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
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