To fly, to fall, to fly again - The Economist
LOOK out from Crissy Field, in San Francisco, on a fog-free day and chances are you will see some technology entrepreneurs leaping into the sky. The hybrid sport of kitesurfing has become a favourite pastime of the Bay Area’s startup crowd. On shore, too, exhilaration and risk go hand in hand. San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the strip of land that runs along the shore of the Bay between them have had a tremendous decade as the hub of the global technology industry. The Valley has reshaped lives and languages, creating new verbs—to google, to facebook, to uber—and repurposing old ones—to tweet, to message, to like. Every year new ideas grow from specks to spectacular. Startups are so commonplace that in San Francisco’s Mission district you can buy greeting cards that say “Congratulations on closing your first round. ” Uber, a six-year-old taxi-hailing company, is valued at $41 billion. Airbnb, a seven-year-old firm through which people turn their homes into hotels, is valued at $26 billion. Living in San Francisco today, with its bustle and big ideas, feels like “living in Florence during the Renaissance,” effuses Sander Daniels, the fresh-faced founder of Thumbtack, an app that matches skilled labourers with tasks that suit them. Source: www.economist.com
