IE Silicon Valley tour: 1) Intro to Silicon Valley

The week of May 12-17 I've been involved with the organization of the second Silicon Valley tour for the students of the Instituto de Empresa business school.
This year students included both the regular and the executive classes of the Master in Management Telecom and Digital Business.

The program of the 5 day-visit is particularly interesting and filled with on-site visits to innovating companies in the Valley (see Syllabus).

I had the pleasure to start off the week presenting my point of view on the
"THE SECRET JUICE OF THE Silicon Valley". [PDF]

Addressed points in the presentation:
- History of the SV
- The Pillars of the SV
- Soft success factors
- VC investments overlook
- Suggestions for the week

Overall, we did have an interesting discussion, apparently totally unaffected by the jet lag (they arrived the day before from Madrid). But, as we all know, people in Madrid eat pure energy for breakfast...(Seriously, I never figured out how Madrilenos manage to party til morning and be in the office at 8.30 day in, day out... but that's worth a different post...)