Tech leaders say Silicon Valley's edge is growing duller

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Tech leaders say Silicon Valley's edge is growing duller


Those at San Jose meeting agree U.S. innovation is threatened by red
tape, poor schooling
- Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Burdensome federal regulations, mediocre public education and
restrictive immigration policies are dampening Silicon Valley
innovation, putting companies at risk to rising giants in China and
India.

That was the consensus of several technology luminaries speaking
Wednesday in San Jose at a conference hosted by TechNet, the
technology industry trade group.

To varying degrees, they painted a portrait of an industry that faces
serious challenges in an increasingly global business. In many cases,
government policy was blamed for everything from inadequate schooling
to a shortage of engineers to startups going overseas.

"We are falling further and further behind in innovation," said John
Doerr, a venture capitalist for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and
an early investor in such companies as Google, Amazon.com and Sun
Microsystems.

The comments by many Wednesday, including Marc Benioff, chief
executive of San Francisco's Salesforce.com, echo what technology
executives and industry lobbying groups have been saying for years.
But many of these past predictions about Silicon Valley's long-term
decline have failed to materialize.

Indeed, the technology industry, particularly Internet firms such as
Google, the Mountain View search engine, and Sunnyvale Web portal
Yahoo, are blossoming with a slew of new products and big profits.
Investment in startups is strong, prompting some to describe the vast
sums of venture capital being thrown around as a new bubble.

Nevertheless, executives repeatedly said that the United States is
losing its edge in education and called for more spending on math and
science to ensure future innovation in technology. They also
criticized immigration policies that make it more difficult for
foreign students to study in American universities since the Sept. 11
attacks and also make it harder for them to get work permits after
graduating.

The practice, some executives said, spurs the best and the brightest
to start companies their home countries instead of in the United
States. It also creates a shortage of computer engineers locally.

"For skilled immigrants, we should open the door," said Reed
Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, the online DVD-rental service
in Los Gatos.

Some groups of American computer engineers have disputed the notion
of a shortage of skilled workers, saying that companies simply want
to employ immigrant workers for lower salaries.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's co-founder, said that the business environment is
tougher because of globalization, saying it's inevitable that more
big technology firms will emerge in such nations as India and Russia.
But he added that many entrepreneurs still consider the United States
the best place to build a company because of the access to what he
described as the best venture capital and workers.

Hastings voiced confidence in the ability of Americans to innovate,
pointing to past successes in personal computers and the Internet.
Over the next 50 years, he said, biotechnology will play an important
role.

New laws passed to curb accounting chicanery after the Enron and
Worldcom debacles are costly headaches, Hastings said. But they help
build investor trust, giving an edge to U.S. stock markets over those
overseas.

The TechNet event in San Jose on Wednesday was held at eBay's
corporate headquarters, and focused on innovation. The conference
attracted a star-studded guest list, including Cisco President and
CEO John Chambers and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

E-mail Verne Kopytoff at vkopytoff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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URL: <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/17/ BUGB3FPGKJ1.DTL>

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