The last time this type of issue was brought up, the conversation soon focused on 'are those companies overcapitalized.'
The question Lyons is asking is whether all of our ginormous geek brains are solving the "right" problems. Google, Facebook et al are hiring the best and brightest the US engineering schools have to offer, and put them to work on maximizing ad revenue, or - as Lyons puts it - finding better restaurants through social networks.
In the meantime, serious problems are going unaddressed and unsolved by the very same ginormous geek brains because we're too busy building sexy webapps to attract VC funding.
That's the crux of his argument. It's like watching Dodge or GM finding better places to put cup holders in their new huge SUVs or trucks while gas prices are doubling or even tripling. Sure, having a good cupholder in just the right place is a good problem to solve, and frankly that's exactly what I want when I'm looking for a place to put my Big Gulp. But my problem of paying $200 (or whatever) to fill up my car an hour later, surely, is a much more important problem to fix?
The question Lyons is asking is whether all of our ginormous geek brains are solving the "right" problems. Google, Facebook et al are hiring the best and brightest the US engineering schools have to offer, and put them to work on maximizing ad revenue, or - as Lyons puts it - finding better restaurants through social networks.
In the meantime, serious problems are going unaddressed and unsolved by the very same ginormous geek brains because we're too busy building sexy webapps to attract VC funding.
That's the crux of his argument. It's like watching Dodge or GM finding better places to put cup holders in their new huge SUVs or trucks while gas prices are doubling or even tripling. Sure, having a good cupholder in just the right place is a good problem to solve, and frankly that's exactly what I want when I'm looking for a place to put my Big Gulp. But my problem of paying $200 (or whatever) to fill up my car an hour later, surely, is a much more important problem to fix?