Start-Up: the book

Freeman Dyson: The Scientist as Rebel

hlebret — Wed, 30 May 2012 08:11:43 +0000

Freeman Dyson is a strange scientific blend of wise and moderate conservatism and pioneer of iconoclasm. He advocates cold analysis but loves what is strange. I just read The Scientist as Rebel, a wonderful book where everyone can find his or her share of intellectual stimulation. Any relationship with innovation or entrepreneurial high-tech? Very little [...]

A great study on European academic spin-offs

hlebret — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:58:23 +0000

While in Antwerpen (Belgium) where I gave a workshop related to my vision of Silicon Valley described in the book Start-up, I had the nice opportunity (thanks Walter ) to meet with Sven De Cleyn whose PhD thesis was published as a very interesting book: The early development of academic spin-offs : holistic study on [...]

Andy Bechtolsheim talks at Stanford about the Process of Innovation

hlebret — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:02:16 +0000

This morning, I got up at 4am for an unusual event, a talk by Andy Bechtolsheim back at Stanford University. And it was great! I took a couple of screenshots and notes. For those who would not know Andy, here is more below. And I should also add that Bechtoslheim is from Germany, I had [...]

The New Facebook Legacy

hlebret — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:17:09 +0000

Facebook will not only produce new millionaires with its IPO next Thursday; it has already created a new generation of entrepreneurs and start-ups. The New York Times just published an article A Circle of Tech: Collect Payout, Do a Start-Up and a related video Facebook’s Network of Tech Tycoons which illustrates the fact. A few [...]

Semiconductor start-ups. Is it the end?

hlebret — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:44:05 +0000

I was lucky to be invited as a panelist at the Global Semiconductor Conference in Geneva on May 8-9. The round-table topic was “how to create more successful start-ups”. But before mentioning that discussion, I’d like to mention the previous panel, which gathered Stan Boland, former CEO and co-founder of Icera Inc, Dennis Segers, CEO [...]

Edouard Bugnion at EPFL: back to Switzerland!

hlebret — Mon, 07 May 2012 09:13:36 +0000

If you do not know Edouard Bugnion, you can read the article I had published in 2010, a Swiss in Silicon Valley. Edouard was at EPFL last week and gave a great technical talk about VMWare and virtualization, in fact a summary of his PhD thesis. The full text comes below. Edouard Bugnion with the [...]

Biotech IPOs, not so different

hlebret — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:57:10 +0000

I just read Biotech IPOs Start to Show Some Modest Signs of Life from Xconomy. It’s an interesting article because it focuses on Biotech, a field that many people consider as very different from other high-tech start-ups such as Internet, Software or IT in general. The general idea is that it takes much longer to [...]

Start-Up of the Month: Kandou and the Investors

hlebret — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:14:30 +0000

Here is my new “Start-Up of the Month” chronicle, published by EPFL. 22.04.12 – Which investors trusted their money with Kandou? This startup, active in the high-tech domain, knows how to find financing. In November 2010, EPFL celebrated its thousandth invention. I’ve extracted a passage from an article published on this occasion: “Kandou, invented by [...]

Facebook strikes again: Instagram

hlebret — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:14:56 +0000

Two articles caught my attention relatively to the Facebook acquisition of Instagram: - By The Numbers: Facebook’s $1 Billion Acquisition Of Instagram may mean that we are in a new speculative bubble. There were 37 $1B acquistions since 1992 of venture backed companies and already 3 in 2012… Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom, chief executive (right), [...]

Prophet of Innovation – Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction

hlebret — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 15:34:14 +0000

This is a (very long) summary of “Prophet of Innovation – Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction” by Thomas McCraw, Harvard University Press, 2007. In fact, these are extracts from the book and I mentioned the pages as much as I could. If you are courageous enough to read until the end, you might be interested [...]