Silicon Valley’s Fork in the Road

I am a San Jose resident all my life and graduated in 2001; and for six years, no engineering experience meant no engineering job, and no engineering job meant no engineering experience. I struggled and finally became a real engineer in 2007. That's the main problem with the Silicon Valley, where it's so high cost that all the lower techs disappear. Without this lower tech, new grads can't get started here. You can train 1 billion more engineers, but they will not get started in Silicon Valley. They have no choice but to go elsewhere. High cost has also lead businesses to rely increasingly on government spending. Much of what the silicon valley makes are sold to the government directly or via health care subsidies. Main stream tech has long left silicon valley. Good example is that the current Intel CPU Core2 design did not come from Silicon Valley, but from Israel - even though Silicon valley nominally hosts Intel world head quarters. Detroit didn't want to make the wrong kind of cars - but their costs were too high and cannot afford to make the "right" kind of cars.

Why are we blaming the government on this? Do not the companies mention own some of the blame? Are they not the ones who reduce/cut money for research to boast profits? Are we not to blame also? Are we not the ones who determine where our education money is spent? Other countries are encouraging students to study technology; we push MBA and liberal arts. Yes it would be nice if the government did something to encourage companies to increase R&D spending and not waste taxes dollars on bank and auto bailouts. But till we change from a purely profit driven society we are doomed to lose are leadership role.

Does not part of the problem also belong to the companies mention? Did they not cut spending on R&D to boast profits?? Yes the government should encourage companies to invest more into R&D. But are India and China the right countries to model after? We may just want to turn the clock back to 80's when the US and Japan where the technology giants. When the CEO's where trying to balance research and profits, as oppose just profits. Today every CEO is worried about having a bad quarter that they cut anything and everything that does not derive a profit.

In Colorado we definitely are seeing a larger gap between the jobs we have and the talent base available, and there's no question the "denial" mode isn't working! Technology is the engine that fuels everything in our world, from agriculture and education to satellites and energy, but it's difficult to garner the attention of influencers. If anyone is interested in doing something about this, become involved in your local tech association (check out TECNA.org for a list of organizations). If you're in Colorado, contact us at CSIA - www.coloradotechnology.org and join us in making a difference. So glad to read this report and see that we're raising the flag of awareness!

These guys should think about paying their workers better rather than getting the government to allow them to bring in people from Asia. American kids aren't stupid. They realize that a business or law degree is easier to achieve and much more lucrative than getting a Phd in some technical field. And 2001 wasn't that long ago, so we all remember the tech bust (read: tech jobs aren't even secure jobs). We're not oblivious to the outsourcing that's occurred since then either.

I'm all for the government spending more money on research or technology and continuing the R&D tax credit, but corporate executives need to stop lying about engineer shortages. At every tech company I've ever worked for entry level engineering/science jobs were filled promptly. If anything, the US graduates too many engineers as shown by the salaries which increase at the rate of inflation if that. If there was a shortage, the salaries would be rising above the rate of inflation; that's a basic principal of economics.

HP and Bill Gates have one thing wrong and that is their desire to let more immigrants stay in the US for high tech jobs. Having been an engineer for 35 years I have seen wages suppressed by a constant supply of lower cost engineers that compete for jobs. They go to school here and then are hired by companies like Microsoft, DELL, HP, etc while they the company applies for their green card. How do you promote engineering and science to young people in this country while all the jobs are constantly taken by outsourcing and H-1B visas?

Reduce Immigration, make sure that all citizens that want to study science and engineering are able to go to college. Stop H-1B visas with a few exceptions for highly qualified PhDs. You can't have it both ways and the damage is clearly visable.

What's with all the ?????? in the comments? Does Newsweek need a programmer?

I take the point that many people are making - that computing jobs have been outsourced, so why would anyone even want to study STEM subjects? But I think that's a bit if a knee jerk reaction. The problem is more complicated and deep seated than that. It still remains true that US society increasingly just doesn't value science. They may value the products of science ??? probably not even recognizing them as such ??? like high tech medicine, but they don???t value the process. Let's face it, NERD/Techie/GEEK are not intended as compliments.

I tend to agree with the poster who said that every kid in the US wants to win American Idol and be 'hot'. A desire to be a chemical engineer is something most sensible kids would keep to themselves. Being a doctor is OK - kind of glamorous in an ER-ish sort of way. But a geophysicist or a mechanical engineer? Even supposedly well educated people in literate middle class society are allowed to be gloriously ignorant of even the most basic laws of physics, in a way that it's not acceptable to be ignorant of say literature or history. Most the professional scientists I know are well educated, well rounded people who appreciate the arts and speak a couple of languages (yes, quite a lot are foreigners.) But most of the non scientists I know positively pride themselves on their ignorance of anything remotely technical.

I too have noticed that almost everyone in government is a lawyer of some sort - except for the few who have MBAs which is possibly even worse as far as I can see..

There are few nations which embrace creationism as wholeheartedly as the US. Likewise astrology. We can't even get our head around the metric system, which puts us on an equal footing with Burma. Large chunks of the population are waiting to be 'raptured". The recent multiple birth in LA is referred to - seriously - as a 'miracle'. It isn't. It's a product of very high tech, expensive medical technology, ie science. This is all symptomatic of a deep rooted failing of education generally and science education in particular, and, quite possibly also symptomatic of successive governments having found it easier to deal with a superstitious half educated electorate than smart alecs who ask lots of tough questions. I sometimes think the whole human race is slipping back not forward?????? But I always thought America would be at the forefront of technological innovation. I'm not sure it still is. We need education that pushes students hard and creativity not creationism.

When America places a value on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers by providing competitive salaries with job security, more Americans will choose to pursue those positions ensuring the continued innovation and competitive edge of American technology companies. The ???perfect storm??? predicted by Prith Banerjee (Techtonic Shifts, February 2, 2009) has been brewing for several decades. The biotech industry, as Stan Williams has found at HP, has experienced a similar significant decrease of Americans pursuing chemistry and biology graduate degrees and careers. Today, technology companies are outsourcing technology jobs to other countries, including research, a significant source of innovation. People who choose careers in STEM do so at great risk- salaries are less competitive than in business (long an issue) while those same positions are being outsourced. Scientists don't get the annual bonuses or golden parachutes when leaving the company, nor do they get the parting gifts of retiring business executives ??? salaries and benefits are not equitable when comparing careers in science and business. How will this motivate our students to enter a STEM profession? Shane Robinson's suggestions for government funding are a good start to stem the tide of foreign dominance, but technology companies must take some of the responsibility by providing incentives (competitive salaries, meaningful technology career tracks and job security) to our students to select careers in technology.

Outsourcing and the hiring of cheap foreign works is the crux of the matter here. The folks that wrote this article never even mentioned this.

Recently Microsoft announced layoff and if you read this carefully you???ll see that they???re going to let 5000 folks go but will hire 3000 and guess what these 3000 hires are off shore. Big surprise NOT!

Intel just announced their layoffs and the first thing I thought of was that the 3 billion chip facility that they built in China must have come online.

We have seen million of engineering jobs leave and there not coming back. The forecast is that in 10 years 90% of the engineering jobs will be offshore.

So it???s not because we don???t graduate enough engineers it???s because no one wants to go into an engineering career knowing that they will lose their job within the next 10 years. So the tech firms should take a hard look in the mirror because they have no one but themselves to blame for this.

This article should be compulsory reading for the entire nation.

I'm an immigrant (eleven years now) and this is a subject close to my heart. This country can't compete cost-wise with Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, India etc in manufacturing of most consumer goods, so we have to rely on our innovation, technology, engineering, creativity and vision to stay ahead. In other words, if we aren't a high tech nation then we are nothing. The automakers are to be rewarded for producing a bad product the rest of the world rejects? Really? And they are STILL arguing over fuel economy. While our tech companies can't find enough Americans to fill research posts.

Just consider this fact, gleaned from a report about the recent Davos summit: Europe's tech exports to China (last year) were worth almost $9 billion, compared with $5 billion for Japan and $4 billion for the United States. And I doubt the figures will go up this year.

Diminishing scores in science and maths aren't all the fault of the schools (I've put two children through high school here and I don't have any serious complaints.) Blaming school is far too easy. Much of it is also down to parents who don't encourage science study - probably because they know so little themselves - and a society obsessed with trivia, religion and escapism. It's the 21st century and we are STILL arguing about teaching evolution in the USA! I doubt if the nations who are leaving us behind have any such qualms.

And even amongst supposedly well educated people, ignorance of even basic scientific facts is quite acceptable, in a way that say knowledge of history or law or literature or grammar wouldn't be. Society doesn't value scientists and engineers in the way they value lawyers and bankers, yet they rely on scientists and engineers to keep modern life running in an acceptable fashion. I'm hoping the new administration can change attitudes a bit, by putting science and R & D back at the forefront where they should be.

But don't forget that creativity is enormously important too, and creativity often comes from good exposure to the arts, rather than rote learning of facts and figures, so I would say we need better all-round education, including math, language, arts AND science. I'd start with asking why the school day is so short here, and why education doesn't start much earlier in life? I have a friend whose neice in Spain is learning 2 foreign languages in pre-school besides her own native tongue. She's not yet 4. Kids are like sponges at that age, it's when you instill a love for knowledge.

The USA really has to get its act together, and soon, or the only way is down.

I agree that Silicon Valley stands to lose its status as the epicenter of innovation as China, India, South Korea and other global technology hotspots gain quickly. It's not just government funding that fueling these tech center's growth. It's investment from venture capitalists -- many of them from Silicon Valley. The venture capitalists that funded Google, Facebook and YouTube are now turning to these emerging markets for the next, new thing. This trend is well-documented in Silicon Dragon - How China is Winning the Tech Race (McGraw-Hill).

Indian engineers returning to India after getting their degrees here is rather dog bites man, don't you think?

As for Detroit, for just one example of its blindness, it could have, starting in 1986, for a measly $100 per car, added flex fuel capability to each car enabling them to also run on cheap, clean-burning, non crazies-funding alcohol fuel rather than solely on gasoline.

Ethanol can be made from the starchy or sugary portions of many plants which can be grown the world over, and methanol can be made from plentiful coal, natural gas, and any biomass without exception including crop residues, weed plants, trash, and sewage, so both have vast and widespread resource bases, much wider than oil. Thus unlike oil, alcohol fuel cannot be "cornered" by anyone who restricts production to force the price up (as OPEC did with oil, tenfold between 1999 and 2008).

With the assurance of cheap fuel, and their consciences soothed by that fuel's environmental benefits and non funding of hostiles, Americans would have continued to buy beefy profitable SUVs, trucks, and performance sedans. And they would have been spared the equivalent of a 40% income tax hike since 1999, with that much more household income going to fuel investments and home buying.

We can thank OPEC for trashing our economy, but Detroit's short-sighted folly is a big part of the reason too. Our lawmakers should mandate flex fuel capability in all new cars sold in America (sold, to ensure imports have it too).

American High School education is a joke. Math level in 12th grade corrsponds to 8th grade in such countries as China and Russia. Physics does not exist at all, american students studied it as a collection of facts and laws, without any knowledge how to use them or convert into even primitive formulas. Instead of exams, students have multiple-choice tests which stimulate memorizing the facts (temporary!) only. No homework (??). And well-known obscession with sport which probably suck half of the money.

I entered college when science and engineering was at its apex. Programs had so many students, they boasted about how many of them would not survive. By the time I graduated (in the 80's), the jobs were gone and students moved on to other majors. I went on to graduate school, and found that most foreign students got paid to go to school here. If they went back to their home countries, their living standards would be significantly higher than the average person. In America, when a job requires a college degree and more, and the person still can't find a job or support a family, it's time to look for a different job or major in something else.

American companies want cheap workers but forget the flip side, cheap customers. After the workers suck the equity out of their houses and max out their credit cards, the only money they'll have to spend is their wages. We have business pages but not worker's pages. We talk about company profits, but not about working conditions. Employees get pink slips and the CEO get golden parachutes. Instead of a win-win situation, it's winner take all.

Unless hi-tech companies have unions - everything will be fine. They don;t need goverment money, just be left alone (remember stupid Microsoft lawsuit, which encouraged oversees competitors?)..