'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We're Dancing on its Grave'

A Q&A with Steve Blank, a professor at Berkeley and Stanford and serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley.

On Facebook’s IPO he says: “I think it's the beginning of the end of the valley as we know it. Silicon Valley historically would invest in science, and technology, and, you know, actual silicon. If you were a good VC you could make $100 million. Now there's a new pattern created by two big ideas. First, for the first time ever, you have computer devices, mobile and tablet especially, in the hands of billions of people. Second is that we are moving all the social needs that we used to do face-to-face, and we're doing them on a computer. And this trend has just begun. If you think Facebook is the end, ask MySpace. Art, entertainment, everything you can imagine in life is moving to computers. Companies like Facebook for the first time can get total markets approaching the entire population.”