Extreme prolonged competition creates hyper-specialized economic niches within a region

Evidence

What those often-cited “Silicon Valley advantage” theories don’t convey is how evolved this place has become just from being on the high heat for years. The competition has bred electronics stores the size of eight football fields, electronics stores open all night, electronics stores where you can do your laundry while shopping. There are [VCs, or venture capitalists] who invest only in video chips, VCs who funnel only foreign money, VCs who write books, VCs who are professors of sociology. There are headhunters who handle only Cobol programmers from Singapore, headhunters who specialize in luring toy company executives, and, I’ve recently learned, a headhunting firm that helps other headhunting firms hunt for headhunters. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 114

Categorization

• CANDY: The headhunting firm that hunts other headhunters is a delightfully absurd escalation worth retelling.
• XREF: connects to: Seeking positive distinctiveness through competition generates conflict over scarce resources — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2745; Competition among platforms produces four systemic tendencies in the economy — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 82; Competition has migrated from market structure into the very character of individuals — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 22 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Seeking positive distinctiveness through competition generates conflict over scarce resources #qualifies (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2745
• Competition has migrated from market structure into the very character of individuals #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 22
• Competition among platforms produces four systemic tendencies in the economy #expands (0.75) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 82
• Blocked positive distinctiveness converts competition into open conflict #corroborates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2759
• Zero-sum competition over resources produces ethnocentrism and intergroup hostility #complicates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 136
• External competitive comparisons can boost internal cross-functional cooperation #expands (0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 740