Hi all, this is Marc again, this time no iPhone topic.
A short while ago, Liip gave me the opportunity to be part of this years Silicon Valley Tour. Silicon Valley Tours provide various people from Switzerland the opportunity to visit companies in the Silicon Valley. With Liip actively supporting the organization and our Philipp Schroeder co-leading the program, I had a perfect opportunity to visit all famous companies in The Valley.
What should I expect? On the list were names like "SAP", "Sun", "Google" and "NASA" to just name a few.
Although I live in a country which adopts to technology very fast and has a handful of very nice and promising start-ups, the Bay Area still had an image of being the "Holy Grail".
With a bag full of expectations, I went on that trip.
The first thing you notice is: this is not like the industrial district of San Francisco. It's not like all those big companies are at the same street and have the same neighborhood. It's more like you occasionally see names you recognize when you drive down the suburban streets.
Because of that, I decided to take the bike to ride from Palo Alto to a bit south of Cupertino. Of course I went to take pictures at Apple and Google and I almost got arrested for it. "Private Property". So, those guys really didn't want me to take pictures of their shiny office buildings. Ok, bad start..
On that bike ride, I saw a lot of office buildings, a lot of companies everybody knows, something you really don't have in Switzerland. But the thing that really jumps into your eyes when you drive through those villages is: except of that one big company, there is not much more. Just the same people and families as in any smaller city/village in Switzerland.
The week went by.. I collected a lot of impressions, had a lot of very nice chats and was perfectly accommodated by the Silicon Valley Tour organization.
So, those impressions - you go there, young, naive and very excited. They say "don't expect too much, you're just gonna be disappointed". I wasn't really disappointed, but wasn't blown away either. Why? Well, first of all, the days when you had that amazing technology in the US and nothing even vaguely close in Europe are history. The internet and the ongoing globalization accelerated dissemination a lot, in all directions. And second: A lot of ideas are not ground-breaking "innovations", they are either normal evolution or "wow, did they also finally realize it?".
For example, the day at Google - you'd think this must be one of the most exciting experiences for a young developer, just in the middle of his studies. Well - it was not.
I had the same tour at the Google Zurich office - and they seem to have that speech that gets indoctrinated into every (Z/G)oogler's head on their very first day.
Usually, you get a guy that talks about the big products he's working on - feeling really cool about it. You get the feeling that, if you think a bit different and a bit "I want to change something", you don't work at post-IPO Google anymore. It looks like yet another corporation with a lot of money, desperately trying to suck up coolness. I may be all wrong about this - it's just an impression. On the other hand, you have companies like SAP, trying to get into a new market segment (Blue Ruby etc.) - but not with real innovation, just evolution and translation.
What also didn't help get my "excitement" back, was the fact that a lot of companies seem to be very hypocritical indeed - in a way you instantly realize.. That's a bit harsh, yes. But if some guy talks about how they make everything green, environmentally friendly and so on and you sit in an room with temperatures almost below zero because of the A/C - well, it makes you think.
So, basically, it's the same as everywhere. You have big companies, trying to survive.
There were some signs of hope. For example Twine - a really nice and smart product, just taking off as we speak. Or smaller presentations from comparatively smallish companies, like LinkedIn which seemed to be pretty honest or the Engineering Department of Stanford University - truly open minded.
A few question came up in my head: what is so different that almost everything I use in my daily life as a developer has it's origin in the Bay Area? And what does it take to have the same in Switzerland?
Technologically speaking: Nothing. The developers are not smarter, they are not more experienced or more skilled. But, they think they are. And that what makes the difference. In Switzerland, you usually develop a product until it's done and perfect, because you are afraid of competition. In the U.S. everyone thinks he could do better and they just do, release and iterate. And when enough people think that way, they move the others as well. We are lacking that drive here. We are scared of failing. We are scared of losing security. We are scared of criticism. I had a nice chat with someone who really went through all the big and small companies who told me: "Here [USA], you don't get VC if you haven't failed at least once." Well, here, you probably won't get financed as a failure, a looser .. . Don't ask me which one is "right", but we definitely need more chances to fail and of course more acceptance. It's never nice to fail, but it happens - and it's mostly not even someone's fault.
For me, this journey was a great experience. It's the fact that my expectation were not met that made it so great. It's the fact that all you need to have is self-confidence, because you got everything else on your hands and in your brain. This was probably the right trip in the right time. I lost my fear of failing, I lost my fear of not being perfect and I lost my fear of the Silicon Valley companies. This is one of the best experiences one can have during studies and at the beginning of life. I'd recommend this trip to anyone in my field.
In this sense: "We can do the same - even a bit better, or we do it better next time."
Thanks again to the SVT 2009 organisation who did a great Job!
Related articles:
