You decide (1/21)

What's happenin,

We woke up on our final day of exploring the Valley to a dreary morning. However, nothing could get us down as we were ecstatic to be visiting facebook, Microsoft and Intel today.

We stopped at a Peets coffee shop, the company from which Starbucks came out of, to finish up our book reports for class. After a couple of delicious cups of coffee and about an hour of stimulating conversation.

Soon we were pulling into the parking lot of facebook headquarters. We met with mobile development manager Dave Fetterman who is an extremely out-going and high-energy Harvard grad. He described many different areas of the company, from specific information about coding to more broad business operations of the company. Facebook certainly does operate in a perplexing manner. Dave described it in this way: "our engineers development something and bring it to the marketing and sales teams and ask if they can sell it." While most business plans tend to reverse this pattern of operation, facebook seems to be thriving with its own model. We got to take a short tour of the building after our meeting and then we were on our way.

We took a pit stop at Chipotle for lunch and then continued on to Microsoft. The class was a little memorized by the sheer scale and feel of Microsoft as they hosted us in one of their main conference rooms. Our particular room gave you the feeling that you were in Star Trek. However, we were brought out of our temporary trance and back to reality when corporate VP Dan'l Lewin walked into the room! Dan'l is an extremely crisp and sharp individual who was one of the original developers of the first Macintosh computer! He made sure to underline the unique opportunity that our class was given to be a part of this trip. Dan'l emphasized the fact that everyone has the ability to decide their own career path. He said that we need to find out what it takes to get where we want to go and take those steps to get there. He, like others we've met, obviously dismissed paralysis in big decisions. Dan'l then handed us off to a few other employees that briefly showed us some of the new technologies that the company is developing. From hand held projection devices to transparent drag-drop touch screens, Microsoft did a good job convincing me that it could probably take of the world if it wanted to. We also got a demo on an extremely large touch screen with unbelievable capabilities. After being thoroughly amazed, our group had to quickly pack up and drive down the road to Intel headquarters.

Upon entering Intel's stunning building I remember thinking 'my brain has been over stimulated, I don't know if I can take much more of this.' The combination of the two very intriguing visits earlier today combined with everything we'll seen while in the Valley had left me speechless. We were greeted by a manager of front-stage chip design named Neal. It was palpable that Neal was pulsating with mathematical genius as he gave us a 15 minute crash course in chip design. He Flew quickly through different function combinations derived from physics and logic. His explanations left our group speechless with some of our jaws held slightly ajar. Neal then described his background from Stanford to Sun Microsystems to a start up to Intel, he seemed like a chip design rock star. Yet, I feel that it was his attitude that led him to where he is now. Just like all of the other highly successful people that we met in Silicon Valley, I could tell that Neal would not let anything come between him and where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do.

Later that night at dinner the group reflected on the things we've seen and experiences we've had over the last couple of weeks. Now I am convinced that entrepreneurship is mostly about leveraging a fearless attitude with intelligent and creative ideas. All three of these qualities can be cultivated by a person, it is simply whether they are courageous enough to try. Decide for yourself.

That is all.

Adam

No Fear (1/20)

Hola!

So WE went to Google today! We woke up to the pouring rain this morning, but we wouldn't let the weather get us down today! We headed out for Google around 8:15am from the Menlo Park Inn.

Google headquarters was fascinating!! The architecture and interior design of the buildings was purely representative of the type of imagination and innovation that is cultivated within the company. We saw tons of micro cafes around the office, along with many playful decorations from dry erase drawings to full wooden doors attached to second story window frames. We met with 4 different people from Google other than Craig. We met with Davidson Young from university relations, Michael Braderman from Google Enterprise, Euefu Wang from Google Books, Jessica Pfund from Google Maps and Rick Klau from Blogger. All of the presentations were very informative and interesting. It was super cool to see the background of Google Maps and the direction that it was going. Since everyone in the class is on blogger, it was great to connect a face to the software product that we are all relying on.

After all of our morning meetings, we got a chance to eat in one of Google’s cafeterias called "Charlie's Cafe." The food was absolutely wonderful. There was a mix of a few different types of ethic foods along with a salad bar, a grill line and a desert bar. There are several more cafeterias on the Google campus, all of which are provided free to employees.

While we were at lunch I got some free but extremely valuable advice from Craig. As a former Luther Professor with his PhD in Chemistry, Craig decided while at Luther that he was going to return to school to get his PhD in Computer Science. I love hearing stories like this. I feel like it takes so much for someone to decide to change courses after being involved with something for so long. There is an enormous social stigma in the Midwest that discourages people from taking risks and changing paths. It is a scary thing for people to realize that they are not entirely happy with what they are doing. It is perhaps even scarier for these people to take the leap and start doing something different.

This is a fear that all college students battle with when they are attempting to choose their area of study. The standard question we all hear our conscience asking is “what in the heck am I going to do with the rest of my life?” This question, which plunges every one of us into a pit of despair, seems to be the favorite of many college alums and college parents. However, as Craig pointed out, this is the wrong question to be asking. The weight of a life-deciding question is paralyzing. We college students, and arguably everyone out there, need to be asking ourselves ‘what am I going to do for the next few years?' This is the winning question. By focusing on the present we shrink the consequences, ignore the paralysis onset by over analyzation and decide to act. Increasingly we find that our world is always changing and adapting. The variables that we consider in our decisions are constantly changing. We have to be able to change our colors to fit our current surroundings. Craig is a great example of a person that follows this type of philosophy and it has seemed to serve him well. This very lifestyle is the kind that I have discovered here in the valley.

After we finished up at Google with Craig we had a quick stop at the computer history museum to see a demonstration of the Babagge computer. The computer is basically a super old computer designed in the early to mid 1800's to calculate logarithmic equations. Then we left the museum and met up with Luther alum/ ex-accounting professor/ CPA/ venture capitalist, Al Brudos. An extremely successful man, Al was a great host and humble mentor. He described his past and the things that made him successful throughout the years. When questioning him about the absence of risk-aversion in the valley, he too gave us some great advice. Like many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Al promised us that failure was not something to be afraid of. He insisted that there was nothing to be afraid of and that when you fail, you simply try something else. And so Al, like many of his Silicon Valley neighbors, reassured us that the paralyzing power of failure is simply an illusion. Things are never as bad as they seem.

We finished our night off with a tasty treat from Cold Stone near our hotel. Walking back to our hotel on the dimly lit streets of Menlo Park the lessons of selective ignorance when it comes to fear-setting paralysis in decision making began to sink in. I have seen a lot in Silicon Valley, but I think the experiences I have gained from exploring the attitudes of entrepreneurs will prove to be truly invaluable.

peace out!

Adam

Xbox in a bookstore (1/19)

Hi, Hi!

So today was another adventure for our group here in Silicon Valley. Last week was kind of our software start-up companies week, whereas this week we are going to more mature software companies. This morning we got up and discussed some of the readings that we have done for this course at the Stanford shopping mall. We then piled into the van and sped off to Benetech.

Benetech is a non-profit technology company that attempts to do as much social good as possible. The company develops software for a number of different causes. Their 3 main areas of concentration are improving literacy, human rights and environmental conservation all over the world. Benetech is able to greatly contribute to these areas by developing software platforms for field workers in these 3 areas. Benetech is mostly concentrated on bringing the benefits of technology to all of humanity in any plausible way that they can. A highlighted product that we got to see during our meeting with founder and CEO, Jim Fruchteran, was Bookshare. The company cuts donated books and scans them into their electronic database for individuals with disabilities to use. Two main disadvantaged groups that Benetech's Bookshare product serves are the blind and dyslexic. Overall, it was great to see a company that was attempting to leverage the benefits of technology for all types of people, not simply the ones that could pay for it.

I grabbed some lunch at a Mediterranean wrap place with a couple of my classmates after our meeting with Benetech. Then we all jumped back in the van and drove up to Sierra Ventures on Sand Hill Rd. We were greeted by VC Robert Walker who specialized in the Solid State Lighting industry. Robert gave us an informative presentation about Sierra Ventures and all of their investment statistics around fund volume and investment processes. He also told us a little about his impressive past, which included degrees from UW Madison and Caltech involving high energy physics. He also worked in the Caltech super collider program that smashed electrons and protons together. The amount of intelligent people that I have met on this trip simply astounds me. With that being said, most of these people are extremely welcoming and are intensely interested in their fields. Robert's fascination with the Solid State Lighting industry was apparent. During this part of the presentation his eyes lit up and he began talking faster and faster. He went on to explain to us how he truly believed that LED lighting was going to change the whole lighting industry and the world at large. I could see that this man had no trouble getting up in the morning to go to work. If I have seen one thing more than anything out here, it is the excitement the people bring to their work. Work is not work to many of the Silicon Valley dwellers, work is their current obsession.

After our energizing meeting with Robert, we carted down the road to Stanford. Here we got to see a little bit of its impressive campus. We walked through the beautiful main quad and onto the gorgeous bookstore. You can almost buy anything in the Stanford bookstore; from your standard university books and apparel to Xbox games and laptop computers! Decorah is just a LITTLE bit different than Palo Alto.

Then we ran from the bookstore to Dar Bar, an Indian restaurant to meet up with our professor and a Luther alum/google employee Craig Cornelius. It was nice to talk about Luther things with a Silicon Valley pro. It is really crazy how large the Luther network is. Tomorrow is our big day at google, I can't wait!!!

Goodnight!

Adam

As old as Christ! (1/18)

Hello Again,

Today was a great adventure! Shortly after waking up we all piled into our van and set out punishing the pavement amidst a heavy rainfall. About 5 minutes after starting out we were sitting at a stop light when suddenly the whole top of a tree fell of the back of a car in front of us! The rear window of the Cadillac (SUCH a shame it was an expensive Cadillac owner that had to go through all of this) was smashed in. Thankfully, everyone was perfectly fine after the incident. However, I couldn't help feeling that this occurrence was a bad omen, luckily it wasn't.

We continued driving to a redwood state park, a destination that our professor had decided to through into the trip last night. The scenery gradually got prettier and prettier as we drove further from our hotel. Soon we were slowly trundling through a massive forest full of towering trees. This park turned out to holding some of the tallest redwood tree in the world! I have never felt so small, young, naive and insignificant in my life. We walked up to the initial fork in the park path to see a section of a fallen tree that was time lined by its tree rings. This particular tree was as old at the birth of Christ - unbelievable!!!! We spent about 45 minutes milling around the gigantic trees admiring their size and the surrounding forest, banana slugs and all. It is easy to see how people in California are so passionate our these ancient nature works of art.

After getting our fix of fresh air, we piled into the van again and pushed on to the Monte Ray Bay Aquarium. Upon arrival, we grabbed a bit to eat at a Thai restaurant went on exploring the underwater world. We saw various exhibits from penguins and sea otters to sharks and sea horses being amazed all the while. It was so cool to see the different types of underwater life as my only exposure to such things over the past five years has been Pixar's Finding Nemo. Speaking of Finding Nemo I was able to snap a couple of characters in their nature habitat. It was easy to see how the volunteers at the aquarium loved their jobs of feeding the unique animals and interacting with curious visitors.

I would very much enjoy doing something similar later in life when I have more time. We closed down the Aquarium at 5pm along with all of it's employees.

2 hours and a nap later we were rolling into the parking lot of the Menlo Park Inn. Throughoutly exhausted but still hungry, the group grabbed a bite to eat just down the road at a delicious pizza piece called Applewood Pizza. Fully satisfied with food in our stomachs and the visions of the day's adventure, we all turned in.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Adam

Headin' South (1/17)

Hello Der,

Sooo today was a pretty low-key day... well after the Vikings won! We woke up this morning to watch the Vikings kick some major tail. I would like to say that the Cowboys gave it their best, but for their sake I will refrain from doing so. Let's hope the Vikings can do the same next weekend! After some boisterous cheering accompanied by pizza our group left San Francisco and drove about 45 minutes to Menlo Park were we are going to be staying for the next couple of days.

After we arrived at our comfortable hotel, we grabbed our gear and set out to do our laundry just down the road. A couple of hours and dollars later we dropped our freshly washed clothes off and headed to dinner at a Turkish restaurant. I must say I really enjoy the enormous variety of food that we have been able to try while here in California. Many of us ordered tasty kebabs and were fully satisfied at the end of the meal.

Tomorrow we have another adventurous day at the Monte Ray bay aquarium, which should prove to be a great adventure.

Adam

The Rock (1/16)

Hey Y-all,

So today was a fabulous day off. After our late night and the comedy club we were all woken up by a text from our professor summoning us to the bike shop just down the road. We swiped our cards, grabbed the bikes and rolling down the pavement toward a giant red object.

That object eventually turned out to be the Golden Gate bridge, not Clifford. We rode across the bridge and then stopped in a small parking lot to decide what our next course of action would be.

Little did I know when we started out riding that I would decide to follow our in-form cyclist professor up a huge hill and number of miles to Bonita point. Yet, the scenery on the way to and at Bonita point was absolutely gorgeous.

After meeting up with some of our classmates back at the hotel, we headed to grab some lunch at the In and Out burger joint just down the street. From there we met up with the rest of our class and walked toward the Alcatraz cruise ferries. We had decided to go on a night tour of Alcatraz or "The Rock."

I was instantly intrigued when I found out that we were going to Alcatraz as the house that I am currently living in is named the rock. Eager to gather photos and stories about the notorious prison for my housemates, I set out with a feeling of anticipation.

We slowly circled the island and heard a couple of stories about the collection of buildings on the island. We walked slowly throughout the fortress for a couple of hours listening to an audio guided tour that was narrated by former guards and inmates. A number of very high profile prisoners were kept at the prison, including Al Capone. Many of these prisoners were sent to The Rock because they had exhibited bad behavior in other penitentiaries. There were three main escape attempts in Alcatraz history, the one occurring in 1962 being the most interesting. This particular escape seems to have a lot of parallels to the escape story in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. We concluded our stay on Alcatraz with a haunting cell door demonstration and boarded the return boats with the slam still ringing in our ears.

We winded our evening down by getting some chow at a noisy bar on Pier 39 called Wipe Out. We willing fell into our beds after stumbling back to our hotel from dinner. A day off well spent - exercise, history, sun, food and friends. What more could you ask for?

Later

Adam

The Purple Onion (1/15)

Hey There,

We got a later start today as our first meeting was scheduled for 1:30pm at a PR firm called Porter Novelli. From there we moved down the road to meet with Creative Commons, a non-profit license/ copyright firm, at 3pm.

We were greeted by a woman named Karen Hartland at Porter Novelli. Karen was part of PN’s special media and was in charge of training employees and customers how to leverage different types of social media in order to improve their public relations activities. Public relations has to do with managing the way the public perceives a specific entity (e.x. a corporation, organization, individual, government, etc.). Thus, with various social platforms on the rise like Facebook and Twitter, PR firms are using these social platforms to shape the perceptions of the public. The world of PR is puzzling to me. It appears to me that people in PR get paid to do what everyone else does everyday, but for entities other than themselves. Yet, PR firms only attempt to make the reputations of particular entities as positive as they can. Thus, public relations agents are really just illusionists, constantly trying to paint the perfect picture and manage "the damage" of their clients. The office certainly seemed like a cool environment with tones of magazines, a flat screen TV, a PS3 and God of War 3.

We finished our milk and cookies at Porter Novelli and heading on down to Creative Commons. This is a new and cool organization. Originally born from academia, the idea behind Creative Commons was to provide greater information sharing over the Internet by allowing users to easily license their content (pictures, essays, etc.) in order to proclaim how they wanted their material to be used and shared. The Creative Commons website (creativecommons.org) allows you to license you content in multiple ways. During our meeting we had three young employees describe their business plan and software coding specifics.

We departed Creative Commons and milled around Union Square for about an hour until your stomach began to grow. This feeling was abated when we inhaled some scrumptious clam chowder at Boudin on the Fisherman's Wharf. From there we returned to our hotel to regroup with some of our classmates and head to a comedy club called the Purple Onion.

The Purple Onion was part of many comedy clubs hosting a San Francisco wide comedy tour in dubbed the "Sketchfest tour." 8 different comedians have 10 minute gigs in succession. We found this club simply by googling "comedy clubs in San Francisco" and choosing the cheapest one within reasonable proximity. We were standing in line for 30 minutes painfully watching as the people who reserved tickets walked past wondering if we going to get in. Suddenly there was a bit of commotion behind me further up the stairs we were standing on. As I turned around to investigate I was awestruck to find a short, gray and unshaven man politely moving down the stairs - Robin Williams!! I couldn't believe it! Here we were standing in line to the cheapest comedy club we could find and Robin Williams just went inside!

After the show started we were granted entrance into the show to fill in the gaps. I haven't laughed that hard in an extremely long time. While some comedians were a bit of a let down, my cheeks actually hurt from laughing so hard as a result of the others. It was a bit surreal to hear Robin William's cackle amid all the laughter in the club. Before the beginning of the next show at the Purple Onion the members of our class managed to get a picture with Robin. What a night! Laughing the hardest I ever have and meeting a celebrity.

Truly exceptional!

-Adam