In a guest post on Social Times, entrepreneur Elle Cachette talks about her experience moving her business out of Silicon Valley. The business has since thrived, to the surprise of those who advised her that technology companies could not exist in the outside world.
In hindsight, Cachette finds the Valley overrated:
Stop digging. What you see is what you get – there is no gold in ‘them waters. Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of tech, where every waiter is an entrepreneur and every app is the next blockbuster… When you are in Silicon Valley, everything in the media environment confirms that you are indeed in the center of the universe. But similar to a communist North Korean regime, Silicon Valley drinks much of its own Kool-Aid.
First, it is ironic that in the geographic region that created so much of the technology that Americans now use to telecommute and communicate across great spaces there exists a culture that highly values proximity to a geographic region.
Second, the success of companies beyond places like Silicon Valley is another demonstration of the new realities of work – that almost any job can be done anywhere.
Third, if you substitute “Politics” for “Tech” and “Washington, D.C.” for Silicon Valley, the post would still make a lot of sense.
Jim Eltringham 