The Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation » Oxford Comes to Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley’s Past, Present and Future

Nancy Vega — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:46:08 +0000

On Thursday morning we headed to the Computer History Museum for a personal tour given by John Mashey. As a former Chief Scientist at Silicon Graphics, John is arguably one of the most knowledgeable and interesting people to listen to while taking in the museum’s scenery ranging from old punch cards, mainframes and commodore 64’s. For me, the experience was moving since it feels like just yesterday that I was sitting in front of my 8-bit computer staring at its blinking cursor.

After our museum tour, Mike Malone arranged for us trekkers to meet up with Ramu Sunkara, CEO and co-founder of Qik. Malone describes Qik as “the next Twitter” and he’s not alone as bloggers and tech journalists everywhere know that the Qik’s live mobile video streaming service is taking off around the globe. I also dig the fact that Ramu is an ex-Oracle employee since I too spent several years working for a software giant (SAP). The experience one acquires from working at a leading software company can often provide a more well-rounded business acumen which is something that certainly comes in handy when launching your own venture. As for the Qik service, I have yet to get it working on my Blackberry but will update my Qik channel as soon as it is.

Our final stop of the day was to see LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

Starting our trek with 140 characters or less

Nancy Vega — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:51:24 +0000

There’s no better way to kick off an entrepreneurship trek than by having breakfast with Joe DiNucci at Bucks of Woodside. I first met Joe when Silicon Valley Came to Oxford (SVCO) back in November ‘08. He’s the type of guy you wish you could have on speed-dial because his wisdom, experience and hilarious anecdotal stories always hit the spot. That, combined with the fact that he’s no more than 2 degrees of separation from anyone in the Valley, arguably makes him one of the best integral coaches in all of California.

“I distinguish between having an MBA and being an MBA. Never be an MBA.” – Joe DiNucci

After breakfast, we headed to the world’s hottest startup on earth – Twitter. When we arrived at their office, we were greeted by founder Biz Stone (@Biz) and many others from the Twitter family including Oxford MBA alumni Santosh Jayaram (@santojay) who now runs Twitter’s operations. It was interesting to hear Biz explain how Twitter was born but what really caught my attention was their strong focus on value creation through its real-time search. For most entrepreneurs, I think the passion for creating value is simply part of their DNA. However, when your product is experiencing phenomenal growth rates and non-stop media coverage like Twitter, it’s morally excellent to see the entrepreneurs still incredibly focused on value creation rather than cashing in their $250M+ chips to the Google’s of the world.

When I first signed up for a Twitter account last year, I didn’t really “get it”. Fortunately a few experienced Twitter users gave me some pointers which really helped. I also downloaded a few third party Twitter apps like TweetDeck which greatly increase my usage. However, the most valuable thing I find about Twitter is not how minimalist communication tools promote creativity (although that’s cool too) but rather how Twitter’s ecosystem is actually changing lives for the better. And If Twitter turns out to be just another fad? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Follow me on Twitter @nancyvega.

How much will an Oxford MBA’s startup be worth in 5 years?

Nancy Vega — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:48:53 +0000

We headed back to San Francisco this morning to visit the team at YouNoodle, a software company which uses an algorithm to predict the success of startups. Bob Goodson, YouNoodle’s co-founder and CEO, shared his thoughts on entrepreneurship and experiences on running a startup. What was particularly cool however was the candid Q&A session we had with Bob, which included questions concerning arbitrage (i.e. if they can predict the success of a start-up, then surely they could use this info to make a fortune through investments?) I should also mention that like most great entrepreneurial stories, Bob left his studies at Oxford to work for the great Max Levchin at Yelp in Silicon Valley before starting up YouNoodle in 2007. It just goes to show that at a place like Oxford, dreams really can come true.

p.s. I was tempted to run my start-up idea through YouNoodle’s predictor but decided against. For now, ignorance is bliss.

After YouNoodle, we headed over to Y Combinator to meet up with Paul Graham. The Y Combinator model is unique in that entrepreneurs are not required to submit a business plan in order to apply for funding. In fact, what’s great about Y Combinator’s model is that not only do they provide seed money to help the founders get started, they also provide mentorship thereby serving as a “one-stop shop” incubator for entrepreneurs. And let’s face it, if you have the chance to learn from someone like Paul who’s already ‘been there, done that (and did it well)’, then giving up 2-10% equity in your startup is actually a pretty good deal. And of course Paul’s 1-hour mentorship session to us trekkers was equally valuable in that he reminded us about the importance of team dynamics – especially when it comes to selecting your co-founder(s). It’s funny how sometimes the most obvious lessons are the ones we need reminding of the most.

Oxford Comes to Silicon Valley 2009

Nancy Vega — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:00:33 +0000

For the past 8 years, the Said Business School has hosted some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs during its annual Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford (SVCO) event. This flagship event, held every November, provides an opportunity for Oxford MBA’s and others to interact with Silicon Valley VIP’s through a full day of masterclasses, garage-style sessions, panel debates and networking. And for those select students who volunteer their precious time during the hectic Michaelmas term to serve as a “buddy” for a VIP receive a much greater reward… the opportunity to network with people like Reid Hoffman and Biz Stone over dinner at one of Oxford’s historic colleges.

The entire SVCO event however goes by faster than the speed of light. The following day I kept thinking to myself, “That’s it? It’s over already?” If you’re a passionate, budding entrepreneur like me, the answer is no. Less than a week after the SVCO dust had settled, Jon (my co-chair) and I were already exchanging emails titled ‘Oxford Comes to Silicon Valley’.

After five long months of planning a trek in-between (and often times during) academic lectures and assignments, here we are in Silicon Valley getting ready to meet with some of the most successful and interesting entrepreneurs on this planet. Just three words come to mind… BRING IT ON.