The financial crisis, from Silicon Valley and Barracas Beach
Even when it was not the central purpose of the Endeavor trip to Silicon Valley, given the difficult times we live in the issue of the financial crisis arised in almost all talks.
Here is a summary of the most interesting things that were said and my personal view on that subject, from the charming beach of Barracas, on the banks of the Riachuelo (a fetid river two blocks from my Buenos Aires office).
Election Day - Uncensored
In this historic Election day, my friend Enrique sent me a video that I found really interesting and wanted to share with you. And soon after I published the post, Martina sent me another version, this time “uncensored” so ypou will also find it below. And for more reader feedback, you may want to see the Spanish post on the winners of my latest contests, with the “acceptance speech sent by Fede Munichor!).
The fact that voting is not mandatory in the US gives place to interesting dinamics. I always wondered what would happen if in our countries voting was optional. I tend to think that, if even Americans have to be called upon to vote, that here the only people that would vote are those who get some dirty money from politicians to do so.
Anyway, in case you are not interested in all these stuff, you will at least enjoy seeing, among others, Scarlett Johanson and Cameron Diaz or Di Caprio and Tom Cruise (according to your preferences).
My favorites…? Borat and Jason Lee. And Jennifer Aniston… but she appears so little!
Great to Good?
A few weeks ago I was at a meeting of the Advisory Council of Prosperar, the National Investment Agency of Argentina. There, Alec Oxenford mentioned something that truly concerns me: He said that in a speech a few days ago he asked the audience who was their most admired businessperson. And everyone in the audience looked at him as if he was crazy. And that, after thinking for while, the only answer they could think of was Marcelo Tinelli.
You may like better Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Larry Ellison or Jack Welch. Sergey Brin and Larry Page or Jerry Yang and David Filo. But what there is no doubt about is that in cultures such as the U.S., among the most admired people there are many entrepreneurs. In Argentina being a businessman is a stigma.
How Venture Capital in Latin America DOESN’T work
Perhaps the most shocking thing of knowing how Venture Capital in Silicon Valley works is to see the huge contrast with what happens in Latin America.
I am a friend of several of the people who lead or work at the main funds in the region. But back from my trip I could not help but feel disgust for how they carry out their role as VCs .
What is the problem? The problem is that Venture Capital is essentially about risk. All the VCs we met during the trip made that very clear. And here, nobody wants to take risks .
How Venture Capital in Silicon Valley works
What impressed me the most in this trip was to find out how the Venture Capital funds in Silicon Valley work. The contrast with what we entrepreneurs in Latin America are used to is gigantic.
Let’s see the main aspects:
Silicon Valley 101
Silicon Valley is an incredible place. In this post I will tell a bit what it is like for those who, like me until last week, have never been there or read much about it. Experts can stop here.
Silicon Valley’s fault and other shameless comments
As anticipated in my previous post, last week I made one of the best trips of my life: I went to the Silicon Valley Tour organized by Endeavor.
Although for business or pleasure I have traveled a lot to the United States since I started Officenet, absurdly I had never been to the West Coast. Therefore this was the first time I went to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
In the introduction to the first speaker of the event, Wences Casares, the founder of Patagon, Lemon Bank and BlingNation, began by saying that since he was a bit over 20 years-old he set as a rule to, at least once a year, find an excuse to go there. Then I realized that, being myself an entrepreneur, it is absurd that I’ve waited 37 years to go. Because Silicon Valley is THE mecca of entrepreneurship. It’s where the Major Leagues are played. Where most of the main new innovative companies in the world are built.
What am I going to do now is to write a series of posts trying to share with you the most important ideas and learnings from this trip. In the days ahead I’m going to write about:
- How Silicon Valley looks like
- How Venture Capital firms work there
- The visits we made to Electronic Arts, Ebay, Facebook and Google
- The most interesting business concepts I heard for entrepreneurs
- The Endeavor companies that I did not know me and impresses me the most
But first let’s devote this post to my frivolous, irrelevant and / or fun comments:
Visiting Silicon Valley
At this moment I am for the first time in my life at Silicon Valley, in a tour organized by Endeavor. It is very difficult to tell you in the 10 minutes I have right now the unbelievable experience this is. It will take many posts to digest what I am seeing and learning in this trip.
The agenda starts every day at 7:20AM and goes non stop until 10PM at night. Yesterday we visited Electronic Arts, the largest videogame company in the World. My digital camera did not work, but I took a few pics with my cell phone. The quality is very poor (damned Blackberry 
) but for whoever wants to take a look, I ulploaded them to Facebook.
The love of technology: long live the Blackberries
In the World today there are two classes of people: those who love technology and those who reject it. There is no middle ground.
I clearly belong in the first group and therefore I cannot understand those who call being in an area without email and internet coverage “rest”. That is my definition of “stress”! To the lover of technology there is no bigger feeling of peace of mind than an empty Inbox for being up-to-date. That is why the Blackberry (or iPhone) is our best friend!
Into the dark clouds
This is the fourth and last post on the series about paragliding and Entrepreneurship. On the three previous ones we covered the topics of preparing to startup, the startup phase itself and the growth period. Now it is time to discuss about how to deal with adversity.
A while after the pleasant flight of the previous post, large clouds started covering the horizon. As if Nature wanted to help me write this blog, it was a perfect metaphor of how in countries like Argentina, right when things start going well you get a storm threatening to cut your wings.
You need to log in to vote
The blog owner requires users to be logged in to be able to vote for this post.
Alternatively, if you do not have an account yet you can create one here.
Powered by Vote It Up
Riesgo & Risk & Reward is Santiago Bilinkis' blog. Santiago is a serial entrepreneur, who created this blog to ignite a discussion and share his experiences, thoughts and anecdotes.
The main subject will be Entrepreneurship, but he plans to cover a broad range of topics. The common ground will be Risk. Welcome to this adventure!
Subscribe
Don't miss another post...
Latest Posts
Latest Comments
- A commodities addiction and the startup ecosystem in Chile « GIM South America: [...] How venture capital in Latin America DOESN’T work, by
- José Angel Yánez: Any suggestion for Venezuelan startups?
- La cultura Twitter y el fin de la atención: [...] the English version by Palindromic. Share
- Un acertijo fácil, para variar | Santiago Bilinkis l Riesgo y recompensa: [...] National Guard Read the English version by Palindromic.
- An easy riddle, for a change | Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward: [...] that last time I posted a hard riddle only
Most Commented
- None found
más discutidores!
- None yet!
© Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward 2012 | RSS Contenidos | RSS Comentarios.
Proudly powered by Wordpress. Web development by SocialSnack.