The mystery of the garage
Rising housing costs and restrictive zoning are reshaping the classic “garage startup” narrative, prompting debate over how much cheap, flexible space really matters for innovation. Commenters contrast romantic myths of garages and basements with practical realities: many famous companies didn’t truly begin there, access to tools and time is often more limiting than space, and nascent markets and timing matter far more than the room you work in. Others note that while hardware tinkering has moved toward makerspaces and remote properties, software entrepreneurship now often needs nothing more than a laptop and an internet connection.
Palm, General Magic, and “Infrastructure”
- Debate over whether 1990s handhelds failed due to missing infrastructure or overreach.
- One side: Palm proved infrastructure was sufficient; General Magic’s ambitions and egos, plus handwriting recognition, overshot what users wanted.
- Other side: early PDAs were niche/early adopter devices; lack of wireless sync, clunky input, and immature connectivity meant they weren’t yet mainstream.
- Palm is compared to Zip drives: real but temporary successes that met an interim need, later eclipsed by more fitting technologies.
The Garage as Myth vs. Practical Space
- Many argue “garage startup” is largely a mythic framing. Work is mostly done in bedrooms, home offices, or already-converted “garages,” and often with more funding than the story implies.
- Wozniak’s comment that Apple did no real design or manufacturing in the garage is cited.
- Others stress that even this myth represents middle-class privilege: having a car, a house, and spare space.
- Some see the garage as simply “an office you don’t pay extra rent for” and the only low-cost, low-scrutiny space with tools and mess tolerance.
Housing Costs, Location, and Hackerspaces
- Rising housing costs and HOAs/ordinances (including bans on auto work) are seen as limiting modern “garage tinkering.”
- Suggestions include moving to cheaper or more remote areas, but pushback notes jobs, family ties, safety, and time constraints make that unrealistic for many.
- Hackerspaces/makerspaces offer tools but struggle as businesses; they’re often too far, too expensive, or too time-consuming for people with full-time jobs and families.
Markets, Timing, and Scale of Modern Projects
- Commenters stress that obsession and cheap space are irrelevant without a nascent and rapidly growing market.
- Examples: Ford, Google, Facebook, Boeing, all framed as riding larger economic and technological waves.
- Some feel it’s harder now to find “garage-scale” projects because many needs are commoditized and complex systems (e.g., GPUs, ASML-class tools) require huge teams and capital.
- Others counter that new domains (e.g., AI or home chip fabrication) still have room for small, scrappy efforts.
Patents, Safety, and Innovation Frictions
- The Wright brothers are described by some as having stifled early US aviation through aggressive patent enforcement; others object to labeling practicing inventors as “patent trolls.”
- Similar concerns are raised about modern safety technologies (e.g., SawStop), where strong IP protection can both drive safety and restrict adoption.