Siberia - The Next Silicon Valley? 184
eldavojohn writes "CNN Money is running a story about Siberia's rising tech industry.The movement towards tech is centered in Akademgorodok (Academy Town), with a 15 percent annual increase in the number of firms. Even though the area industry's worth is still fledgling compared to other areas, the growth cannot be ignored. 'President Vladimir Putin has also taken note, backing the construction of a $650 million technology business district with $100 million in state funding for infrastructure. "We simply mustn't waste this chance," Putin declared in Akademgorodok following a 2005 trip to tech-savvy India, "especially as other countries have achieved success without such a strong starting position." High tech is the sort of thing that the Kremlin, realizing that Russia's natural resources can't last forever, would like to develop.'"
The Russian Hacker (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Surely, I reasoned, with the amount of time they took to set up that scam and avoid authorities, they could have gotten a job like I have and done something good for even more cash--but, that's my naïve American attitude for you. The job market probably doesn't exist there where they live.
Nothing would make me happier than to see these people given an opportunity to move somewhere close to make money, help their economy, establish an industry/infrastructure for future generations & to get these programmers off the street and into a job
On an offtopic note, I used to "cool" my computers in Minnesota by placing them next to the window during the winters, I'm certain you could cut down cooling costs in Siberia using similar strategies.
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Re:The Russian Hacker (Score:5, Insightful)
According to your link, we should be hiring the Polish. The Russians did better than the US's 4 out of 48, but they still didn't take any sort of lion's share at 8 out of 48. And in any case, TopCoder is not a useful metric of anything except for, perhaps, cowboy coding. Many of the key skills required to launch a successful technology business are not measured by simplisitic coding riddles.
I hope you realize that Siberia is not a frozen wasteland. Siberia covers such an area (where you'll find many of the Chukcha tribes), but it also covers more temperate climates. Not to mention that these programmers wouldn't be a bunch of smart guys packed into a cold little shack. They'll probably be in a building not much different than those found here in America. Which means that they'll have the same cooling and heating problems as we do. (We have horribly cold Chicago winters, I can assure you that they help cool our servers very little.)
The truth is that most of those who have the willpower to do something "good" for even more cash, also have the will to go where the dollars are. Which means that many of them immigrate to other countries rather than hang around in Russia. With Moscow's economy booming, that may eventually change. But for now, Russia has a difficult time holding on to their talent. That talent that they do hold onto may feel their talents underappreciated in the nascent Russian tech economy.
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Most of Siberia is defined in climate terms as temperate continental. In fact the "most continental" temperate on the face of the earth. Which means that it can get above 30C in mid summer in the same place where you have -30C in mid-winter. So you still need good airconditioning for any high tech industry facility.
As far as talent, I bet that there is a considerable talent left in Russia for any ant
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But still, it may be a little bit extreme for the rest of the world. Besides, Novosibirsk is not very close to the European countries or the USA.
As for Technoparks (Tech parks), Putin is going to do a right thing (IMHO). Government is funding devel
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People were escaping to Moscow/SPB because they could have got a much better job there. Not anymore.
For example, I know three MVPs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Most_Valu
Re:The Russian Hacker (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll probably be in a building not much different than those found here in America. Which means that they'll have the same cooling and heating problems as we do. (We have horribly cold Chicago winters, I can assure you that they help cool our servers very little.)
Well, that might be due to poor design. I read an article about a data center built in Minneapolis, which can also be terribly cold. The Data Center made use of "environmental cooling" ie sucking in cold outside air. The DC operator bragged that he didn't need to run his chillers at all for 3 1/2 months of the year; that he used the excess heat to warm the offices, and if those got too warm he warmed the loading dock. In fact, often the incoming air was too cold so it had to be prewarmed first (also from the excess temp of the servers themselves). You might consider making better use of the natural cooling temps to help with your DC, it's the latest thing in DC design.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if DCs in Siberia were going to attempt to do this also, provided that Siberia is truly that cold.
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I have never been there personally, but by all accounts from Napoleon [wikipedia.org] onwards the Russian winters, and Siberia winters in particular, are bitterly cold.
BTW: to expand on your efficient building design ideas I was just thinking that maybe instead of using all of the heat from the servers to preheat their own cooling air, you could shunt some of that heat into a Sterling Engi [wikipedia.org]
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Good jobs exist in Ukraine, but many of the people there have a "live for today, screw tomorrow" mindset, which is why they do things like this. They have learned that tomorrow may never come, so you better get wha
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I think you're missing the point. (Score:2)
However, commercialization requires:
I've seen other countries try and build their own Silicon Valley, but ultimately, if there is talent (which there usually isn't), there is either cor
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And end up with the writing skills of a 9th grader. If you have to be convinced that a university education is worthwhile, you really need a university education. But that's just my opinion, and I'm in the academic racket myself. Do what you want, but I highly recommend using the few years it takes to get a graduate degree to get to know yourself and try things and form some notion about ho
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My writing skills didn't improve from college, it came from posting and trying to make a good impression.
Why do you think people will get an idea of what they want to do in life from college? The only classes that were interesting to me aren't available unless you take a number of prerequisites.
And think of all the times you'd have gotten laid if you had the money to spend on hookers, instead of blowing it on college.
College used to be important because access to people and fields of study were limited. We
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if you'd rather be with a hooker than a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, be my guest.
Good Essay on the Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Startups Condense in America [paulgraham.com]
Among his points, there is one in particular that (I think) gets overlooked the most. His seventh point, "America Is Not Too Fussy" is really a key issue. Like it or not, many Amercian startups bend the rules to find the most expedient solution to getting into business. 95% of the time, this bending of the rules is harmless, and actually benefits society. However, many countries would simply enforce their regulations to the point where that startup would never exist. I find his point to be amazingly enlightening.
Take a gander at his article, then come back to the matter of the Siberian Silicon Valley. Does Siberia have the infrastructure? The desire? The willingness to bend the rules? The lack of a police state? Free and open immigration? Cross pollination of employees between companies?
I think you'll find that many of these items exist there, but many do not. Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because it has all of those things in spades. Now if only it didn't cost a bloody fortune to live there.
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...there are still plenty of people trying to make their money or gain power off of the backs of others
This is, very much, a capitalistic attitude. Almost every business exploits the resources around them. There are those who primarily explot physical resources (Abitibi exploits renewable trees, UK Coal exploits non-renewable coal), and those who primarily exploit intellectual resources (Microsoft exploits software developers, Intel exploits hardware engineers).
The only real difference between what has happened in North America (and Western Europe) and what might happen in Russia? The amount of money that
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Only if you consider Al Capone the poster boy for capitalism.
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While it is true that Al Capone exploited many people, he did it illegally through coercion, intimidation, manipulation and violence.
Perhaps I should have written:
"The standard practice of trading currency for tasks is a hallmark of capitalism. The difference is all about how much currency you recieve for the task that you perform."
Better?
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Exactly. Now go back and read the paragraph you so obviously misunderstood.
Not in the slightest.
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As for enforcement of regulations, Russia is actually very good at it. When you piss off the wrong person or end up on a list of people needing "protection", that is.
Russia is experiencing organized crime - some of which has close associations to the oligarchy. I do not suggest that this is a good thing. But they are not the only country to have experienced corruption during a period of great change. You can look at the United States, Mexico, China and others present and historical examples.
Sadly, the people that are victims of organized crime
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(raises eyebrow)
You realize that you're effectively admitting that you setup a strawman just to knock it down?
Of course they will. The issue is that Russia is not in a position to host a new Silicon Valley, not that people won't do any work. Programmers will get hired, and programmers will earn their living. But the fa
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And they've got land to spare, or so I hear.
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In my opinion there is. After all the Cold War was a competition between the two different ideologies, and no matter what you might think, Soviet Union did not lack innovation.
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The payload may seem tiny and trivial, but the R-7 that put it in orbit was not.
More difficult thing was to provide those spectacular breakthroughs AND quality of life improvements for the ordinary people...
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Well okay, fair enough. But was it "innovative"? The shock involved was "Oh my god, they can launch big missles just like we can".
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Under Bush II, US forces have been behaving like villains in cold war melodramas: they engage in kidnapping and torture, and have a positive contempt of warrants and due process.
Is this trolling? I have trouble imagining why it's even controversial at this point, it's just the truth.
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Here is why:
1) Sabarnes Oxly is making it harder for corporations to do business. You can argue about its merits or lack of, but it makes life more complicated.
2) Immigration is becoming truly difficult in the US.
3) Travel within the US is becoming downright ugly due to the overdone security constraints (eg SSSS on your ticket is the kiss of guaranteed delays and pains.)
4) IP and patents are getting in
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I'm not a big fan of the complacent notion that America succeeds because God made us better, whether God is and old guy in the sky or some kind of historical determinism that has finally created the perfect human disposition. Instead, I think that we got an early start on the idea of fair, open and impartial laws, which unlocked and attracted vast reserves of un
Re:Good Essay on the Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet China still manages to have top scientific researchers in every field -- and continues to liberalize both economically and politically. See this [stanford.edu].And how does that differ from the US? Economic power is being concentated in fewer companies and individuals, who will be more easily able to affect government -- we've seen it already. Will the pendulum swing back? I don't know, in the age of mass media, whether we can check the power of the few.
Again, how does this differ from the US? KBR. Diebold. ExxonMobil. Boeing. The ones who write the laws are the lobbyists for the companies that benefit from them.
China, Russia, and the US are approaching each other in terms of politicoeconomic systems. The major difference still remaining is that of IP regulation and protection. If the rigid IP control system is doomed to fail (as many slashdotters believe) then China and Russia are poised to dominate -- since IP is relatively worthless in those countries, and is ignored almost at will. Seems to me that they would have a competitive advantage, in having hugely successful businesses in that climate already.
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But the attitudes behind it live on.
Because the ideology that privatizing public functions automatically make them more efficient is hogwash. The government doesn't buy services like military logistical support from a preexisting market that has already established efficient equillibrium prices. So when it privatizes such a function it has to turn to a small group of
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That is no different from when the US bids out huge contracts -- there is a very limited selection of companies from which to solicit bids. Hence KBR/Halliburton's no-bid contract in Iraq -- apparently there was no other company capable of fulfilling the contract. Or airplane contracts; only two com
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Another reason that we'll never see reform on the scale of what we saw a hundred years ago is that we have the knowledge and power to prevent an economic collaps on the scale of the Great De
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Your underlying assumption that this accountability is not only a good thing, but the lack of it is ultimately destructive.
Now, in spite the fact that history tends to agree with this, it is still not a given. It may be circumstantial.
Truth of the matter is that being an unaccountable government has its pros and its cons, which are in themselves, subject to fluctuation depending on the environment they're imposed in
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Yes manifest destiny as an explicit idea is in fact dead. However we still suffer from the hubris of the implicit idea of American exceptionalism and it takes several forms, the dominant one being that the US is God's chosen country and it is our role to liberate certain middle-eastern and central Asian countries from their evil rulers. If some form of exceptionalism weren't common among the populous, the lead up to the war wouldn't have
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This is and always has been true, yet equally ignored purposefully whenever a city here in the USA wants "revitalize downtown" and the local press runs articles on the new mom and pop independent businesses and their travails against Wal-Mart and so forth, but mentions not at all the businesses that have always been there, but whos
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The case of Germany is a strange one. The Germans invented the modern university, and up till the 1930s theirs were the best in the world. Now they have none that stand out. As I was mulling this over, I found myself thinking: "I can understand why German universities declined in the 1930s, after they excluded Jews. But surely they should have bounced back by now." Then I realized: maybe not. There are few Jews left in Germany and most Jews I know would not want to move there. And if you took any great American university and removed the Jews, you'd have some pretty big gaps. So maybe it would be a lost cause trying to create a silicon valley in Germany, because you couldn't establish the level of university you'd need as a seed.
Is just out and out questionable. To think Germany's silicon valley may have been doomed to fail because they do not have good enough universities is one thing. But suggesting that the lack of any one specific identity, like the Jews, has anything to do with the quality of the university is just ludicrous and, in my opinion, borderline racist. If he was trying to make some point of general e
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Free and open immigration?
It can't be overstated how important the immigration of a HUGE pool of talented engineers to the US from China, India, Canada, all over Europe, etc. has been to the growth and success of Silicon Valley. I'd estimate half the engineers I work with were not born in the United States. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why someone would move from their home country to the Bay Area (reasons that oviously very widely based on the individial and
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It's certainly true that, all things being equal, most people would probably choose San Francisco ahead of Novosibirsk.
Given a choice between Sunnyvale and Krasnoyasrk, however, the decision becomes a bit harder. In a contest between Atlanta an
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Neither. We're talking about productivity. i.e. The actual output of the area. Replicating the technology output of Silicon Valley (which really encompasses the entire area, including Palo Alto and San Fransisco) is a difficult - if not impossible - feat.
If all we were looking for was size, then IBM would run the world.
NOT Silicon Valley (Score:5, Insightful)
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Good for them! This will allow market forces to make their economy more efficient. I guess it's not obvious to most people here, so I'll explain how it works(1).
If a company is using more resources (labor, gold) than it produces it's not adding value to the economy. This is expressed as profit's or in this case, a loss. Faced with theft/piracy firms will adapt their business processes, i.e. keeping staff's
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The rule of law is for people who want to live with other people. That's why every successful society has one.
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Re:NOT Silicon Valley (Score:4, Interesting)
Once again an example of theory versus actuality.
We can test your hypothesis through observation. Make a list of countries where "rule of law applies" and a list of those for which the "rule of law" is secondary to rule of fist.
List 1: Wussies: Follows Rule Of Law
United States
Western Europe countries
Australia
Japan
List 2: Strongman: Uses Goons and Bribes to conduct business
African countries
Afghanistan
You can list all the countries in the world and rank them according to how well they ascribe to the importance of the rule of law and rank them according to almost any measure of success and you can see the nearly one-to-one correlation. Get fancy and manova it if you want.
My lists are short of course. They show the extremes and there's a continuum in between.
Countries in list 1 would be chief among what you call the "wussies and Communists".
Also list 1 is a list of the "richest, most powerful, capitalist and gets to have their way in almost everything".
As for list 2, well "market forces" do override "rule of law" there.
Re:NOT Silicon Valley (Score:4, Insightful)
Banished to Siberia (Score:2, Insightful)
A definite plus (Score:5, Funny)
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SMAC (Score:5, Funny)
Server Farm (Score:2, Informative)
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1. There is very little bandwidth available in Alaska.
2. It costs a lot to build anything in Alaska.
Back in the 30s and 40s a lot of Aluminium smelters where built in the Pacific North West and around Tennessee because of the cheap hydro power. I think you will see more data centers in the US moving to those locations. You have cheap power and nice cold rivers for cooling. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are already building some on the Oregon/Washington boarder.
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Not to mention that 3000+ km of fiber is extremely expensive.
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Another big "cost" might be connectivity.
Sorry to sound so smarmy, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity
Really? (Score:2, Troll)
Because, you know, Siberia has that *awesome* weather, system of law, and quality of life that attracts highly skilled and talented people... It would more like be a digital gulag for arrested Russian hackers :P
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That's funny. The most talented hackers I know can go for days without knowing what the weather is like.
Xatchoo! (Score:2)
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Transliterated almost phonetically:
"Hochu krasivuyu Siberskuyu devushku". Which you can reduce to "Hochu krasivuyu Siberyaku", and it even specifies the gender. Russian is like that.
Bless you! (Score:2)
Yeah, sure (Score:2, Troll)
What's this, the 9th "Next Silicon Valley"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ultimately all of the talented people who live in places designated to be the next Silicon Valley end up moving to Silicon Valley! We live in a beautiful area and get paid better. Top talent won't stay in Siberia, or Champaign, when they can live in San Francisco.
If there's any "Next Silicon Valley", it would be Los Angeles. Recently it seems that more of the interesting startups are in
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This doesn't surprise me in the least. Who in their right mind would want to move to LA? It's a total dump. It's horribly polluted, filled with gangs and crime, and the cost of living is ridiculous. If you're going to put up with an obnoxiously high CoL, there's two other places in California that are much nicer to live in: San Diego to the south, an
In Soviet Russia, take #472 (Score:2)
In USA, when things are down, your job is sent to Siberia.
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Thank you! I was scrolling, and scrolling looking for the "In Soviet Russia" joke.
I mean, this is Slashdot, and this article was just begging for it, and all these folks are having this serious discussion...
People. We're losing our edge around here! First the jokes, then the serious discussion.
Sheesh.
The climate is tough there (Score:5, Informative)
--
By the way, here is something from the article that I think can work both ways:
The low cost of rent, services and salaries - roughly one-fifth of Western prices - appeals, but so does a system that builds on the foundations of science to produce programmers. "None of our programmers in Novosibirsk are programmers by education," Intel's Chase says. "They are physicists, chemists, biologists, mathematicians. They are, first of all, scientists. Secondly, they learn how to program as an afterthought." - I am sure there are brilliant scientists among those people, but I cringe every time when I hear about the scientists turned programmers as an afterthought. They will not produce modular easy to maintain and understand code. They just can't. They will solve problems with their code though, I am sure, and probably this fact will substitute for a lot of problems in the code structure itself, but I had to maintain/fix code designed by people like that (HydroOne and Avema contracts are some of the examples,) the code will suck. But so what, the bad code and the cold weather are not the worst problems in Russia. The worst problems are these: the government that is unwilling and incapable to prevent crime against business-people, the government that actually feeds on the crime against business-people.
Do not expect Russia to become a place where the next Silicon Valley will be born within the next three decades at least. The main problem is that there are no investors in their right minds who can expect reasonable return on investment, because their money can disappear in a flash and not even due to a bad business plan or bad coding, but simply because the local mayor's office will tell the owners that the building, where the people are working is not fire safe or water proof or bird shit proof or whatever the story is this week, and the business will be closed until large amounts of money exchange hands. Then the same story will repeat itself the next week. Oh, and the competition or whoever decides that they are competition will not bother trying to build a better product, they will just hurt/kill the business owners one by one if their demands for lots of money are not met, etc.
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I was born in Ukraine in the former USSR and lived in Yakutia (North East of Siberia) above the Arctic Circle for 6 years. I can tell you this: it's freaking cold in the winters. Of-course it can be a plus for development of more indoor activities, like computer programming.
Like Boston. Some years ago, someone from MIT was recruiting me for the Media Lab, and as we were walking across the campus to the T station, it was sleeting. He commented "There are fewer distractions out here". I got back on th
Seems more like the next Berkeley to me (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed (Score:2)
The big problem is surely going to be, how the Hell d
Oh Great (Score:2)
Ruuski yazik? Huh?
- Necron69
Putin says (Score:2)
The Next Bangalore, perhaps? (Score:4, Interesting)
Manpower is also a problem; you'd think Bangalore would be awash with engineering graduates, and IIT is churning them out, but what happens when you need someone with actual experience? In my company's case we've been lucky with expatriates returning to India from the Middle East (mostly) and the USA (a few). We just don't find quality local candidates worth interviewing.
Will Russia be any better, with its lack of internationally-recognised qualifications and standards? I fail to see how any Silicon Valley comparisons are worth considering, even as a joke.
Won't Go More Than Three Feet, Then Die (Score:2)
That torpedoes things. Throwing money at business districts et al to artificially inflate development results in mostly empty business districts, and a more likely than not depressed economy where built, while businesses happily locate to areas of low taxes, rule of law, and respected property rights. Russia's business climate is di
Also check out Badonkadonk (Score:2)
Untapped talent! (Score:2)
Also, the stereotype of Russian organized crime controlling most of the phishing/conning scams out there is based on fact.
Pay (Score:2)
Are they going to pay me more than I get in Moscow? I don't think so. So why should I bother?
So here's your answer: no, it won't be the next Silicon Valley. Actually, it's not the first project of a kind either, there were a couple more [kommersant.com] already. So far, nothing had come out of this. Could it perhaps be because a "Silicon Valley" is not something the government can create just on its whim?
That's not going to happen (Score:2)
Even today with sky-high oil prices our economy does not really improve. We have much more officials than whole USSR had and everything is too regulated to start a new successful business. If you run a business more than 30% of your profit is going into bribes, because otherwise government won't let you function.
i'll scream if I hear XXX next Silicon Valley (Score:2)
Re:in Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)
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Oh wait...
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Because if I wear it any place else, it chafes.
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For a parallel, look at Mexico. While it doesn't have the educational advantages that Russia has, it certainly has many untapped natural resources, including o