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Leaving the sunshine of London, we were surprisingly greeted by the rain of San Francisco. We didn’t let the weather damper our spirits as we headed over to VMWare for the start of the trek, energized by the colourful tales of entrepreneur and now CTO Javier Soltero we headed over to electric car company Tesla. After a fascinating analysis of the electric car market we took a tour of their factory and posed for pictures with their sexy roadsters hardtop. We finished the day with dose of innovation, at IDEO, and checking out the legendary shopping cart that has been featured in many of our classes here at LBS.
The following day we arrived at LinkedIn to much excitement as they were announcing the addition of their 100 millonth member. Adam Nash talked about his career in the valley starting at Apple and the strong network he has built over the span of his career. Next stop was Google where we met with Payton, and LBS alum who invited Google CFO Patrick Pichette to speak with us. A truly down to earth guy, he embodied the low-key, friendly environment we would come to know in the valley. After a tasty lunch at the Google cafeteria, we rushed off to Kleiner Perkins, only a few of our cars had been towed to make room for Lady Gaga’s tour bus. Yep, we just missed out on seeing Lady Gaga at Google, but she sure did find a great way to make her impact on our trek. After finding our cars we finally made it to Kleiner Perkins to hear partner Randy Komisar talk about faults of a traditional business plan, which watching legends Brook Byers and John Doerr walk past the conference room mocking their friend Randy. Our final stop of the day was at Nintendo where they demoed their yet-to-be released Nintendo 3DS – truly amazing.
On Wednesday we started the day at Apple, awaiting us was LBS Alum Kevin Swint who talked to us about iTunes movies and surprised us with $25 gift cards to the iTunes store – truly a class act. We quickly headed over to August Capital to meet with partner David Marquardt who blew us all away with his stories of investing in Microsoft back in the early days and hanging out with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer. Next up was a visit to legendary law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where we taught the basics of term sheets and funding by partner Yokum Taku – a true learning experience for those of us ready to get our start-ups funded. We went to ARM, where we learned about their micro-processors, before finishing the day with a start-up mixer with Path and LOLApps.
On Thursday we went to visit Zynga, growing and rapidly hiring, we felt the sense of organized chaos as they told of stories of anniversary parties bringing in grass and sheep to celebrate. We then headed on back to the Valley to visit with Intel and Intel Capital, where we got the goods on what corporate venture capital is like from the company that started it all, to learning about Intel's future growth in digital areas. Our last stop of the day was Snapfish, where they talked about it’s important role in HP’s future as they expand by creating new forms of printables. In the evening, we got to meet with the most active alumni base outside of London, who also took us along to a start-up launch night (Podio) which was truly an experience.
On Friday, we heard from Professor Naeem Zafar about what silicon valley, incubators and entrepreneurship are all about. His talk was followed by a visit from the PlugNPlay CEO about what they do. Finally, the trek was neatly capped off by an informal chat with Professor Jack Fuchs, who gave us the lowdown on what it really means to start a business, and the things that we should be aware of. We spent the evening mixing it up with the Haas and Stanford GSB crew, which was a fun way to end the week.
Overall the trip was a great success, leaving everyone inspired and ready to start-up their new ventures.
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