Comments on: If I Told You I’d Have to Kill You: The Story Behind “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/ Entrepreneurship and Conservation Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:39:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Bruce Berry http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-4545 Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:20:49 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-4545 The reason moths dive imediately after chirping is to gain maximum distance from the bat in least time.
Ref: Chuck Yeagers biography, “We lost alot of pilots in evasive dives, the controls would become sluggish and counter effective, when speed approached sound.”
How come insects,men, create similar systems of behavior millions of years apart and with such diverse backgrounds. Its the basic parameters and constraints involved in the equation are the same. Air travel, media that conducts waves, velocity, acceleration. Taking it a little further it becomes apparent it isn’t genes that make a species what it is but over time its the constraints and parameters of the species enviroment not the genes. Genes are just a way of repeating a slightly different experiment. In gene manipulation we are bypassing the enviromental process entirely. Chaos and evolution could seem the same thing in Biology. Evolution changes one thing per cycle or experiment and Chaos changes too many relationships in one cycle. The term consilience is new to me but it verbalizes a sense of something I had years ago. Akin to emergence: which how can such diverse complexity ever come out of the simple
molecular assembly. I wish I were good enough and had the time to do the math of the complexity involved with molecular possibilties. If the math figured out the probability of certain obtained assemblies it would directly calculate life on other planets. The range of greatest possible complexity to minimum and where is carbon life in that range?
Consilience verbalizes so much. I read an article by an author whom equated economies to energy.
Which was pretty acurate. The more an economy utilizes energy the greater its wealth. Energy efficiency in nature rules all flora and fauna so ruled by the same rules and constraints, business and nature exhibit similar behavior to survive. I think there should be a University discipline in consilience.

]]> By: Will Culpepper http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-2247 Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:44:58 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-2247 If anybody is curious what bats sound like just type “what do bats sound like” into google. A good link to a pitch-shifted sound file is here:

]]> By: Jonathan Siddharth http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-1309 Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:11:33 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-1309 Great Story! Thanks for Sharing.

]]> By: Christine http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-1171 Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:53:14 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-1171 Steve – I’m assuming people have sent you the Science article about tiger moths?

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/07/tiger_moths_jam_bat_sonar.php?utm_source=ScienceBlogs+Weekly+Recap&utm_campaign=3423022461-Recap_7_16_to_7_22_2009&utm_medium=email

]]> By: Christine http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-1170 Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:51:07 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-1170 and how, Mr. Martin. what an excellent story, and an excellent mind.

]]> By: Sam Weber http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-348 Wed, 13 May 2009 02:49:45 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-348 Steve – I LOVE the pic of you at 20 while in the Air Force. It’s funny but I never knew you had a military past and I find it really cool that you have those memories and are so good at relating them to your experiences later in life.

Heather and the kids and I were in your neck of the woods last week and spent the day at Pigeon Point and Ano Nuevo (thanks for all your work and investment in the Visitors Center) and thought of you and the Ranch. How is the Boar population these days?

I hope all is well with you and the rest of the Blank clan. Would love to catch up soon.

Take care…
Sam

]]> By: George John http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-97 Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:58:03 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-97 The story about bats and moths has an interesting second chapter that I learned from Rajeev Motwani at Stanford 10 years ago in a Randomized Algorithms course. There’s one more creature in this ecosystem — mites that live in the moth’s ear membranes. If the mites were to live on both ears, the host moth couldn’t hear the bat’s sonar and the bat would eat the moth and the mites. So the mites evolved a randomized approach to colonizing only one ear on a moth since this optimized their host’s and therefore their own chance of survival.

http://books.google.com/books?id=QKVY4mDivBEC&pg=PA355&lpg=PA355&dq=randomized+algorithms+moth+mites&source=bl&ots=JvUm0ElcPF&sig=p1doAkOnLVAHikvj2kJdutK5vis&hl=en&ei=H5LfSbD5D5yxtgf3xJHCDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

]]> By: Maury http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-27 Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:34:17 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-27 It’s a very interesting story and, if you think about it, a very good piece of evidence for natural evolution. How else would the bat-beetle system have developed? Notice also, how the measures and countermeasures become more and more specialized in the interest of immediate survival.

Eventually, the two species locked up in such a struggle become too specialized to adapt to environmental changes and are superseded by less specialized species.

Look at the drug warriors and the drug cartels. Eventually that whole struggle will have to go the way of prohibition. It is much too costly and just painful to watch. The warriors (with their jails) and the cartels take on the character of blood sucking parasites.

]]> By: tim baker http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-26 Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:47:24 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-26 phenomenal post, steve. it immediately made me view your ‘secret history’ talk, which is also excellent.

]]> By: Linn Karnaugh http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-25 Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:41:19 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-25 Fascinating story and serendipitous meeting up with Scoggins. I’m surprised you made it through your four years in the Air Force. Intellectual curiosity not required.

Your sister (totally unbiased)

]]> By: marty http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-23 Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:39:01 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-23 Great stories!! Thanks!!

]]> By: Justin Wickett http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-21 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:44:13 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-21 Pretty impressive how much knowledge can be extracted from natural processes. Goes to show the importance of being able to observe and listen. Thanks for sharing the story!

]]> By: Patrick http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-20 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:19:28 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-20 Great story. The fact is, just like entrepreneurship, you can’t teach intellectual curiosity.

Here’s another interesting observation from the natural world:

Some species of antelope/gazelle “stot” (also known as “pronking”) when stalked by predators such cheetahs and lions etc etc. Stotting consists of fleeing via a jumping behavior that appears to be sub-optimal. On first glance it appears as if they are spending to much energy in the vertical portion of the jump, relative to the horizontal portion. That is to say, they look like they have pogo sticks for legs and would be better off should change the vector of the jump – less height, more horizontal distance.

So why stot and why not simply bolt? It is thought that this behavior might be an evolutionary adaption that signals fitness and strength, meaning that stotting ostensibly communicates to a predator that it is better served pursuing another animal, perhaps one that is sickly, one that cannot display its fitness as well.

We witness similar behavior in corporate finance. Paradoxically, firms in financial trouble, stalked by competitors and creditors, will often issue dividends or increase dividends in order to signal financial health to the market.

It appears as if this strategy works in the natural world, but I wonder if it is as successful in the financial world.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stotting

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ba3UxqXiXU

]]> By: Michael F. Martin http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/#comment-18 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:10:33 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=431#comment-18 A beautiful example of consilience.

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