Visit of Google

Google and the Googleplex were our last visit into the Silicon Valley. Two women from the Human Resources welcomed us: Vicky Wang and Michelle Nguyen who are in charge of the MBA program.

They organized a meeting with six speakers: The creator of Google Earth, a project manager, two other people from the Human Resources. The first “Googler” explained the innovation and entrepreneurship process within Google (to launch new applications and even new products). It was very interesting to see how easily an idea can grow up in such an environment where creativity is enhanced.

At Google, every single employee has 20% of his time devoted to work on an innovative project that is out of his scope of competences. As a result, every single one kind of works for the R&D department.

We also talked about competitors; the speakers answered explaining that Google pay a very close attention to the customers’ reaction. They permanently adapt their offer, following the expectations of the market and advice from their clients.

They also gave us an explanation about their HR process and policy.

Then, they gave us a tour of the place. Every one has been impressed by the open spaces and how easily every one has access to everyone. Everything is done to encourage interaction between people, and to enhance the pleasure of working. From food to massage and Jacuzzi, everything is free! The food court is just an impressive melting pot of chefs!

Google sounds like employees’ paradise!

Meeting with John Bautista

John Bautista met us at the office of Orrick in the Silicon Valley.

We remind you that Orrick is the 5^th largest US law firm in France. Orrick is specialized in M&A. The company works with around 600 companies, almost with start-up beginning at Day 1. They help them to raise capital and develop.

 

For example, they have been working with companies such as :

-         Facebook,

-         Second Life,

-         The re financing of Eurotunnel,

-         Microsoft

-         Cisco.

 

First, he made some comments about entrepreneurship in France. He said that there is a big problem with labor regulation that doesn’t encourage entrepreneurship at all. In the Silicon Valley, merit is based on economy when in France it is based on seniority.

But, some advantages of Franceare not well promoted, for example, this is easier to build a company in Francethan it is in the UK.

His conclusion about entrepreneurship in Francewas these trends were pointing in the right direction and that is the reason why the fact that some investors from the Silicon Valley invest abroad nowadays was not the case 2 years ago.

 

Then he explained why in the Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs’ first move is to go to see their lawyer when in France people go to see founders. This is because in California, the lawyer is used to meet entrepreneurs; as a result, the lawyer knows the community, he will help him to find right people to help him raising money and to help him to start his business. Legal issue are low, the point is networking.

That is why first meetings with a law firm are free and then, if they think you have potential, they will not ask for money but for a participation of the company. Those low fees are made to help company’s success.

In those law firms, they do everything to keep low costs. For example, they have a “ready to go form” to create companies so they don’t have to do X times the same job.

 

Before answering to Q&A, John gave us his advices for entrepreneurs:

-         The objective should be to start a company with as less money as possible;

-         The entrepreneur should be very careful on how to select your team;

-         You have to be sure you know your competitive environment;

-         It’s very important to partner up with an experienced entrepreneur, that shows how well you can generate attention;

-         Do not be shy, go right to see the person you need to talk to;

-         Listen to your customers

 

 

During the Q&A part, we talked about different point:

 

Cleantech, it is a very wide industry. Companies in this field have the most of chances to be found if they have opportunity to become big. Trading energy is an area that has lot of possibilities.

Meeting with Nova Spivack from Twine

Nous
avons été très bien reçus dans cette startup basée non pas dans le sud de la baie mais à San Francisco même. Twine a bien d'autres points dedifférenciation par rapport aux autres start-up web que l'on peut
trouver à l'heure actuelle dans la baie.

Tout d'abord son CEO, Nova Spivack n'est pas un jeune aux dents longues tout fraichement sorti de Stanford, mais un pionnier du web, qui en 1994 fonda la première agence web au monde: EarthWeb. Son introduction en
bourse en 1998 fut la première IPO dans l'histoire d'Internet pour une entreprise B-to-B. Lors de la première cotation elle fut aussi la 6ème plus grosse croissance de l'histoire du NASDAQ (+247%). Ce bouddhiste
trentenaire est définitivement un CEO atypique dans la Silicon Valley. Ingénieur spécialisé dans l'intelligence artificielle, diplômé de philosophie, chercheur autour des technologies du web sémantique, diplômé de l'International Space University, école appartenant a la NASA, il a déjà voyagé dans l'espace. Depuis Nova Spivack est redescendu
sur terre pour créer Twine et blogger à ses heures perdues.

Le CEO est un élément très important dans le succès d'une startup mais son équipe et son business aussi. Mais alors qu'est ce que fait Twine de si génial? Et bien c'est très simple, Twine centralise des informations, les lie entre elles, les catégorise, trouve des concepts communs, bref enrichie l'information, la rend plus intelligente. Sans
rentrer dans toutes les fonctionnalités que Nova nous a présenté, ce qu'on peut dire de ce produit c'est que ses possibilités d'évolution sont très très ouvertes. Une information plus intelligente signifie aussi des
publicitées plus ciblées et on le voit aujourd'hui avec Google, le contrôle de la pub sur internet est un métier qui paye très bien. Nous avons eu le droit à une démo en live de Twine avec la création du
premier Twine en langue française, le logiciel a très bien répondu même si le "module FR" n'a pas encore été activé et ne devrait l'être que dans 1 an.

En plus de la démo live de Twine, Nova Spivack nous a aussi offert une visite des locaux de Radar Networks. Ils comportent tous les éléments indispensables à toute start-up de la Silicon Valley qui se respecte :bonbons dans la salle de réunion, tableaux Velleda remplis de toutes sortes de pensées d'employés, salle de jeux garnie et Wii et autres Playstations, et bien sur employés souriants et motivés, apparemment enthousiasmés de travailler sur un projet si attrayant. Il faut dire que le charisme de Nova Spivack n'y est pas étranger : le temps de notre visite, il a su nous communiquer sa passion et sa vision, et même les moins informaticiens des étudiants ont su apprécier et comprendre les enjeux qui se cachent derrière ce que le futur du Web nous réserve.

Visit of Apple

We went to Apple campus and we were well entertained with a brunch and a visit of the Apple Store. We were disappointed by the conference. They gave us only a presentation of their products (computers, ipod, iphone etc) and the second half of the conference was questions and answers.

It was the first time since our arrival in the Sillicon Valley that the working atmosphere was so tense. Apple looks like a company where employees didn't looks like radiant. The security was maximal and people we met look anxious.

We are entrepreneur and we noticed that employees didn't be consulted for innovations and that everybody works on projects they don't know all of it. To illustrate this situation, we can take as example the answer given when we asked about the Apple strategy: "Our strategy is Steve Jobs".

The competition in this line of business can maybe explain their behaviours. One explanation of the atmosphere may be the Mac World happening on the same day.

Meeting with Cynthia Wagner Weick

University of pacific, Stockton, California

The talk was gathering multiple datas from international sources to target what are the main focus to look at, to encourage and finance innovation; to make it successful in a country, and profitable in a world orientated point of view.
The crux is to understand that innovation is a notion in the middle of three main elements: science and engineering, markets and fundings.
Markets opportunities come from the fact that the world is facing currently numerous kinds of challenges as health, food, climate change, energy supply...
Problems arising from these issues can be solved progressively with the improvements the science is likely to bring with its new discoveries going faster and faster within the frame of NICT.
Then, funds are necessary to finance research, and to help new ideas to raise money for investing in new potential developments.
That is why companies, private investors as well as public authorities have all to encourage as much as possible at their level Research, by helping it to become concrete.
One of the main issues in the future would be the capacity of bringing as much patents as possible into application. The trend/expansion of a national economy is drastically linked to the number of patent applications it can issue.
Collaboration and co-authoring is a positive attitude considering the results of such a behavior.
Design has an important place as well to distinguish products and bring an innovation faster to markets.


DAVIER Paul-Etienne, Niamkey Diane
Specialised Master Innovation and Enterpreneurship
ESCP-EAP

Visit of The Plug and Play Tech Center

 

Plug and Play Tech Center is an incubator based in Sunnyvale, in the Silicon Valley. It hosts more than 90 start-ups and offers them a full range of services: from full service space to strategic advice or financing (via Amidad Ventures). Since it opened its doors in January 2006 it has assisted its resident companies in securing more than USD$ 55 million.

Famous companies like Google, Paypal or Skype have grown between their walls. It is committed to cultivating the next generation of revolutionary start-ups in Silicon Valley that will impact people globally.

 

While we were there, we had the opportunity to visit the facilities. Our guide explained us the companies in the centre can arrange the spaces according to their needs. It is like if they had their own office somewhere else.

The visit also permitted us to understand and to feel the real importance of the environment you can find there. Everything is done to help you in the development of your company and you can share with many other persons in the same situation. Therefore, it will allow you to get from the experiences of the companies installed in the incubator.

In addition, we met with a director of a company of the PlugandPlayTechCenter. This person insisted on the importance of the place where you are developing your company. Thus, he told us that, while talking with other people, he met another company with which he could do some business.

Furthermore, he gave us some advices in order to create a business:

1.      First, your company must solve a problem or be useful: you must look widely before to start.

2.      You will have to choose what you will sell: a feature, a product, a company…

3.      Then, you must determine if there is a market for your product or service.

4.      After, it is necessary to evaluate how to get into that market.

5.      Next, it will allow you to evaluate the profit you can make.

He concluded saying “you must stay FOCUS on your real value proposition”.

Meeting with Denis Coleman from Solus

Nous sommes parti de Paris avec l’ambition de mieux comprendre le succès de la Silicon Valley en termes d’innovation. Denis Coleman nous a éclairé sur ce point en nous faisant toucher du doigt l’énorme différence culturelle qu’il existe entre la façon de penser et de travailler en France et aux Etats-Unis.

D’abord, nous avons compris que la Silicon-Valley n’est ni plus ni moins qu’une communauté d’entrepreneurs géniaux, qui avec un pragmatisme typiquement américain, font du business ensemble, s’échangent des informations et développent ainsi leurs business de manière exponentielle..

Ensuite, il nous a fait prendre conscience que l’élément humain est déterminant dans la réussite d’une start-up. Pour exemple, sa nouvelle entreprise, Solus, a ainsi commencé par recruter un businessman sorti de Harvard et un ingénieur du MIT.

Enfin, il nous a exposé le modèle qu’il a mis en place pour une réactivité et une performance optimale de sa structure, en mettant le client au cœur du développement produit, le produit étant vendu avant même sa conception !

Google

Google, Inc. [gugœl] est une société fondée le 27 septembre 1998 dans la Silicon Valley en Californie par Larry Page et Sergey Brin, auteurs du moteur de recherche Google. Google s'est donné comme mission « d'organiser l'information à l'échelle mondiale et de la rendre universellement accessible et utile ». Google forme un vaste conglomérat d'entreprises interreliées, comprenant entres autres YouTube, Gmail et Google Maps.

Début 2007, Google valait quelque 160 milliards de dollars à la bourse de Wall Street. Google possèderait le parc de serveurs le plus important du monde avec environ 450 000 machines réparties sur plus de 25 sites de par le monde^[1].

Depuis 2001, Eric Schmidt en est le PDG (CEO). La société compte environ 16 000 employés dont la plupart travaillent au siège mondial : le Googleplex à Mountain View.

Sur la période s'étalant de juin 2000 à novembre 2004, le moteur de recherche Google aurait indexé plus de 8 milliards de pages Web, 1 milliard d'images.

 

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG and LSE: GGEA) is an American public corporation, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of September 30, 2007).^[3] It is the largest American company (by market capitalization) that is not part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.^{[citation needed]}

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email, online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others.

In 2006, "google" came in second on Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year^[4].

 

Source: www.wikipedia.org

Nous vous recommandons de jeter un coup d'oeil à l'article de wikipedia sur Google qui est assez complet: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google 

 

Cynthia Wagner Weick

Professor, Management and Neven C. Hulsey Chair in Business Excellence

1990, Professor of Management Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1986; M.S., Ohio State University, 1980; B.S., Ohio State University, 1979.

Expertise: Management of Technology; Strategic Planning; Product Innovation; International Market Entry Strategies; Commercial Development of Biotechnology.

Cynthia Wagner Weick's expertise is in strategic planning for technology-based business and products, and in international as well as domestic market analysis and development. She currently teaches courses in Strategic Management and Policy, Management of Technology, Product Innovation and Global Business. Her research focuses on international strategies in commercial biotechnology. She also serves as Director of Pacific's Invention Evaluation Service.

Dr. Wagner Weick has professional experience and academic training in both business administration and biology. Her work has required travel to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the former USSR. She received her Ph.D. in Business Administration in 1986 from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and her B.S. and M.S. from the Ohio State University. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of the Pacific, she was in strategic planning and new business development at Pioneer Hi-Bred International. She has also been a technology consultant to the United Nations Development Program, and a Research Scientist at Battelle Columbus Laboratories, where she evaluated new technologies for industrial and government clients.

Source: http://web.pacific.edu 

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Red Herring, Inc., founded in 1993, is a media company whose mission is to cover innovation, technology, financing and entrepreneurial activity. Its staff of award-winning journalists tell readers what's first, what matters and most importantly, why.

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Red Herring is dedicated to thorough research, relevant metrics deep financial analysis, in-depth reporting, crisp writing and thoughtful debate. We are a skeptical, intelligent and trustworthy source of information in technology business. Our primary obligation is to provide the most relevant, honest and independent information and analysis to our audience, with the conviction that an exceptional editorial product is the best catalyst for success and the best way to serve our advertisers and investors. Our content is original, compelling and actionable for industry executives and entrepreneurs.

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