(Thomas L. Friedman dal New York Times)
PALO ALTO, Calif. — THE most striking thing about
visiting Silicon Valley these days is how many creative
ideas you can hear in just 48 hours. Jeff Weiner, the
chief executive of LinkedIn, explains how his company
aims to build an economic graph that will link together
the whole global work force with every job being offered
in the world, full-time and temporary, for-profit and
volunteer, the skills needed for each job, and a presence
for every higher education institution everywhere
offering a way to acquire those skills. What they all have
in common is they wake up every day and ask: “What
are the biggest trends in the world, and how do I best
invent/reinvent my business to thrive from them?”
They’re fixated on creating abundance, not redividing
scarcity, and they respect no limits on imagination.
No idea here is “off the table.”Aaron Levie, the chief
executive of Box, explains how his online storage and
collaboration technology is enabling anyone on any
mobile device to securely upload files, collaborate,
and share content from anywhere to anywhere.
Laszlo Bock, who oversees all hiring at Google, lays
out the innovative ways his company has learned to
identify talented people who have never gone to
college. Brian Chesky, the co-founder of Airbnb,
explains how his start-up has, in the blink of an eye,
become one of the biggest providers of overnight
rooms in the world — challenging Hilton and Marriott
— without owning a single room. Curt Carlson, the
chief executive of SRI International, which invented
Siri for your iPhone, recalls how one leading innovator
just told him that something would never happen and
“then I pick up the paper and it just did.” Then,
after you’ve been totally energized by people inventing
the future, you go back to your hotel room and catch
up with the present: the news from Washington. Two
headlines stand out like flashing red lights: House
Speaker John Boehner says immigration reform in
2014 is off the table and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid says the “fast track” legislation we need to
pass vital free-trade agreements with the European
Union and some of our biggest trading partners in
the Asia-Pacific region is off the table. Forget about
both until after the 2014 midterm elections, if not 2016.
Summing this all up, The Associated Press reported
on Feb. 9 something that you could not make up:
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Little more than a week
after Groundhog Day, the evidence is mounting that
lawmakers have all but wrapped up their most
consequential work of 2014, at least until the results
of the fall elections are known.” What a contrast.
Silicon Valley: where ideas come to launch.
Washington, D.C., where ideas go to die. Silicon Valley:
where there are no limits on your imagination and
failure in the service of experimentation is a virtue.
Washington: where the “imagination” to try something
new is now a treatable mental illness covered by
Obamacare and failure in the service of experimentation
is a crime. Silicon Valley: smart as we can be. Washington:
dumb as we wanna be. True, some libertarians in
Silicon Valley cheer Washington’s paralysis. But it is not
so simple. There is a certain “league minimum” that
we need and are entitled to expect from Washington,
especially today. America just discovered huge deposits
of energy and gold at the same time. That is, thanks
to advances in drilling technology we have unlocked
vast new sources of natural gas, which — if extracted with environmentally sound practices — will give us decades
of cheap, cleaner energy and enable America to restore
itself as a center of manufacturing. At the same time,
the dominance of American companies in cloud computing,
and the “Internet of Things” — billions of devices
with sensors — have given us a huge lead in the era
of Big Data, where the winners will be those who are
best at amassing, analyzing and protecting that data
and use software to quickly apply what they learn from
the data to improve any product or service. These data
mountains and the tools to exploit them are the new gold.
And we’ve got it. In such an era, one of the two most
valuable things Washington can do to create more good
jobs and wealth is to open more export markets. The other
is to have an immigration policy that not only provides
a legal pathway to citizenship for those here illegally but
enables America to attract the best brainpower and apply
that talent to the data mountains and software opportunities
we’re creating. But Washington these days won’t even
do the league minimum. As The Economist observed in an essay entitled “When Harry Mugged Barry,” both the
Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with big Asian
markets like Japan, which is almost done, and the
U.S.-European Union trade deal, which is being
negotiated, are “next generation” agreements that
even the playing field for us by requiring higher
environmental and labor standards from our trading
partners and more access for our software and services.
“Studies suggest that proposed deals with Asia and
Europe could generate global gains of $600
billion a year, with $200 billion of that going to America,
” The Economist added. “And that understates the
benefits, since the deals would spur competition in
the market for services, which make up most of rich
countries’ output but are seldom traded across borders.
Opening industries like finance and transport to
greater competition could bring great savings to
consumers. ” The U.S. trade representative, Michael
Froman, told me that if we’re able to conclude these
two trade deals, America would have free trade with
“two-thirds of the world.” If you combine that with
our lead in cloud computing, social media, software
and natural gas for low-cost manufacturing — plus our
rule of law and entrepreneurial cultural — you understand,
says Froman, why one European C.E.O. told him
that America will be the “production platform of choice
” for manufacturers all over the world to set up
their operations and export to the world. But it will all
have to wait at least until after 2014 when we might
have a week to legislate before we get ready for 2016.
God forbid either party should challenge their respective
bases who oppose freer trade or immigration. That
would actually require leadership. We cannot and
should not abolish politics, but sometimes we can’t
afford politics as usual. And this time, with rising
inequality, is one of them. We need to be doing
everything we know how to do to create good jobs
and growth. “When your mind-set isn’t about creating
abundance, ” says Carlson of SRI, “you go into
extractive mode, which is a death spiral.” Start-up
America is our best hope. Sure, we’re doing better
than most everyone else, but just being the “cleanest
dirty shirt” has never been the American dream.
visiting Silicon Valley these days is how many creative
ideas you can hear in just 48 hours. Jeff Weiner, the
chief executive of LinkedIn, explains how his company
aims to build an economic graph that will link together
the whole global work force with every job being offered
in the world, full-time and temporary, for-profit and
volunteer, the skills needed for each job, and a presence
for every higher education institution everywhere
offering a way to acquire those skills. What they all have
in common is they wake up every day and ask: “What
are the biggest trends in the world, and how do I best
invent/reinvent my business to thrive from them?”
They’re fixated on creating abundance, not redividing
scarcity, and they respect no limits on imagination.
No idea here is “off the table.”Aaron Levie, the chief
executive of Box, explains how his online storage and
collaboration technology is enabling anyone on any
mobile device to securely upload files, collaborate,
and share content from anywhere to anywhere.
Laszlo Bock, who oversees all hiring at Google, lays
out the innovative ways his company has learned to
identify talented people who have never gone to
college. Brian Chesky, the co-founder of Airbnb,
explains how his start-up has, in the blink of an eye,
become one of the biggest providers of overnight
rooms in the world — challenging Hilton and Marriott
— without owning a single room. Curt Carlson, the
chief executive of SRI International, which invented
Siri for your iPhone, recalls how one leading innovator
just told him that something would never happen and
“then I pick up the paper and it just did.” Then,
after you’ve been totally energized by people inventing
the future, you go back to your hotel room and catch
up with the present: the news from Washington. Two
headlines stand out like flashing red lights: House
Speaker John Boehner says immigration reform in
2014 is off the table and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid says the “fast track” legislation we need to
pass vital free-trade agreements with the European
Union and some of our biggest trading partners in
the Asia-Pacific region is off the table. Forget about
both until after the 2014 midterm elections, if not 2016.
Summing this all up, The Associated Press reported
on Feb. 9 something that you could not make up:
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Little more than a week
after Groundhog Day, the evidence is mounting that
lawmakers have all but wrapped up their most
consequential work of 2014, at least until the results
of the fall elections are known.” What a contrast.
Silicon Valley: where ideas come to launch.
Washington, D.C., where ideas go to die. Silicon Valley:
where there are no limits on your imagination and
failure in the service of experimentation is a virtue.
Washington: where the “imagination” to try something
new is now a treatable mental illness covered by
Obamacare and failure in the service of experimentation
is a crime. Silicon Valley: smart as we can be. Washington:
dumb as we wanna be. True, some libertarians in
Silicon Valley cheer Washington’s paralysis. But it is not
so simple. There is a certain “league minimum” that
we need and are entitled to expect from Washington,
especially today. America just discovered huge deposits
of energy and gold at the same time. That is, thanks
to advances in drilling technology we have unlocked
vast new sources of natural gas, which — if extracted with environmentally sound practices — will give us decades
of cheap, cleaner energy and enable America to restore
itself as a center of manufacturing. At the same time,
the dominance of American companies in cloud computing,
and the “Internet of Things” — billions of devices
with sensors — have given us a huge lead in the era
of Big Data, where the winners will be those who are
best at amassing, analyzing and protecting that data
and use software to quickly apply what they learn from
the data to improve any product or service. These data
mountains and the tools to exploit them are the new gold.
And we’ve got it. In such an era, one of the two most
valuable things Washington can do to create more good
jobs and wealth is to open more export markets. The other
is to have an immigration policy that not only provides
a legal pathway to citizenship for those here illegally but
enables America to attract the best brainpower and apply
that talent to the data mountains and software opportunities
we’re creating. But Washington these days won’t even
do the league minimum. As The Economist observed in an essay entitled “When Harry Mugged Barry,” both the
Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with big Asian
markets like Japan, which is almost done, and the
U.S.-European Union trade deal, which is being
negotiated, are “next generation” agreements that
even the playing field for us by requiring higher
environmental and labor standards from our trading
partners and more access for our software and services.
“Studies suggest that proposed deals with Asia and
Europe could generate global gains of $600
billion a year, with $200 billion of that going to America,
” The Economist added. “And that understates the
benefits, since the deals would spur competition in
the market for services, which make up most of rich
countries’ output but are seldom traded across borders.
Opening industries like finance and transport to
greater competition could bring great savings to
consumers. ” The U.S. trade representative, Michael
Froman, told me that if we’re able to conclude these
two trade deals, America would have free trade with
“two-thirds of the world.” If you combine that with
our lead in cloud computing, social media, software
and natural gas for low-cost manufacturing — plus our
rule of law and entrepreneurial cultural — you understand,
says Froman, why one European C.E.O. told him
that America will be the “production platform of choice
” for manufacturers all over the world to set up
their operations and export to the world. But it will all
have to wait at least until after 2014 when we might
have a week to legislate before we get ready for 2016.
God forbid either party should challenge their respective
bases who oppose freer trade or immigration. That
would actually require leadership. We cannot and
should not abolish politics, but sometimes we can’t
afford politics as usual. And this time, with rising
inequality, is one of them. We need to be doing
everything we know how to do to create good jobs
and growth. “When your mind-set isn’t about creating
abundance, ” says Carlson of SRI, “you go into
extractive mode, which is a death spiral.” Start-up
America is our best hope. Sure, we’re doing better
than most everyone else, but just being the “cleanest
dirty shirt” has never been the American dream.
