June 24 marked the 13th annual SDForum Visionary Awards, a celebration of the innovators and chutzpah that make Silicon Valley unique. Although the four visionaries come from diverse backgrounds, Silicon Valley was the common theme for the evening. The visionaries gave a revealing glimpse into the Silicon Valley State of Mind. What exactly is Silicon Valley? What’s its role in the world?
This week, we look at Reid Hoffman’s viewpoint. He’s co-founder of LinkedIn and a renowned innovator in Silicon Valley. He had some strong words to say about the power of entrepreneurship and its ability to jumpstart the economy.
Jeff Weinerof LinkedIn introduced Reid Hoffman as someone with a brilliant strategic mind and ability to invent the future. As well as being Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, Hoffman is also a partner with venture capitalists, Graylock Partners. Pointing to his colleague’s multidisciplinary background (Hoffman studied symbolic systems and philosophy at Stanford and Oxford respectively), Weiner concluded that education provided the building blocks to create an outstanding public thinker and social networking pioneer. Weiner reminded the audience that Hoffman understood the ability of technology to inform and connect people, inspiring him to launch Socialnet (a precursor to LinkedIn) before Facebook and MySpace existed.
Hoffman walked to the podium with some reluctance, saying that listening to the introduction made him “want to run and hide”; yet he started his speech off by grounding us in time and place.
“It’s an enormous privilege to be at this center fulcrum of how we change the world, that we call Silicon Valley,” he said, and posed the powerful question, “What more should we do with that?”
Talking like a true Silicon Valley techie, he suggested not two “answers,” but two “vectors” to his question. And, the visionary he is, Hoffman thinks BIG. First, he recommended leveraging entrepreneurship as a powerful way to get the world economy back on track. Drawing from author, Tom Friedman’s thesis, Hoffman said,
“We live in a world that is increasingly flat and increasingly accelerating. When you have challenges like economic turbulence and uncertainty… entrepreneurship is a really good pattern…we need to make it more available globally.”
Provoking wry laughter from the crowd, he pointed out that there is no entrepreneurs’ lobby in Washington DC, and implied there should be one to encourage entrepreneurship as part of the stimulus package, both here in the U.S. and around the world.
His second “vector” or call to action was: how can we take business models to the non-profit sector? Drawing from his work at Kiva.org and Endeavor.org, he suggested hybrid models of self-sustaining nonprofits that can help spread entrepreneurship and create high impact change.
“I love to play at the heart of what we do best in Silicon Valley,” said Hoffman. “To take risks, develop technologies and use financing and inspire entrepreneurship to create a lever by which we move the world.”
Guy Kawasaki, the renowned Apple evangelist shares his top tips on how to become a great evangelist and how to leverage your success. This segment is part of a longer interview which took place in front of an audience of over 500 on July 7, 2010 at UC Santa Cruz Extension, and introduced my upcoming course in Green Entrepreneurship. First up: I asked Guy for TIPS ON EVANGELIZING
“The starting point for a great evangelist is to have a great product….” e.g. the Apple iPad: how hard could that be? Guy Kawasaki
“The thing that has made me successful is that – unlike a lot of people – I’m willing to grind it out.” ie long hours, hard work. Guy Kawasaki
On leveraging your success
“With a psych(ology) degree and a marketing background (diamonds), I’m living proof that you can fool most of the people all the time. I’m also living proof if you do one thing right (evangelize the Mac) – you can live off your reputation for decades.” Guy Kawasaki
Please check back soon for more interview segments with Guy on social media, increasing your followers on Twitter ( to 200,000+) and other wisdom from the author of The Art of The Startand 8 other books on business and entrepreneurship.
Former U.S. Secretary of State, George Shultzdelivered an eloquent summary of the facts surrounding AB 32(California’s answer to global warming) at the Silicon Valley Energy Summit at Stanford University on June 25. Shultz, a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Instituteand Advisory Council Chair at the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, was billed as a Moderator/ Provocateur at the event, and despite his 89 years, he rose to the challenge and then some. In concluding remarks, he said it would be “an unmitigated disaster” if the measure to suspend AB 32 passes in the November election.
He was moderating a panel which included Lawrence Goulder, Director of environmental and Energy Policy at Stanford; Kevin Kennedy, Assistant Executive Office, Office of Climate Change, California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Peter Miller, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council. Check back for more details on each soon.
“The emission of carbon imposes a cost on society…you have to recognize that cost…” George Shultz
“If we’re going to level the playing field…we want a system that’s number one: effective… and number two: creates as little drag as possible or even gives a slight lift to the economy.” George Shultz
On the eve of Tesla’s IPO, Richard Lowenthal of Coulomb Technologies discusses the vital role of charging stations in creating a thriving ecosystem for electric vehicles. Lowenthal, a Silicon Valley based maker of charging stations, argues that a comprehensive network of charging stations is a vital prerequisite for the roll out of electric cars such as the Tesla, Smart Car, Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf in the next two years.
Lowenthal explains why a visit to Tesla Motors inspired him to launch his green company after a successful career in high tech at StrataCom and Stardent Computers. For its part, Coulomb Technologies is still in the early stages of installing charging stations and faces competition from the larger, better funded Better Place which offers battery swaps as well as charging. However, Coulomb recently won a $15 Million grant from the Department of Energy and its ChargePoint America program is scheduled to install 4600 charging stations in nine strategic regions of the United States by September 2011.
Reports indicate that despite Tesla’s questionable financials – the company has failed to have a profitable quarter – investors are “giddy” about today’s IPO. It seems that for some, the “cool factor” and zero to 60 in under 4 seconds trumps all….at least in the short term.
This week, a report by the Pew Charitable Trustwas released, underlining how much the United States is trailing in the clean tech race. Phyllis Cuttino, Pew’s Program Director wrote a succinct piece in the Huffington Post pointing to the fact that the United States fell far behind China in clean energy finance and investment in 2009. China’s total was over $30 billion compared to the U.S. clean energy investment of approximately $17 billion. In light of the BP oil spill and the continuing saga of disaster, both environmental and economic, she reaches a strong conclusion:
An excellent time to revisit the advice of one of the most vocal advocates for a new energy policy: Author and New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman who spoke with Fresh Dialogues on the subject of energy policy and DC last year.
Here’s a link to the VIDEO (Tom Friedman on China Envy)
Also see Tom Friedman on Copenhagen Video “This is a problem that will be solved by innovators, not regulators.”
From the archives: I caught up with Pulitzer Prize winner, Tom Friedman, at the Foothill CollegeCelebrity Forumlecture series, where he delivered a spirited argument for why the United States must embrace a green economy. In this second part of our interview, we explore his part in driving the green agenda. Last January, he took part in a congressional hearingon green tech and economic recovery, sponsored by US Senator, Barbara Boxer. We discuss his role in that; and how he deals with critics.
“I use my platform as a journalist to drive this agenda that I see as important… I see a lot of things that are very exciting happening – exploding really – on a kind of small scale, but they haven’t yet reached critical mass and when you’re talking about changing the climate, you are talking about critical mass. It hasn’t yet been translated into policy at scale.”
“It was an informal hearing, sponsored by Barbara Boxer, on climate and energy. John (Doerr) and I were the two main expert witnesses…No one intervention like that is going to be decisive, it takes many more…most of all from the President.”
On dealing with critics
“I think there’s a big audience for what I say and I don’t really pay attention to the critics. I keep on marching on. I hear it and it’s fine. And it’s a free country. You can say whatever you want. But I’ve got my own bully pulpit and I use it. I don’t use it to shout back at critics; I use it to get my message out. I’m looking forward. You know, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. I’m in the caravan. My feeling is, I’m out there. And therefore, if you can’t take the heat, don’t be out there… Why would I waste a column writing about one of my critics? So what I always say to the critics is: ‘you may be writing about me, I really appreciate that, but don’t think for a second that I’d waste a column writing about you.’ ”
What drives Tom Friedman?
“I’m having fun. I have the best job in the world. I get to be a tourist with an attitude…go wherever I want, write whatever I want…and they pay me for that. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I still enjoy getting up every morning, hitching up my trousers and getting out there…opening up my laptop and taking on the world.”
The interview was recorded at the Flint Center in Cupertino on September 10, 2009
