Silicon Valley has become increasingly assertive in entering other industries directly, rather than only selling tools.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
What would count as true or false
Judged as of 2018-01-01. True: evidence from up to that date shows a clear trend over the preceding years of Silicon Valley companies entering other industries directly as operators (e.g. Uber in transport, Airbnb in lodging, Tesla in cars, Netflix in content, Amazon in retail and groceries, Google/Waymo in vehicles) rather than only selling tools to incumbents. Mostly true: the trend is well documented but somewhat narrower or less uniformly rising than stated. Mixed: the evidence is split, with examples of direct entry alongside a comparable return to selling tools. Mostly false: direct entry happened only in a few isolated cases, so the claim overstates it as a growing trend. False: the evidence shows no such trend, or a decline in direct entry.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Silicon Valley's acquisition targets aren't just in tech anymore Los Angeles Times · 17 June 2017
“Considering their success, the tech firms are bullish about bringing software expertise to new sectors, whether it’s trucking in Uber’s case or groceries in Amazon’s.”
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E2 Remember when Amazon only sold books? San Diego Union-Tribune · 18 June 2017
“But two decades after its launch, Amazon has conquered online retail, racking up $136 billion in sales in 2016. It’s also taken on cloud computing, tech gadgets and the entertainment world.”
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E3 How Silicon Valley is inventing the future of cars Palo Alto Online · 28 July 2017
“The biggest name among the new auto manufacturers is, of course, Palo Alto-based Tesla, which in 2008 released the Tesla Roadster, the world’s first electric sports car.”
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E4 Silicon Valley's acquisition targets aren't just in tech anymore Los Angeles Times · 17 June 2017
“In the end, the necessity of traditional industrial firms to adapt means fewer tech-buys-old-school announcements than vice versa, Solganick said.”
Reasoning
Independent 2017 reporting describes tech firms moving into new sectors as operators, such as Uber in trucking and Amazon in groceries (E1). It also describes Amazon expanding from online retail into cloud, devices and entertainment (E2), and Tesla becoming a new car manufacturer (E3). E4 quotes Solganick saying that traditional firms' need to adapt means fewer tech-buys-old-school announcements than the reverse, and the evidence offers examples rather than a measure of how fast the trend grew. So the claim is well supported by examples, but the evidence does not measure whether the trend grew as much as "more and more" implies.
Cite this claim
Marc Andreessen, “Silicon Valley has become increasingly assertive in entering other industries directly, rather than only selling tools.” (said 1 January 2018). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_ebef66737246, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ebef66737246
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Marc Andreessen
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Mixed
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The system that has been built for these people is paid for virtually 100% by taxpayer money.
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Mostly true
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Mixed
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Mostly false
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Mostly true
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.