Playmos" are now out. Now she listens to "Schleich Horse Club" on Spotify. And Schleich toy figures are being added to her Christmas wish list.
I am writing this column directly from Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley. Stanford University is right behind my hotel; a few miles away is Google's headquarters; the closed world of Facebook six miles to the north; and towards San Jose, the utopian spaceship Apple.
All of these company names now sound like morocco rcs data Volkswagen, Nestlé or Ford. As if they had always existed, as if their businesses were "old economy". And the digital wonder valley around San Francisco feels a bit like that too: outdated. It has only existed since 2005 and yet seems to lack new inspiration in the here and now. Elevated stagnation. Amazement at one's own size. The villas of the founders and former employees of the Big Five stand mighty, magnificent and expensive in Redwood, in Menlo Park, in Cupertino. And when I listen to my friend Markus Lipp, CFO of Kongregate.com, the price of these villas and of the real estate around Palo Alto in general is also continuing to rise to fantastic heights. But for how long?
Stagnation is terrible for this world. of unicorns as they are called here, can be felt directly in the body. It is as if a heavy blanket of the noughties were hanging over Silicon Valley. Is the party over? Have the great utopians, the digitalists, become tired? Where is the new Zuckerberg, the new Bezos, the new Jobs, the new Musk? Yes, even giants like Amazon, Uber, Tesla and their inventors seem to be getting bogged down in the minutiae or private affairs. And nothing is coming, or so it seems.