Ross Mayfield on how to destroy the Silicon Valley:

But if you want to destroy the advantage of the the Valley, work in the collaboration industry.

That’s “destruction” in the best sense — enabling other locales to be just as good.

But I’d go further — if you want freedom, work in the remote collaboration industry (writ large), which is slightly different from the entire collaboration industry. The more remote collaboration is effective, the more location, and jurisdictions, can be treated as subjects of arbitrage rather than held in esteem by bound subjects.

Far more promising than going to sea or buying an island.

I’m also saving Mayfield’s very next post on entrepreneur hindsight — generally excellent, but for this:

Maybe because in hindsight all risks are clear, but I always find myself regretting not taking bigger risks earlier. For example, open sourcing the Socialtext code was something we waited on until the company had strong footing. Partially because we thought there would be cannibalization, partially because we were understaffed to really engage with the community. But I believe if we bought this bullet earlier in the history of the company we would be reaping better rewards. As a planning exercise, now I always try to ask two questions: “How could we take more risk?” and “What risk can we take that creates the greatest amount of options?” I find there is always a way to do a little more, in particular by getting past instinct to control prevalent in so many entrepreneurs.

Another item to cite the n’th time someone has tired reasons for not opening their source.

Open source can of course be thought of as a remote collaboration technology.