Silicon Valley Story: About Silicon Valley Academic Research
Qian Yingyi Silicon Valley This place has special meaning. I moved to Silicon Valley in 1990, seeing the Silicon Valley for 9 years. The reputation of Silicon Valley is getting bigger and bigger, and the popularity is getting more and more popular, the higher the price, and I have a personal experience. Silicon Valley refers to the south of San Francisco to San Jose, and it is approximately 100 kilometers of flat valley facing the Pacific Ocean. Stanford University is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. It is such a small place, and the 1998 output is approximately a quarter of my country's national gross domestic product. That is to say, there is a small place to have about 300 million yuan of output value, it is really considerable. Silicon Valley has already been present early. Just in the past few years, especially since 1996, it seems to be extraordinary. Of course, the main reason is the Internet in the whole world. The earliest entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are two founders of Hewlett-Packard. They started in the 1930s, and the oscillator was developed in a garage and founded HP. The current HP company is still the largest company in Silicon Valley. In the history of HP's development, there have been experienced experiences, first is a precision instrument, and later do computer, printers, etc. Another company that has a big impact on Silicon Valley is a Fairy Semiconductor (Fairchild) in the 1950s. Silicon Valley has been from the company's entrepreneurs from that company. Interestingly, the reason why they left the Fairy Company was not full of the company's boss - from the 1958 Nobel Physical Prize, William Shockley. They later invited enterprises and swear new atmospheres. What is Silicon Valley? Silicon Valley This land originally dominated by agriculture, especially large cherries until the 1970s, there is a cherry tree. In the eyes, Silicon Valley is a high-tech holy place. But no one or the government defines what is high-tech, or high-tech content. Silicon Valley is changing in the continuous innovation. In the 1960s, the leading industry of Silicon Valley is a semiconductor. In the 1970s, the processor is a software in the 1980s, and the 90s is the Internet. Silicon valley is changing. Silicon Valley also has a landing. For example, the price of housing is the evidence. Houses bought in 1991 have fallen by 20% to 1995, and it has risen up in recent years. Therefore, Silicon Valley is not always growing, and the entire innovation process is a metabolism, and the process of time is time. Silicon Valley is a miracle, a miracle of capitalism. The reason why it is a miracle because it exceeds people's expectations. Don't say Chinese, Asians, even Europeans are also amazed, and have not been expected to think of the fire of Silicon Valley. Some people regard the Internet as a far-reaching industrial revolution compared to the 18th century industrial revolution. We now pay the contest for fashion, many things can also be unclear and cannot be judged. But the Internet has begun to change people's lives, which is not doubtful. Academic research on Silicon Valley has just begun, and there is currently no theory and experience data to explain its successful mystery. In this article, I will talk about the story of a Silicon Valley according to my personal observation of Silicon Valley and the Talk to Silicon Valley. "Silicon Valley Culture" has a view that Silicon Valley is a university, a science and technology park, and a lot of funds. This is a mechanical "three-in-one", which does not match the development of Silicon Valley. In 1994, Anna, ANN Lee Saxenian, California, Berkeley, wrote a book: "Regional advantages: culture and competition in Silicon Valley and 128". The book compared the development of high-tech companies and Silicon Valley High Tech Corporation around 128 Highways. It is worth noting that there are two famous universities near Boston, Harvard University and MIT, and adequate funds - Boston is close to New York's financial and commercial center. Before the 1980s, high-tech around the 128 highway is far ahead of Silicon Valley. But after the 1980s, Silicon Valley beyond the former. It is unexpected to even the author.
She said frankly, when she wrote a master's thesis in the 1980s, the original theme was to discuss why Silicon Valley will walk down the slope, because the production cost has become more and more high. But later facts show that the revenue of Silicon Valley has grown faster. This caused her to think, she tried to solve this mystery, so I wrote this book. Obviously, famous academics and sufficient funds are not sufficient conditions for Silicon Valley. So, what is the miracle of Silicon Valley? I have asked a lot of Silicon valves, no one can give a convincing answer. Many people returned Silicon Valley attributed to "Silicon Valley Culture". But "culture" is too virtual, it can put our factors that we don't understand. However, there is a little bigger to agree that the important ingredients of Silicon Valley culture are entrepreneurial culture. So what is it constitutes a business culture? Although we can't have accurate sayings, I noticed that Silicon Valley people like to describe Silicon Valley in recent years. "Habitat). Use a biological term to describe silicon valley culture, indeed touching. The place of habitat refers to plants inhabiting plants. The reason why animals and plants are inhabited here because the environment is suitable, and the environment includes complex factors, such as temperature, humidity, vegetation, and many of us have not yet known factors. The Silicon Valley is said to be a high-tech entrepreneurial company in the habitat of high-tech entrepreneurs, indicating that terms that are complex, difficult to use mechanical or electrical engineering, preferably use biological terminology. This habitat includes at least seven aspects: 1 Silicon Valley's production structure is open. 2 Silicon Valley Talents Frequently flow, and the situation of the hopping is often occurred. 3 California legal environment is relaxed, making the job easing. 4 Silicon valley allows failure. 5 Silicon Valley people's life and works are "live to work", and in other places, "Work to Live). Silicon valley is working wild. 6 Foreign immigrants working in Silicon Valley are particularly versatile. 7 The US National Securities Trader Automatic Quotation System (NASDAQ) stock market has created favorable conditions for Silicon Valley. The above is only an incomplete description constituting the Silicon Valley habitat. These factors have caused a new world together. People have just begun to understand it. Entrepreneurs and corporations, we often mix entrepreneurs and managers. In fact, this is two different concepts. Entrepreneurs in English are entrepreneur, resulting in the word "entrepreneurship). The manager is Manage. From the word "managing". Entrepreneurs have created the cause of the past. New ideas, new products, new crafts, new horses, new markets, from nothing, abandoning old. Entrepreneurs and revolutionary are like, they like to be new and easy, and they don't like four squares. After the entrepreneur creates a company success, it is often sold to this company, and then create another company to be happy. Entrepreneurs often have no formal business education, so there is no ready-made frame. But the manager is different. The main responsibility of the manager is to manage an existing enterprise and do a good job in all aspects. In most cases, they don't want to get great risks. Managers often have been educated in regular business management (MBA) education, and some are also graduated from famous universities. Of course, there is a relationship between entrepreneurs and managers, but also to become a manager first, and it is also the manager to become an entrepreneur, or a person is both an entrepreneur and a manager. For example, the two entrepreneurs in HP are entrepreneurs. But after HP grows, they are very good managers, very good managers. But this is not a general rule. In most cases, a person's quality is not easy to be both suitable for manager. A good entrepreneur may be very bad manager.
For example, entrepreneurs in Enke (Cisco) are a couple, and their management skills are very poor. This is why the founders of entrepreneurship often have been stirred by the shareholders. In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship is a kind of atmosphere. Other places are more keen on trading stocks. But in Silicon Valley, people think about how they are entrepreneurship, and even issued raw stocks. Two initial basic elements of entrepreneurship are people and ideas. Now, there is an idea to go to the company, about 18 months, and this cycle is getting shorter and shorter. The entrepreneur carried forward the "Yan'an Spirit", "The Spirit of the Clay". Everyone squeezes in the small office of rent, drink some fun, eat some pizza, wearing casual or even. In recent years, especially in the computer related companies, entrepreneurs did not take salary. They take stocks, wait for the company to go public, or send it to other companies. Because the wages have nothing to do with them. If you want to pay, you have to raise this money, and the cost will be high. For example, Hotmail is a Indian company. His company from entrepreneurial to Microsoft for only one year, more than 100 million US dollars. Microsoft is willing to have a big price reason is that it has tens of millions of customers, and Hotmail said that our customers are our assets, and it can be worth the value of cable TV customers. After the company, the company, listed or sold to other enterprises, the entrepreneur did this. Usually entrepreneurs do not want to continue drying in the company, but also stove. The founder of Cisco is engineered in the University of Schi University. In the work, he produced an idea that adding a hardware between the computer to make the network convenient. He went to the school, but the school did not want to do it. He asked if he could introduce it to other universities, and the school is not willing. In the case, he and his wife ran to San Francisco and registered a company with $ 25, named Cisco, is the last five letters of San Francisco in San Francisco. The company's logo is the Golden Gate Bridge. They have no money, starting with the 10,000 US dollar overdraft on the credit card, and manufactures the first network coupler (ROUTER). Entrepreneurs should not be willing to find venture capitalists. Risk investment funds are costly to entrepreneurs, and even I will be fried. The matter happened in Cisco, and it will also be mentioned below. Innovation and entrepreneurship is two close contact but not the same concept. Innovation can be implemented in existing enterprises, or by establishing new companies. Start-UP refers to the establishment of a new company in an existing business. Interesting issues are: Why a lot of innovations do not happen in existing, technical strength and funds, but produce new small businesses that seem to have no technical strength, and have no funds. This is not a simple question. It may be related to two factors. One is incentive. The big company cannot provide sufficient remuneration to the innovator, because the risks are too large, and the reward is large enough. Lack of incentives leads to many new ideas to grow in large companies. The second is constraints. The internal innovation of large companies is often affected by soft budget constraints: in the interior of a big company, it is difficult to stop a project or close a department is very difficult. And the market has been eliminated a small company. We see that many innovations are implemented through entrepreneurship. Therefore, some big companies are now going to buy small entrepreneurial products or techniques in addition to their own research and development. Entrepreneurial capital / venture capital 280 highway at the Attachment of Stanford University, has a place called Sandhill Road 300, where there are several small buildings. It is said that half of the United States in the United States is here. This is obviously the holy place of entrepreneurial capital. The investment risk of entrepreneurial capital is very high.
But we usually only hear successful examples, because the company has disappeared because the company has disappeared, or forgotten, or the loser is not willing to talk about failure. In fact, an average of approximately 90% of venture capital is unsuccessful. But some successful investment, the return is hundreds of times the investment cost. It is because of high risk / high-yield, risk investment is mostly private rather than government. Venture capital companies have a business method. For example, KPCB is a famous venture capital company in Silicon Valley. It took this company to be a company that succeeded in the company. Some people say this is the world's first venture capital company. How many people are it? A total of 25 people, including 9 partners, four five assistants, plus a few secretaries, just this. Take the company in investing in Amazon. Amazon's founder came to venture capital companies on Saturday, saying that there is an idea, selling books online. The company left his website and came again after a week. Then several partners set a few books immediately. The book will be sent soon. Therefore, it is very simple, signing it later, this investment is made. This business, of course, makes big money. So how long is their project appraisal report? A total of two pages. In the company, a project is often a partner mainly responsible, but the last 9 partners should agree to be on. So they explored a set of themselves. An additional company may be another set. Successful is survived, and the loser is eliminated. People talk about venture capital, often only in terms of funds. Nice, venture capital provides capital. But another important feature of venture capital is to help organize and transform the company's leadership team. The so-called leadership team, the president (CEO) and several vice presidents of the competent financial, sales and technology. The world is more lacking more than capital is a good company leadership team. In the United States, it is said that there are now 150 large companies' CEOs to find the right person. A venture capital company is better than others, the key is that it knows who can match anyone, not only everyone is good, but also these people can cooperate together, this is difficult. Silicon Valley concentrates a variety of talents, and venture capitalists have a wide range of relationships, familiar with all kinds of people. Which venture capitalists are strong, when the company has been invested, the market value is high. When the venture capital company organized the leadership team, sometimes they had to drive the entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs will of course be very angry. Jobs created Apple and later drove away. Finally, I will return him back, it is after. Another famous example is Cisco. After the entrepreneur husband and wife, KPCB injected them into funds. what's the result? The venture capital company sent people to be the general manager because it is a major shareholder. As a result, when a day, the female partner called told her that now the board of directors made a decision, you were fired. After that, the male left. Like an artist, this lady is managing the case, and it is not engaged with other managers. The simplicity of men is a technician, which has no feelings for the company's strategy. The husband and wife sold 33% of stocks. At that time, their stocks probably only 10 yuan, now more than 100 yuan. Later they were divorced. The lady ran to New Hampsh, I didn't open a company specializing in the company, maybe she will feel that Cisco is one of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs have made companies, and the company's governance structure has a transition process. After entering the business, companies need different talents to manage. This transition requires organism. Risk investmenters often play a very important role in them. Therefore, the relationship between venture capital companies and the financing companies is very close.
From the perspective of organizing teams, participation in management, implementation of supervision, venture capital companies have a major difference in financial intermediaries such as investment banks on Wall Street, because the relationship between the latter and their investment companies is "Maintaining distance "ARM's Length", their operation is limited to transactions without participating in the company's strategic decision, and the former has a strategic decision-making role in the company. "Alternative" University's story, Silicon Valley can't do not Titanford University. Those who are familiar with history know that Stanford University has played a very important role in Silicon Valley. The output value of the company (Minstein's teachers and students and alumni founded by Stanford) is 50-6o% of the silicon valley output value. Stanford's research strength is very strong, but this is not all. Harvard and MAS in Boston add up, I think Bisstanford is stronger. At the East of San Francisco, the University of California Berkeley, and its engineering technology is not asyed in Stanford, but there is no area like Silicon Valley around it. In a sense, Stanford University is a "alternative" university. The first is the positive attitude of the school to the entrepreneurship of teachers and students. Sometimes a person's influence has special meaning. The Frederick Terman, the president of Stanford Engineering College, 30 Years, is such a person. It is that he hits the former student Hewlett and Packard that has been working in eastern part to Stanford, and investing in them from their pockets for more than 500 dollars to help them create HP. It is said that this is the first "Angel Capital" in the world. Angel Capital refers to an enterprise that a personal (ie, angel) is small money to the bud. After enterprises have a certain product, they will find venture capital to do risk investment. Later, HP's impact on Silicon Valley was obvious. Profess Profess Professor of Temmer opened the first river, pioneered the university support professor, and the atmosphere of students' entrepreneurship has always affected the present. Stanford teachers and students are an atmosphere. Some companies in Silicon Valley are some students who are studying in Stanford. The famous example is Yahoo. When Yang Zhiyuan (Jerry Yang) and a classmate wrote a search machine, put it on the school's network. Although it is very popular, the school management computer complains that the network has become too crowded. As a result, they did a company to have a company, name Yahoo, purely played. I didn't expect that I didn't pay great money. A famous company has born in a building in Stanfogong College: Shengyang (SUN), Silicon Valley Graphic (SGI) and Cisco. The English Sun of Shengyang is an abbreviation of Stanford University Network. The entrepreneur is the teacher and student of Stanford. When the workstation is invented, he will come out to do its company. It is a professor of Silicon Valley Graphic Company, which is not his first company. The front MOSAIC of the Netscape Browser is developed by the professor of the University of Illinois. The University of Illinois is a leading university in American engineering science and has supercomputers. After Stanford's Robert CLARK, the entire scientific research team digged the entire scientific research team to Silicon Valley, creating a net view company, and develops a net viewer, and has changed the experience of people online. Net view is extremely sensational. Similarly, UNIX operating systems is the operating system of the California University Berkeley, and now is now widely used in the workstation of Shengyang Company. It should be pointed out that Stanford University does not have "school-run factory" or "school-run enterprises". It has been leased to entrepreneurial companies in the industrial park in the year. Its technical patent office is only helping professors to apply for patents. The school's billions of dollars funded a capital management company to do diversified investment to disperse risk, only a small part of the venture capital company. But the university does not participate in the management of the investment enterprises. In this sense, the school does not "business".
The school's fund is mainly derived from alumni and successful entrepreneurs to school donations. The school remembers these donors in the way donors named buildings and lecture professors. "Silicon Valley" other than Silicon Valley, then which "Silicon Valley" is there in Silicon Valley? In the United States, there are North Virginia regions in the Boston area, Houston, Washington, etc. In the United States abroad, there are Chinese Taiwan's new bamboo, India's Bangalore and Tel Aviv in Israel. Among them, China Taiwan's new bamboo and Indian Bangalore is that they are closely related to Silicon Valley, in a sense, Silicon Valley extension. An example of Hsinchu is very meaningful. When I visited China Taiwan, I visited the new bamboo science park when I visited China. I was not too successful. After the 1990s, due to a large number of students returned, Hsinchu became a new world. For the Sixty-19th, many international students were retaliated after graduating from the United States, of which there were also many in Silicon Valley. At that time, it was considered "Talents Different". By the late 1980s and the early 1990s, these people had been quite good, do the position of senior management (president, deputy president, department manager) and senior engineer. In the early 1990s, the mid-term, many Chinese Taiwan students returned to Taiwan, and some were still running. As they founded, there is more close contact with the United States and Silicon Valley - not only in product and technology, but also in the market and ideas - the result information is very circulated. No one has complained that "Talent Different" is. In fact, it is now a talent international circulation. Because of this, the new bamboo in Taiwan has become the most close to Silicon Valley in the United States. This reminds me that Microsoft people say that when they review their entrepreneurial history, they are riding the bear in the back of IBM's bear, and they can only ride on IBM. China Taiwan's new bamboo is now riding on Silicon Valley. It is more inspirated with South Korea and South Korea. South Korea has high-tech development to another road number. It is the country that purchases the most American technical patents. After buying it back, we will develop, and South Korea emphasizes its own brand. South Korea also has many people to study in the United States, but they will return to China after graduation, and they are not in close contact with American companies. At least now, China Taiwan's high-tech development is higher than South Korea. In recent years, India's Bangalore has developed, because many Silicon Valley companies have been going to open the company. Indian labor is cheaper than China, and engineering training and education are good. In addition, India has two advantages: A advantage is that English is their native language. Our Chinese is too limited, especially male comrades, although engineering technology can, but language ability is generally poor. This affects the development of software. Interestingly, most of the company opened in Silicon Valley is engaged in hardware development, and most of the Indian company is engaged in software development, which is very explained. Language ability affects interpersonal exchanges, which makes Chinese engineers in the United States than suffering from Indian engineers, not too easy to increase. Most of the management personnel will be exchanged, write emails. The email written by our Chinese is not used by words, and sentences are all Chinese flour. The Indian English is good, but also with the British charm, and is even more appreciated by Americans. They raise faster in high-tech companies. The second advantage is that India has 12 hours of time difference in Silicon Valley. Why do you say this way? In Silicon Valley, if a customer has a software problem, 5 o'clock in the evening goes to the company, you can take it at 9 o'clock in the next day. Because 5 o'clock in the afternoon of Silicon Valley is OK 5 o'clock in India, one email has passed, there is 9 o'clock in the evening, just at 9 o'clock in Silicon Valley. Due to these advantages in India, the company is willing to invest in India. Brief Conclusion: Silicon Valley is not a planned we can see the success of Silicon Valley is personal enthusiasm and creativity. Silicon Valley is not a planned. Silicon Valley is also impossible to produce a rigid system. There is only a loose entrepreneurial system and a very scattered decision-making process to create a miracle such as Silicon Valley.
