culture in silicon valley hf 12_november2012
TRANSCRIPT
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Culture in Silicon Valley
Gigi Wang Managing Partner, MG-Team LLC
Board Member & Chair Emeritus, VLAB
HappyFarm Start-Up Workshops
12 November 2012
About Me
Born in Taiwan, grew up in US. English is 3rd language.
BS & MS in Engineering from Stanford, MBA from UC Berkeley
Worked for 3 Fortune 100’s – Exxon, AT&T, Quaker Oats
Early stage or founding team of multiple start-ups (InterNex, Pacific Internet in Singapore, truste.org, Ascend – now Alcatel, UptimeOne, QALA, July Systems)
Currently:
o Managing Partner, MG-Team LLC – international strategic consulting
o Board Member & Chair Emeritus, MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB)
o Venture Partner, Silicon Valley, iGlobe Partners (venture capital)
It Starts with Culture
In addition to the excellent academic institutions and R&D, governmental support, and access to investment
capital, it’s the culture that really makes a region like Silicon Valley so unique
and wildly successful
Need to Trust
TRUST begins with open-ness & transparency
– People don’t trust leaders in governments or management who aren’t transparent
Practice being open and sharing information, build trust
Trust must be mutual or it’s not win-win
Where there is trust, the culture is good
Risk-Taking
RISK-TAKING: Innovation and entrepreneurship requires risk-taking in addition to passion.
Go beyond your comfort zone.
Work in new areas, interact with new people or travel to new places (cultural tourism)
Failure is good. Making mistakes leads to valuable experience and knowledge.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Edison
Collaboration
COLLABORATION: People need to share ideas and work on problems together, even competitors
Networking in environment of open-ness
• Kyiv Open Doors – April 2012
• Happy Farm networking events
In the high-tech market place, it’s not about fighting over the existing pie, but GROWING the pie together
Integrity
INTEGRITY: High level of integrity required to be open and to collaborate effectively
Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is standard procedure and captures intent
Integrity is not just about being honest
Relationship Integrity – very key concept
o Not zero-sum game
o Make sure that it’s about “Give & Take” and that “Win-Win-Win” is the objective, not “Win-Lose”
o Example: Andrew Mason (Groupon CEO)
Accessibility
ACCESSIBILITY: Provide budding entrepreneurs lots of access to experience and brainpower resources
Budding entrepreneurs Go to events, talk to
strangers. Take a risk and introduce yourself – no need for formal intro’s (old European style). Reach out with Facebook & LinkedIn.
Successful entrepreneurs and leaders Be
open and available. Talk to the young entrepreneurs, share your valuable advice and learning
Constructive Feedback
FEEDBACK: Absolutely critical to get feedback to understand what you’ve done right and what you’ve done wrong
Feedback needs to be “constructive” NOT “negative criticism”
Delivering “negative criticism” to make one’s feel more powerful or important is counter-productive and destructive.
o Leaders need to be on the alert of this on their teams or in their organizations
Empowerment
EMPOWER: Give everyone a chance to contribute to their fullest with ideas and decisions
“Innovation from the top down is orderly, but innovation from the bottom is chaotic but produces mega-success”
Examples: Google (Adwords product), Pacific Internet, VLAB
As leaders, provide inspiration & direction, not orders. Be there primarily to provide guidance and help address emergencies.
Share the Wealth
SHARE, SHARE, SHARE
Equitable pay, travel guidelines, perks
Stock options – with employees, with advisors
Examples:
o Ascend Communications (now Alcatel) – generous with stock and benefits, bought by Lucent for $21B
o Infosys (India IT company) – employees were rich
o Google – free lunches, massages, car washes, etc.
Jealousy (and lack therof)
JEALOUSY: The Silicon Valley exhibits a much less jealous culture than many parts of Europe and Asia
Instead of being jealous when someone else does better, see it as an opportunity to have a relationship with someone successful
It’s more constructive, and less destructive for a company, for a region, for a country
Develop the Right Culture
Key characteristics include open-ness and collaboration, high level of risk-taking, and open and collaborative “people networking” environment
How do we teach ethics and instill high society and relationship integrity into the next generation of global citizens?
What is Innovation?
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society.
Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.
- WIKIPEDIA
How to Innovate
Understand the customers and the market.
o Hear your customers, not just listen.
o Very few succeed with just “gut” feel (Jobs, Zuckerberg)
Conceptualize, Design and Prototype
Collect feedback, lots of it
Iterate, iterate, iterate
As leaders, promote the culture and develop processes for innovation
An Innovation Framework
Five Disciplines of Innovation, by Curt Carlson
o CEO of SRI International
o Founder of HDTV technology
SRI - hot-bed of innovation
o Computer mouse
o Cancer curing drugs
o Artificial intelligence on iPhone
Five Disciplines (SRI)
Important Customer & Market Needs
o Need to address an important customer or market need, not address an interesting project
Value Creation
Innovation Champions
o Someone needs to champion the innovation
Innovation Teams
o Multi-discipline skills required to bring to market
Organizational Alignment
Anyone Can Be Innovative
Gigi Wang Board Member & Chair Emeritus, MIT/Stanford
Venture Lab
Managing Partner, MG-Team LLC
THANK YOU!