Three (likely incorrect) predictions about Silicon Valley in 2022

Team Atoms > Team Bits

🔮 I made three predictions last January.

One was horribly incorrect (that remote work wouldn’t survive the vaccine), a second was startlingly correct (that inflation was lurking), and the third is… well, controversial.

I predicted that 2021 would be the year of hard technology, and we’d innovate mostly in atoms, not bits. Given Facebook’s rebranding as “Meta,” the crazy metaverse hype that followed, and Yet Another Crypto Boom, you may think that I was wrong in that prediction — but I’d disagree!

The biggest technological breakthrough of the year was undoubtedly the mRNA vaccine that saved one million lives in America. Team Atoms also finished the successor to the Hubble space telescope (see below), embarked on a quest to resurrect the woolly mammoth, tested self-driving helicopters, launched thousands of satellites, developed cheaper battery packs, demonstrated advanced brain-computer interfaces, and far more.

I also have a (still embryonic) idea that Bit Innovators are becoming more pessimistic just as Atomic Innovators are becoming more optimistic.

Chris Power @2112Power

The Metaverse is (one of) the Great Filter(s). Do we embrace the suck of the real world to solve Space Travel, Climate + Runaway AI? Or do we trick ourselves into fake self-actualization; maximal dopamine, endorphin and oxycontin triggers via hyper-realistic simulations?

I’m a huge fan of products that change the real world, and highly skeptical of all things metaverse as a result.

To be concrete, here are three chances for me to look silly by the end of 2022. I predict that:

1. We’ll see a major crypto crash. I watched the original NFT craze happen in 2017 (proof: I own a CryptoKitty), and this hype cycle looks the exact same, just bigger.

2. The “metaverse” stays around as a concept, but changes its meaning significantly. Today, it has a heavy dose of VR utopianism; by the end of the year, that will all be gone, and it’ll just be about developing/owning your digital identity across platforms.

3. COVID will be “over,” meaning that we’ll be in steady-state mitigation mode like we are with the flu. You’ll get your yearly (or more frequent) shot, but you’ll otherwise go about your life. Masking will be around forever in some settings (e.g., airports), and in some circumstances (e.g., whenever you get a cold), but will mostly disappear. As a result, we’ll see a resurgence of in-person events in Silicon Valley, and we’ll remember why it’s still the greatest place in the world to start a startup.

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🌉 Last year was an epic one for Silicon Valley Outsider.

As my subscriber list grew slowly and steadily, I found my stride — you all loved articles like “How to find a business role at a startup” and “What startups want from business hires,” and some of you used those tips to land new jobs! There’s no cooler feedback to receive, and I hope to get many more notifications like that this year.

My most popular piece of the year (by a long shot) was one I wrote in December:

Why you should choose a startup over a big company

I can only guess as to why it resonated — my guess is that it came directly from my personal experience working at a startup. (That, or unabashed optimism.)

I’m going to keep trying to write things that help you all find the courage and the know-how to make your transition into the startup world. If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know. My best pieces are those that answer direct questions from subscribers!

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🍾 And before I go, a new year’s resolution: more speaking gigs!

Writing clarifies my ideas, but perhaps my biggest revelation of 2021 was that the best way to help people break into Silicon Valley is to talk to them. Writing is an impersonal medium — these are just words, like thousands of others you’ll read today — but talking to me, a real human, is a completely different experience. I had the pleasure of speaking to classes of students, squadrons of military personnel, and attendees of obscure European EdTech conferences last year, and I’d love to do more of that this year.

If your class/group wants to learn what Silicon Valley startup life is really like, I’d love to help out! Hit me up by replying to this email or reaching out on Twitter.

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Thanks for reading Silicon Valley Outsider! I’m Christian, the Chief of Staff of Astranis, and I write this newsletter for startup-interested folks who live outside of the SF Bay Area.