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Definitely, Silicon Valley is the new Wall Street. I was just thinking of the differences between these two “worlds”, but I finally found more likeness than differences.
Let’s think of when Wall Street was on the edge, in the 80’s.
It was a period of opulence and nowhere was the American dream more present at the time than on Wall Street. Moreover, it was the center of American power. People were fomented by the idea of that everyone can can create, mold, and craft his own future… and be rich!
Hordes of ambitious young men of many races and nationalities flocked to Wall Street, motivated by greed, adventure and dreams of conquest in the business world.
“Success” was the common credo and there was plenty of money everywhere. I guess you remember the Gordon Gekko‘s speech: “Greed is good!”.
And now, shift your thoughts on Silicon Valley. It attracts hyper-competitive, driven personality, like Wall Street did in the past. They are all convinced that they can change the world by their inventions and time is always too slow when it comes to launch their new products.
They only changed Finance for Technology.
The intricate networks of chips, software and connection-cables are the new lifeblood of these businessmen. Markets are mainly pushed by trust and confidence in some new disruptive ideas and the inflated P/E ratios represent this faith. It is the same scenario with the quick-money fever we saw in Wall Street.
The Vally folks don’t use to drink expensive wine, but visit sophisticated and trendy restaurants of fusion kitchen menus. They dress Nike instead of Valentino, but their shopping carts are still very expensive.
When it comes to make a purchase, the Vally don’t spend time out of their house, walking and having bargains. They are sons of the Shut-in Economy. They are served.
Sure, there are surface-level differences, but at the core, the culture of money, power, and success has moved from East to West.