What makes Silicon Valley Unique?

my background• Came to USA in '82 to study Biophysics at Brandeis

(Boston)

• Moved to SV in '86 to join startup

• Worked at 5 startups in 25 years

• Two went public

• Two were acquired

• One went spectacularly out of business

• Ran my own e-health company for 5 years (GeneEd)

• Transitioned from research to development, support, sales & business development.

• Currently at Designit, focusing on design and innovation

features of Silicon Valley

• Strong science & engineering culture. Very strong networking culture.

• Also a strong business culture ("go big or go home")

• Close to a meritocratic society ("you are only as good as the code you cut")

• High tolerance for risk (pain!)

• Also a lot of hype & fluff ("in the short-run, technology is over-hyped; in the long run it's under-hyped")

• Very international but very parochial at the same time

FAILURES

valley is DARWINIAN EVOLUTION in real-time

• Throw lots of ideas at the wall and see what sticks

• "I see 5000 companies and fund 5 of them." Marc Andreessen

• Relentless and hyper-competitive

• As soon as a niche exists, it is filled. (Sometimes, even when there is no niche, it is filled!)

• Great ideas are a dime-a-dozen; great execution is rare

words of wisdom• "It's better to win the deal then to win the

argument."

• "Hire slow, fire fast."

• "As a founder, you are always selling." (To investors, customers, partners and your own employees.)

• "Better to have a small piece of a big pie, then no pie at all."

• "The valley is littered with the ashes of great technology companies with no sales & marketing"

• "A great team can rescue a bad idea; a bad team will kill a great idea."

• "There are no original good ideas; only bad ones."

tales from the front

•Meeting a VC in the check-in line for a flight from SFO to Amsterdam

•Cold-calling the President of Pfizer

•Closing a $1.7MM deal with Astra-Zeneca (Lund, Sweden)

in conclusion

• Silicon Valley scales companies from anywhere in the world

• The streets are not "paved with gold" (though there is plenty of capital available)

• Everyone is looking for "the next big thing"

• SV can be a launch-pad for sales into China, India, Japan, Korea, etc.

• It requires tremendous, sustained effort, but the rewards are worth it and the culture is addictive!