but I can agree that there seems to be a plethora of useless crap out there.

I attended a couple of tech start-up forums, these were packed with venture capital guys and the founders of the start-ups were discussing their "product" and business plans. 90% of them were "apps" of one sort or another, and the business plan was to get a critical mass of users, then serve up advertising to them or otherwise sell user information gathered to 3rd parties who would be interested in marketing to those users. I didn't see a whole lot of creativity, or things that would disrupt the status quo...lots of people trying to be the next Candy Crush. One shop's product wasn't even an "app," it was a "button" that could be placed inside of other people's apps. The revenue model there was they get paid by having users "click through" to some other site or app - again, some form of advertising.

[Eric 951]

Originally Posted by Yorkie

I think its unfair to state that the tech leaders of today are to ingenuity what the Kardashion's are to talent. Look at Elon Musk. The guy not only brought us a way to easily pay for things he brought us a very good electric car and SpaceX. Branson is paving the way for space flight. Apple made the cell phone indispensable.

I agree that Engineers are not celebrated today as they were back in the 19th century but don't think that what we engineers build these days does not matter as the conversation ends up being one of those generational battles where the old guys start complaining about the "youth of today"

I agree--I work at a lot of manufacturing facilities and whenever I get the opportunity I always view the process. Certain plants are based on "old school" technology, but the process has been stream-lined or updated by advances in the process introduced by engineers. The new steel mills I work on being built or expanded(yes, this is happening in the US) are vastly different than the "original" mills I work on, although the end product and result are the same. So, innovation is still occurring but instead of inventing the process, they are making it more efficient.
This was most evident at the Mahle piston facility a few years back--they had 2 lines going, one consisted mostly of robots handling the pieces, the other had 4-man crews making /finishing the parts. Both lines did the same thing, and it was interesting watching both, unfortunately, the robotic line was...efficient, and more unfortunate, in the loading /storage area, there were multiple large crates, containing...more robots. The precision displayed by the robots, and their singular purpose in the process was thanks to engineers, so there are those still out there actually interested in making things, which is nice to know.

[wdfifteen]

"A friend compiles a bunch of public info and put them together in his web site for easier access or search. "

"99% of his [Drudge's] site are headlines linked to other sources."

Sounds like the same business model to me.


I understand what the OP is saying. People who don't create anything of substance but can put eyes in front of ads are getting all the press and making big money, while guys who invent and build the stuff that really make a difference in the world remain relatively unknown and generally don't become billionaires.

[Baz]

IMHO.....

The way I see it - all you have to do is consider how music, architecture, clothing design, and autos have all slid backwards - to get a grasp on how far we have fallen as a civilisation.

Let alone entertainment.


What the hell ever happened to the concept of style?

[930addict]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

...People who don't create anything of substance but can put eyes in front of ads are getting all the press and making big money, while guys who invent and build the stuff that really make a difference in the world remain relatively unknown and generally don't become billionaires.

Bingo! Nowadays it's the drivel that sizzles. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

I agree about Elon Musk. I also think that he and his type are not celebrated as they should be. I guess that's my point, though. Back in "the day" you had people building things with true value like E-trade, Paypal, E-Bay, Google, Yahoo and Double-click. Those were innovate companies with innovative people. They changed the way people do business and they led the news. One of the dot com companies I worked for built a web based ERP system which allowed small companies access to high-end business software that wouldn't have otherwise been affordable to them. Today what is celebrated in tech is the tantamount to reality TV shows. And people are getting paid for the drivel. So obviously more developers crank out more crap.

And don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with people making money. I just can't wrap my head around making 500,000 a year to regurgitate information to the twitter-sphere. This tells me that I'm trying too hard. LOL. I'm a systems engineer and have designed some pretty cool stuff utilizing many different technologies. But apparently there's more money in selling crap.

[Scott R]

I work for a major airplane manufacture in the US, we're still building and inventing innovative products that we assemble here in the US. Up next is a new spacecraft that's reusable, and in line to dominate our competitors.

[jyl]

Back in the day, many people viewed eBay, Google, Yahoo and so on as silly insubstantial things. Today those people think those older internet companies are the real deal, but they view the new internet companies as silly insubstantial things. Maybe that says something about the viewer's limitations?

I think if you are looking for the most dramatic, rapid, impactful innovation in the economy today, it is largely in two areas. Web businesses and biotech. The first aren't technology innovators, their innovation is in the business model. The second is hardcore cutting edge science.

Traditional technology hardware is, by comparison, kind of boring. Cisco has a new line of core routers, nVidia a new GPU, Qualcomm a new baseband chip, yeah okay. These are extensions of technology that is already rather mature. So those companies' stocks sell for valuations that are rather pedestrian.

Of course, the established companies make important, valuable things that we can't live without. But I wouldn't dismiss the innovators just because they don't make what you traditionally recognize as a product.