Balaji Srinivasan on the Cloud Continent

a16z2023-01-05

3K views|1 years ago

💫 Short Summary

The video discusses the internet as a new continent where people spend increasing amounts of time, likened to migrating to a cloud continent. Billions now spend significant parts of their lives online, impacting how they live and interact. This shift is compared to the discovery of the Americas, where self-perception and cultural identity evolve as individuals identify with new lands.

✨ Highlights

📊 Transcript

✦

Comparison of the internet to a new continent.

01:00

People are spending more time online, similar to migrating to a cloud continent.

Billions of people now spend significant portions of their lives on the internet, akin to discovering a new world.

The impact of the internet is likened to the discovery of the Americas.

Significant shift in how people live and interact online.

✦

Evolution of Identity in the Americas.

03:15

Initially, people in the Americas identified themselves as English or French colonists.

Spending time in a new land may lead to a shift in identification from old world ties to primary connections with the new land.

The concept emphasizes the evolution of self-perception and cultural identity over time.

00:03you can think of the intranet as

00:06basically like giving rise to a new

00:07continent okay imagine in Atlantis that

00:10just arose out of the middle of the

00:13ocean and people were just taking

00:14commuter flights there back and forth

00:17each day okay so you'd spend eight hours

00:19in Atlantis and 16 hours at home that's

00:22really what the internet is you know how

00:23I can prove that well we're in it right

00:25now well right exactly like one way of

00:27thinking about it is ask themselves what

00:29percentage of their time they spend

00:31their waking hours do they spend looking

00:34at a screen of some kind

00:35okay whether it's laptop mobile phone

00:38tablet uh you know they're a smart watch

00:40something like that right what

00:42percentage of that time is that for you

00:43stuff I unfortunately have to say it's

00:46probably like 14 hours a day but I'm I'm

00:50probably in something like that I'd say

00:52probably the average person though right

00:53it's it's a third of their day maybe

00:55eight hours that's right so what that

00:57means and that's up from basically zero

01:00in 1991. yes right so you know this this

01:04Atlantis This Cloud continent right so

01:07just to extend the metaphor we're taking

01:09these commuter planes up to the cloud

01:11continent 14 hours a day and coming back

01:14and we're only spending

01:17two hours of her waking lives in your

01:19case on the land and 14 hours in the

01:22cloud right for other people it might

01:23only only be a few like three or four

01:25hours but like that's amazing billions

01:28of people have migrated huge chunks of

01:31their lives to This Cloud continent okay

01:34I'm gonna say billions I mean like three

01:36something billion just on Facebook right

01:38you add all the people with smartphones

01:39and so on so let's it's on there to

01:41three four billion people in the world

01:42half the people of the Earth have are

01:45now spending half their lives in this

01:48Cloud continent half their waking hours

01:51okay up from nothing in 1990 something

01:54when we think about that that is

01:56actually a different way of visualizing

01:58the whole thing and you realize the

02:00internet is actually on par with the

02:02discovery of the Americas for the

02:04Europeans right yes of course there were

02:06people in the Americas before the

02:08Europeans got there uh I talked about

02:10this in the book actually that like if

02:12you go and look at the bontu expansion

02:14or the Mongols sweeping across the world

02:17there's there's essentially no ethnic

02:20group that has ever had some location

02:22since time immemorial they just killed

02:24the previous folks and kind of took over

02:26their territory or whatever right so

02:28leaving that whole part of things aside

02:29from the perspective the Europeans like

02:32quote the discovery of the new world was

02:34this you know huge thing you know it's

02:36similarly like the folks who went over

02:38the Bering Strait their discovery of the

02:40Americas was this huge thing was this

02:42new frontier right which is obviously

02:43thousands of years earlier this internet

02:45Frontier where we've migrated to

02:48will over time give rise to new

02:51countries just like the Americas did

02:53right the Americas that people came

02:57there and they didn't think of

02:58themselves as American or Brazilian or

03:02Mexican or Canadian or something like

03:05that nowadays North and South America

03:07have they're all you know slotted into

03:09the same grid as like the old world

03:11right but initially they thought of

03:12themselves as English or French or you

03:15know they were colonists they were

03:16settlers right they didn't identify with

03:18the new land as primary and the old

03:21world is secondary right they don't

03:23think of themselves as a Polish American

03:25or english-american right that also was

03:28just English and that's similar to folks

03:31who spend all of this time In This Cloud

03:33continent but have not made the flip

03:35right you're spending the majority of

03:37your time in the cloud continent

03:39but you're not thinking of yourself as a

03:41cloud person

03:42yes first yet yeah is the key word

03:49[Music]

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