Aayush in the wonderValley
So here I was. Finally. In Muricaaahhhhh!!!!!!! That’s what I and a friend of mine refer to the US fondly. This was my first time in America and what a place to be in. Silicon Valley- the place I so aspired and dreamed to be at in the long term. I was already awestruck by San Francisco and neighboring cities when I was gazing through my plane’s window as we were descending at SFO.
“when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Never a believer of this quote but I end up bringing this up every now and then because, well, sometimes this really fits my situations. So the universe granted my wish soon enough (Well when I said I wanted to be at the Silicon Valley, I didn’t mean a short trip. Ahem… perhaps I should have been clearer in my wish to the heavenly ears of the universe).
The American airport experience and NOT!
I am not kidding when I say this. Before this trip, I was wishing I get frisked and pulled aside for interrogation by the TSA. Why? Because this is me. I have some weird, curious and adventurous side to me. Guess what? The universe granted my wish again. Well… sort of! I declared at arrival I had something liable to customs out of dilemma. Turns out they were not liable. Anyways, as I was exiting the airport, I was asked to move to the customs inspection area. Gone were my some 30 minutes and that of the group who were waiting outside for me. Argh!
So folks, if you were on this trip with me and reading this, and assumed I got “randomly” selected, let’s make it clear that - I WAS NOT!
The day after arrival, on Day 0 we went around San Francisco. Amazing city. But since I am not writing this for a travel magazine, let me save my writing and your reading time and skip day 0.
Day 1: The Day at Zynga, 500 Startup and IndieGoGo.
Zynga. Where do I start? I was not at all interested in visiting Zynga although I was and am appreciative of getting to visit and talking to people at Zynga, a famed Silicon Valley company. The first thing that struck me was how the company’s building was not posh enough. It was a big building nevertheless, but I used to think all big tech companies at Silicon Valley have up-market and well-furnished workplace from doors to staircases to all the way up to offices. The offices were elegant but the rest were not so much. It was an eye opener. And I must say it was nice to see a big tech company which was only established less than 10 years ago operating from such a place despite having hundreds of millions in revenue. It was inspiring in the sense that when your startup grows, you need a big enough workplace not posh enough. Oh and did I mention I was surprised to see how they didn’t have security guards at the entrance? Seemed like that area in San Francisco is one safe place! I also must say the meeting at Zynga was uninspiring because most of the questions and answers revolved around technicality of their products and their development. Nothing at all to excite me to come up and go for a startup, or even entice me to join them. Social games weren’t my thing anyways.
500 Startup was up next. A visit to this company was everything I expected out of this trip. A venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator. Again it struck me how the office of a famous company that in turn supports hundreds of startups was not very big and to an extent crowded (Guess I had been looking too much into Google’s and Facebook’s offices).
I asked our host if they support international startups and if they like to see international startups register as US company for having a better investment prospect with VCs. Yes and yes - his elaborated response was like music to my ears.
Another memorable moment for me was when prof. Houda disagreed with our host (a Jordanian) saying it is not helpful for people back at our countries if entrepreneurs like him stay at US and don’t come back. He said along the lines that his type of works will not get enough exposure and investments outside, and it doesn’t matter much for his countrymen if he operates from Jordan or outside. I agree with his latter view with some limitations but totally agree with his first. Where does this put me? Well I lean with our host. Sorry prof. Houda.
IndieGoGo? Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it Superman? Never heard of it before today. Turns out it is like Kickstarter. Such a nice platform to raise money from the crowd for small business, altruistic purpose and even personal issues. I was totally blown away by how the crowd is willing to put money into even mundane stuff. Raising $2m for an altruistic project in Pakistan when asked for only $100k wasn’t surprising enough, then what about raising enough money to replace a chipped tooth? Are people nuts? I think I should start a campaign to raise money for a new laptop.
IDEO? Come again? Like IndieGoGo, I had never heard of IDEO before seeing it on our trip itinerary. A leading and original Design Think company that had helped the likes of even Apple during its early days to design the mouse, IDEO was eye opener for me in how complex and important it is to craft a consumer product from its shape to packaging. And who knew that even big brands have to outsource some of their design works to companies like IDEO because they can’t have a dedicated design team.
Great company. Great location around a residential suburb. Great emblem outside their…. wait! Why didn’t they have a big structure reading their “IDEO” logo hanging above their office entrance? Must be some Design Thinking.
On to Uber Technologies. If the likes of Zynga, IDEO and 500 Startup surprised me with their lax to almost non-existent security, Uber Technologies totally surprised me with their stringent measures. Guards in uniform, internal security gates, etc. I would have forgiven you if you thought you were at an airport terminal. May be its needed when a host of taxi companies are after you. So far Uber’s office had been the first that matched my preconceived imagination of what a big Silicon Valley Startup’s office is supposed to be like.
We were escorted to the meeting room where we were received by our hosts Haider and Rami, and joined by two more Uber employees. Haider and Rami expressed everything we as a group felt lacked from our Zynga hosts. Both were so passionate about what they were doing. Both had good stories to tell about how they made it to US and then to Uber from their respective countries. It’s not the big technology that inspires but the journey of people to tech companies. And their story did inspire me.
And they reminded us that they aren’t a taxi company. They are a tech company investing in arrays of fields from AI to autonomous vehicles whose flagship product happens to be dispatching taxis. Hence Uber Technologies and not Uber Taxi Company.
AirBnB. I am stopping talking about offices and security henceforth. So moving on… we had a tour around the workplace and then to the meeting hall. We were told about the company’s beginnings and its current products. The part about its humble beginning were inspiring- how the 3 co-founders raised money by selling cereals during a 2008 US presidential campaign event and how the three didn’t come from a technical field at all before building this behemoth based on tech.
Most of the questions and answers by our two hosts and us revolved around technicality and the company’s products and how it functions. They were fresh out of college and straight into AirBnB unlike our hosts at Uber. Hence their story was short and uninspiring. It would have been interesting to talk more about the co-founders and things they did to scale the company. But hey… I got to visit AirBnB, can’t complain about it.
Anki. When I was googling for info about the three companies to visit for the day, I totally forgot about Anki. Again, I had no idea what Anki was about. So there we are in front of a skyscraper that reads KPMG. God knows which floor we were taken to by the elevator and I find us crammed into a small meeting room in a mysterious office.
There we were welcomed by Boris Sofman. Our first meeting with a CEO or co-founder on this trip. Anki was young. Founded in 2010, still had just over 100 people in the team, had been raising venture money and were on the verge of releasing their first product. This was the first company we visited that was still in startup phase practically. Boris is a CMU alum who met his co-founders while doing his Ph.D. in Robotics at CMU. He said how the company’s goal is to bring robotics to consumer products. And as first step they are releasing a set toy cars that drives around a track, simulating weapons use and impact like in video games, sensing other cars and maneuvering against rival cars. In short, it is Hotwheels with AI married with Need For Speed.
Technical details aside, Boris was distinctly so passionate about what his company was developing. He talked of how the idea was conceived as part of the co-founders Ph.D. works and how they made a functioning prototype. He mentioned how important it was that his company moved to Bay Area from Pittsburgh. He emphasized the size and system of Silicon Valley Venture Capitalism and how they would not have raised enough money for an idea like theirs anywhere else. Seems like the grass is indeed green in the valley.
Anki was my favorite and most inspiring visit for the day, and also among the best in the entire trip.
So I was told that we will be spending some 7-8 hours on our own at the Launch Festival. I was like “darn… how am I supposed to spend that long in one place? I will be bored in no time.” Oh boy! I was so wrong.
There were three areas hosting three different events for startups. Launch Stage area, Scale stage and AMA (Ask Me Anything) which was basically a pitching platform. There was also an area where dozens of startups were given booths. I was not sure what those booth were up for. Were they looking for investors, customers, or both. I couldn’t figure that entire day. I visited 2-3 booths anyways. One guy at one booth was suddenly eager to explain his product to me. Turns out he saw the Carnegie Mellon logo my jacket. Well… it does help when you are nobody at a place and your famous university makes you something there.
I moved between the three stages back and forth during the course of the day. Labelling boring to the Launch Stage is an understatement. May be I went there during an especially boring talk, I’ll never know. All I know is I couldn’t take it and moved out.
Scale Stage was my favorite. So many engaging and even inspiring 15-20 minute speeches followed by some QnAs. It was like Ted Talks by IT professionals.
AMA Stage was fun too. I sat (stood actually) through 4-5 pitches. Watched decent product with bad presentation, unconvincing product with good presentation, and good product with good presentation. My favorite was Chariot, a Bay Area startup which offered shared van rides to people to commute between home and work supported and managed by a mobile app. Who knew Uber let a small company that offered a somewhat similar product that too in their own geographic domain to breathe!
Day 4: The day at the paradise.
“Is Google God?” Years ago I read a column in a tech magazine with a byline just that. It certainly isn’t but its HQ in Mountain View sprawling among suburbs, green boulevards and even a canal is a paradise, a figurative one for computer scientists and engineers
We were received by our two hosts. They took us around a stretch of their campus including their visitor center which was a replica of their some section of their office. Sleeping pods, massage chairs, small golf playing area inside the office… dayum!
Almost everyone knows Google provides its employees free food. But who knew it also provides its guests? May be we were special case. Anyways, thank you Google… I mean Alphabet... wait… Ok whichever is entitled my appreciation has one from me.
The hosts, both of Arab descent, a man born in US with parents of different heritage, while another was a woman born in Egypt to a normal family. Rayman worked in Sales for Chromebook but had a degree in political science (if I remember correctly) with no prior sales experience at all. Who knew you could get into Google like that? That was amusing until he mentioned Google got 2 million applications last years. Damn it. He killed the small dream I had.
Our Egyptian host Marwa was a software engineer-turned-product manager for Youtube. Her story of personal challenges, and how she assimilated into Google’s workforce coming from a foreign and distinct background was encouraging.
The villain of the day was time. I had so many questions to ask them, but we ran short on time pretty quick. May be we shouldn’t have been allowed to spend that much time taking pictures and enjoy ourselves at the visitor center. Again can’t complain… I got a chance to be at freaking Gooooogleeeee!!!!!!!!!
Quanergy. So the next stop on our itinerary was an energy company except for that it isn’t. That name is deceiving. An autonomous vehicle systems company that developed the sensors and the technology for driverless cars, it had developed a sensor at a meager $250. The car perhaps need more than one sensor to be placed at different sides of the vehicle, but that’s still peanuts compared to the $80k bulky device Google is using for their system currently.
The QnA session with the CEO and co-founder Louay Eldada was absorbing and intense. Many of us were so excited about his system and his background. His journey from Lebanon as a student, being sponsored for his PhD by DARPA, founding several companies and making successful exits before hitting the biggest jackpot in terms of valuation and ground-breaking technology with Quanergy made for a captivating story.
We as students couldn’t relate to his experience and situation. He had a Ph.D., founded several companies in the meantime and his current technology was developed over 25 years with some loyal people who were with him all along the way. But we could relate to the man. There were many of us non-Arabs who hailed mostly from the subcontinent and feel inspired by his achievement. For me, it was a lesson on the importance of perseverance, scholarship and team loyalty.
I also felt privileged as Eldada told that he felt like at home with us and told some secrets that he would have not told other people. I feel that way despite having us sign a NDA. I will certainly keep an eye on this company. This company has the tech for being a next big thing.
Plug and Play. You will be forgiven to guess that this is a music service for your phone. It is a leading incubator and accelerator for startups which supports international companies too and has tie ups with 12 governments around the world. After a tour around the offices, we were taken to the top floor for a session with a panel of five Arab entrepreneurs at different stages of their life as well as their startups.
Most inspiring among them was an 80 something entrepreneur. I had this nagging feeling that if I don’t have an idea for my first startup by the time I reach 30, I will never have a startup because it will be too late to pursue a first startup after that age. I don’t know why I had this thought. It bothered me a lot. But after hearing him, that thought went away to a great extent.
The panel underlined that failure is a sort of achievement in the Valley. They talked about how some of the traditions we hold on to in our countries are holding us back in terms of innovations, how it is so very different in the Valley, how you are supposed to embrace and adapt to the Valley instead of trying to hold on too much to your cultural norms, and also the importance of work ethics and persistence. Among the main take away was how startups aren’t for everybody. You don’t look to start a startup, it happens as a result of trying to turn a good idea into something usable and tangible.
Took pictures around Facebook’s campus. Went to Stanford. Met a close friend who I thought I would never meet again after he graduated last Spring. And finally the airport for an arduous 16 hour flight.
And did I mention Stanford campus is so beautiful? If Stanford was a girl, I would have knelt already. Might as well send roses to the campus next February.
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