Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Personal Reflections
Introduction
The
fortnight
in
December
2008
which
members
of
the
University
of
Sydney
student
group
spent
studying
the
Silicon
Valley
ecosystem
was
among
the
most
stimulating
learning
experiences
which
I
have
had
the
pleasure
to
enjoy
in
my
time
at
university
both
inside
and
outside
of
the
classroom.
This
unit
of
study
lived
up
to
its
description
of
being
a
“problem-‐based
learning
experience
delivered
globally
in
a
local
context“.1
In
my
initial
Expression
of
Interest
in
attending
this
unit
of
study,
I
outlined
my
personal
interest
in
the
Silicon
Valley
ecosystem
and
my
personal
experience
in
the
early
stages
of
my
career
so
far
in
working
for
entrepreneurs
and
contributing
to
two
fast-‐growing
enterprises
(one
start-‐up
company
and
a
found-‐
run
firm).
I
found
that
the
actual
on-‐the-‐ground
learning
experience
in
Silicon
Valley
surpassed
my
(already
high)
expectations
and
culminated
in
an
enjoyable
personal
experience
with
the
group.
The
seminars
and
field
trips
were
most
engaging
and
I
enjoyed
working
both
with
the
general
group
and
in
my
allocated
group
tackling
a
consulting
brief
for
Symantec.
I
vested
much
of
the
knowledge
communicated
to
the
group
and
genuinely
grew
my
knowledge
base
and
personal
skill
set
from
this
intellectually
enriching
experience.
For
the
purpose
of
conceptual
clarity2,
I
have
organised
and
summarised
the
key
ideas
which
I
have
learned
from
this
course3
from
(i)
an
academic-‐centric
perspective,
(ii)
an
industry-‐based
perspective;
and
(iii)
in
my
own
professional
and
personal
development
(with
reference
to
common
themes
expressed
and
overarching
lessons
taught)4.
1
Donnel
Briley,
Professor
of
Marketing,
The
University
of
Sydney,
course
introduction
at
Symantec
headquarters,
Monday
December
1,
2008.
2
The
tone
of
this
essay
is
purposely
informal
as
I
feel
it
to
be
the
appropriate
tone
to
communicate
my
personal
learnings
in
this
unit
of
study.
3
Box-‐outs
within
the
document
extend
the
key
ideas
which
I
have
learned
in
relation
to
common
themes
across
speakers
and
events.
4
I
anticipate
that
the
ideas
and
concepts
which
I
took
away
from
this
course
may
vary
from
those
of
other
students.
In
my
learning
for
this
course
I
was
interested
in
largely
intangible
elements
relating
to
the
Valley’s
ecosystem,
the
experience
of
entrepreneurs
and
VCs
and
less-‐so
in
structured
academic
learning
which
I
feel
I
have
gained
already
from
classes
at
our
home
institution.
Academic-‐based
learning
In
relation
to
in-‐classroom
learning,
I
particularly
appreciated
the
opportunity
to
participate
in
the
Socratic
learning
style
through
the
case
methods
popular
in
US
professional
schools,
as
taught
in
this
course
by
Professors
Haim
Mendelson5,
Charles
O’Reilly6and
Assistant
Professor
Illya
Strubulaev7.
I
found
the
lecturer-‐student
exchanges
to
be
intellectually
stimulating
and
the
case
method
to
be
a
practical
application
of
the
group’s
analytical
skills
to
quasi
real-‐world
tasks.
The
seminars
at
Stanford
struck
me
as
practical,
relevant
and
informed
and
not
rigid
or
dogmatic.
From
each
lecture,
particular
nuggets
of
wisdom
plugged
in
to
my
existing
knowledge
and
professional
interests.
From
the
condensed
learning
experiences
where
professors
were
keen
to
impart
their
knowledge
in
a
nutshell
to
our
student
group,
I
personally
connected
with
the
content
of
Professor
Charles
O’Reilly’s
lecture
that
reduced
firm
strategy
to
four
slides:
5
Haim
Mendelson,
Kleiner
Perkins
Caufield
&
Byers
Professor
of
Electronic
Business
and
Commerce
and
Management,
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business,
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Monday
December
8,
2008.
6
Charles
O’Reilly,
Frank
E.
Buck
Professor
of
Management,
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business,
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Thursday
December
11,
2008.
7
Illya
Strabulaev,
Assistant
Professor
of
Finance,
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business,
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Saturday
December
6,
2008.
8
Professor
Bruce
McKern,
Director
of
Executive
Program
on
US
Business
Leadership
Stanford
GSB,
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Thursday
December
11,
2008.
Early
in
the
course,
Professor
Bill
Miller’s
lecture9
on
the
Silicon
Valley
ecosystem
was
most
informative
on
the
region’s
inner
workings
with
reference
to
the
business/social/political
environment.
The
statistic
which
Professor
Miller
mentioned
that
70%
of
leading
Valley
venture
capital
firm
Kleiner
Perkins’s
portfolio
companies
have
failed
to
date,
tapped
into
our
learnings
from
industry
practitioners.
Industry-‐based learning
Building
on
Professor
Bill
Miller’s
seminar
on
the
Silicon
Valley
ecosystem,
from
an
executive
education
perspective
I
found
that
both
Peter
Ziebelman’s
seminar10on
venture
capital
and
the
general
Entrepreneur
forum11
tapped
into
many
of
the
key
ideas
of
doing
business
in
the
Valley.
Peter
Ziebelman’s
comment
in
respect
of
successful
and
unsuccessful
portfolio
companies
that
“one
winner
makes
up
for
all
the
losers”
for
me
summed
up
the
mantra
of
what
keeps
the
lights
on
in
VC
offices
on
Sand
Hill
Road
in
the
Valley.
I
was
interested
in
Ziebelman’s
explanation
of
VCs
as
being
useful
to
Common
Themes
Across
Speakers
and
entrepreneurs
for
an
outsider's
perspective
and
the
Events
comparison
of
their
collaboration
to
“legal
insider
trading“.
Having
an
appreciation
for
the
uncertain
nature
-‐
The
Silicon
Valley
of
entrepreneurship
from
my
career
experiences
at
a
start-‐
business/social/political
ecosystem
is
friendly
and
facilitative
and
based
on
up
company
from
the
age
of
18
to
22
(then
with
no
formal
weak
ties.
business
education)
I
found
it
particularly
refreshing
that
-‐
Failure
is
a
badge
of
pride
if
learning
Peter
agreed
that
many
of
his
company’s
investments
from
failure
is
the
key
to
success.
were
based
more
on
gut
feel
rather
than
rigid
analysis
and
-‐
Recession
is
an
opportunity
for
those
that
from
an
operations
perspective
Palo
Alto
Venture
who
are
poised
for
counter-‐cyclical
Partners
engages
in
unconventional
methods
both
in
due
growth.
diligence
and
the
identification
of
investment
-‐
Employ
lateral
thinking
in
opportunity
opportunities.12
identification
and
due
diligence
-‐
The
VC/entrepreneur
relationship
is
From
the
Entrepreneur
forum13
I
was
interested
in
proven
inherently
complex.
entrepreneurs’
pragmatic
assessments
of
the
VC/entrepreneur
relationship,
such
as
Terrence
Craig‘s
{Pattern
Builder
CEO
and
founder
(his
third
start-‐up)}
comment
that
“In
Silicon
Valley
both
entrepreneurs
and
VCs’
entire
existence
is
built
on
equity,
not
debt
(compared
to
Wall
Street).
“
And
Jamie
Rapperport’s
(Co-‐founder
and
EVP,
Business
Development/Marketing,
Vendavo)
comment
on
VC
lock
ups:
“...they
won’t
let
entrepreneurs
exit
until
the
right
time.
Taking
VC
money
is
a
big
commitment
to
hitting
for
the
fences.”
Similarly,
Terrence
Craig‘s
comment
in
that
forum
that
“Flameouts
are
a
badge
of
honour
provided
that
you
learn
from
them”
and
that
many
VCs
prefer
to
do
business
with
serial
failed
entrepreneurs
in
the
hope
that
their
next
company
will
be
successful
tapped
into
the
‘failure
as
the
key
to
success’
mantra
espoused
in
the
Valley.
9
Professor
Bill
Miller,
Institute
for
International
Studies,
Stanford
University,
‘The
Silicon
Valley
Ecosystem’
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Tuesday
December
2,
2008.
10
Peter
Ziebelman,
Partner,
Palo
Alto
Venture
Partners,
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Tuesday
December
2.
11
Entrepreneur
forum:
“Leading
and
funding
ventures
in
down
economies“,
held
Monday
December
8,
Stanford
University.
12
Methods
which
Peter
Ziebelman
mentioned
included
extending
the
due
diligence
process
to
the
team,
competition,
company,
suppliers
and
customers;
and
monitoring
opportunities
for
portfolio
investments
by
employing
lateral
thinking
to
beat
the
competition
to
good
prospects
(the
example
which
he
gave
involved
looking
out
for
job
listings
of
Chief
Financial
Officers
in
the
Valley
as
an
indication
for
companies
seeking
venutre
capital.
Entrepreneur
forum:
“Leading
and
funding
ventures
in
down
economies“,
held
Monday
December
8,
Stanford
University.
13
I
found
it
beneficial
to
listen
to
practical
business
strategy
lessons
direct
from
practitioners,
such
as:
-‐ appropriate
rates
of
business
growth:
“doubling
revenue
and
profit
each
year
is
a
health
growth
rate
for
entrepreneurs
seeking
VC”
(Peter
Zeibelman,
Palo
Alto
Venture
Partners);
-‐ corporate
strategy
versus
internal
venturing:
“M&A
is
not
a
strategy
–
it
is
one
tool
to
support
a
strategy...
acquisitions
and
divestitures
are
not
a
strategy
but
one
tool
to
execute
strategy...
mergers
and
acquisitions
are
hard.
They
are
not
the
easy
route
to
competitive
advantage.
They
must
pass
two
tests:
strategic
relevance
and
priority
and
financial
viability.”
14
(Trina
Depel,
Intel
Capital).
-‐ the
informal
network
in
operation
in
the
Valley
is
based
primarily
on
weak
ties:
“The
whole
Valley
ecosystem
is
built
on
referrals
and
you
are
only
ever
three
phone-‐calls
away
from
everyone
else
in
your
backyard.”15
(Terrence
Craig,
Pattern
Builder)
-‐ large
companies’
approach
to
incubation
and
development
with
‘build/partner/
buy’
decisions
for
products
and
organic
growth
versus
growth
by
acquisition
for
companies
-‐
it
was
particularly
interesting
to
see
the
different
requirements
between
Symantec
and
Cisco16;
-‐ large
companies‘
strategies
for
weathering
the
recessionary
environment,
including
rebalancing
recession-‐resistant
segments,
using
downturn
to
gain
share
opportunistically
gaining
market
Overarching
Lessons
that
Emerged
share,
managing
discretionary
spending
and
positioning
for
the
upturn;
and
-‐
The
Valley’s
ecosystem
is
the
nation’s
most
unique
facilitative
framework
for
-‐ informed
opinions
on
whether
the
downturn
innovation.
may
produce
greater
innovation
and
stronger
-‐
Downturns
can
produce
innovation
from
frustration.
start-‐ups
in
light
of
‘doom
and
gloom’
-‐
Human
capital
learnings:
‘T-‐shaped‘
information
circulated
in
the
Valley
such
as
workers;
successful
entrepreneurs
can
be
Sequoia
Capital’s
bearish
‚
’R.I.P.
Good
Times’
akin
to
starving
artists.
presentation17.
From
a
practical
entrepreneurial
perspective
I
particularly
valued
the
interactions
which
I
had
with
industry
speakers.
During
the
entrepreneur
forum18
I
had
a
personal
conversation
with
Sean
O’Malley,
Entrepreneur
in
Residence,
Venrock,
where
he
equated
the
most
successful
examples
of
entrepreneurs
that
he
had
worked
with
in
his
time
at
Yahoo
and
now
at
Venrock
as
being
similar
to
that
of
starving
artists,
where
their
aligned
enthusiasm,
appetite
for
risk
and
lack
of
personal
funds
produces
their
best
work.
I
found
this
to
be
an
intriguing
comment.
14
Trina
Depel,
Intel
Capital,
‚Venture
funding‘
lecture,
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business,
Tuesday
December
9,
2008
15
Entrepreneur
forum:
“Leading
and
funding
ventures
in
down
economies“,
held
Monday
December
8,
Stanford
University.
16
Cisco
quoted
their
internal
venturing
requirements
as
being
$1
billion
potential
over
3-‐5
years
for
intrapreneur
projects.
Symantec’s
requirements
were
$100
million
in
revenue
achievable
within
a
3-‐5
years
horizon.
17
Seqioua
Capital
‘RIP
Good
Times‘
presentation
to
Seqioua
Capital
portfolio
company
CEOs,
week
commencing
Monday
October
6,
2008
Entrepreneur
forum:
“Leading
and
funding
ventures
in
down
economies“,
held
Monday
December
8,
Stanford
University.
18
From
a
career
development
perspective,
the
most
interesting
idea
to
me
which
I
took
from
the
‘industry
field
trip’
component
of
the
course
came
from
Chris
Cowart,
Location
Lead,
Ideo.
Chris
voiced
the
concept
of
Ideo’s
employees
being
“T-‐shaped
people”:
human
beings
with
experience
and
expertise
in
a
discrete
discipline
or
body
of
knowledge
and
a
general
knowledgability
across
the
broader
spectrum
of
life
and
work
that
is
complementary
to
their
core
skill
sets
and
to
the
company’s
output.
Coming
from
a
diverse
background
and
having
working
primarily
in
open,
egalitarian
and
progressive
workplaces
I
found
that
this
concept
clarified
my
personal
career
direction
in
a
discrete
knowledge
discipline
and
my
accumulation
of
diverse
work
experience
to
date.
Conclusion
My
hands-‐on
learning
experience
in
Silicon
Valley
now
plugs
back
in
to
the
core
teachings
from
The
University
of
Sydney
on
technology
commercialisation
and
innovation:
what
is
your
product’s
unique
customer
benefit
/
competitive
advantage?
Is
there
a
marketplace?
Is
there
a
commercial
opportunity?
The
cover
story
of
the
January
12,
2009
edition
of
Business
Week
asked
(and
answered
its
own)
question
“What’s
wrong
with
Silicon
Valley
(and
how
to
make
it
right)”.
The
piece
tackles
the
short-‐
termism
of
web
2.0,
the
need
for
venture
capitalists
to
realign
their
interests
with
break-‐through
technologies,
a
shift
away
from
the
me-‐too
nature
of
web
2.0
by
entrepreneurs
and
the
need
for
continual
investment
by
large
corporations
in
disruptive
technologies
to
seed
new
markets.
I
feel
that
based
on
our
on
the
ground
learning
and
research
in
Silicon
Valley
it
is
plausible
to
say
that
the
Valley’s
ecosystem
solves
its
own
problems
and
can
now
work
towards
spa
the
next
wave
of
innovation
at
the
start
of
a
new
hype-‐cycle
to
emerge
from
the
current
recessionary
environment.
In
summary
I
feel
that
this
unit
of
study
achieved
a
great
balance
between
theory
and
practice
that
contained
insightful
learning
on
innovation
and
enterprise
in
the
USA’s
most
fruitful
ecosystem
as
sample
space,
which
I
am
grateful
to
have
participated
in.
Thank
you.
References
Briley,
D.,
IBUS6007
International
Business
Special
Project:
Growing
the
Enterprise:
Lessons
from
Silicon
Valley
course
introduction,
Symantec
headquarters,
Monday
December
1,
2008
Depel, T., ‘Venture funding‘ lecture, Tuesday December 9, 2008, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Entrepreneur
forum:
“Leading
and
funding
ventures
in
down
economies“,
Monday
December
8,
Stanford
University
Strabulaev,
I,
Fundamental
of
external
financing’
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Saturday
December
6,
2008,
Carnegie
Mellon
West
University
Mendelson,
H.,
‘E-‐marketing
channels’
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Monday
December
8,
2008,
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business
Miller,
B.,
‘The
Silicon
Valley
Ecosystem’
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Tuesday
December
2,
2008,
Carnegie
Mellon
West
University
O’Reilly, C., lecture to The University of Sydney students, Thursday December 11, 2008
McKern,
B.
,’Strategic
growth
opportunities’
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Thursday
December
11,
2008,
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business
Ziebelman,
P.,
‚Capital
management‘
lecture
to
The
University
of
Sydney
students,
Tuesday
December
2,
2008,
Carnegie
Mellon
West
University
Seqioua
Capital
‘RIP
Good
Times‘
presentation
to
Seqioua
Capital
portfolio
company
CEOs,
week
commencing
Monday
October
6,
2008
Accessed
Monday
January
19
at
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/sequoia-‐capitals-‐56-‐slide-‐powerpoint-‐presentation-‐of-‐doom/