Start-Up: the book

The New Silicon Valley(s)

hlebret — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:43:06 +0000

Nice series on French-speaking Swiss Radio broadcast les Temps Modernes, this week about five stimulating experiments of high-tech clusters. Probably to fight the depressing mood around WEF and the economic crisis. (And not only because I was given the opportunity this morning to comment the last case! I was only invited on Wednesday… ) Monday [...]

New IPO filings (AVG Technologies) and new start-ups stats

hlebret — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:50:02 +0000

I noticed at least 4 IPO filings this month, not bad. These are Audience, Infoblox, Millennial Media and most important to me as a European citizen, AVG Technologies. European filings in the USA are sufficiently rare to be noticed, and this time the company has Czech origins. After discussing AVG, I will show you an [...]

Innovation is not about small or large, it’s about fast.

hlebret — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:54:25 +0000

The debate is recurrent and in my last post, I was questioned about my fascination for start-ups and Silicon Valley. In a way this is related, I will come back on this at the end. Two recent articles nearly surprised me. The first one has a famous author, Clayton Christensen. The Empires Strike Back - [...]

Patents inhibit innovation, let’s delete them!

hlebret — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:44:39 +0000

My first post for 2012 is a translation of an interview I gave to French magazine La Recherche. It was published last December and you can have an electronic version of the French version here or a pdf document by clicking on the cover page below. It is followed by my own translation. Now I [...]

Drop by Drop - Keith Raffel

hlebret — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:42:16 +0000

Here is my promised second post of the day, and this one does not have stats, numbers. It’s about a thriller. A Silicon Valley Washington DC thriller. I discovered Keith Raffel while looking for books about Silicon Valley and he is probably the only author who has created his mysteries (at least two) around the [...]

When Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia co-invest(ed).

hlebret — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:20:12 +0000

I end 2012 with two posts related to my beloved Silicon Valley. This one is about the two great Venture Capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. The next one will be about Palo Alto-based author of thrillers, Keith Raffel. I have already said a lot about these two firms. You can for [...]

Darwinian and Lamarckian innovation - by Pascal Picq

hlebret — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:17:37 +0000

I enjoyed reading Un paléoanthropologue dans l’entreprise, i.e. a paleoanthropologist in the corporate world, the last book of Pascal Picq, a paleoanthropologist who explores the world of innovation. He applies his knowledge of evolution to compare two types of innovation: by simplifying, Continental Europe, rather Lamarckian and the Anglo-Saxon world and especially the United States, [...]

Darwinian and Lamarckian innovation

hlebret — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:18:48 +0000

If you read French, you may be interested in my post Innovation darwinienne et lamarckienne which summarizes what I understood from Pascal Picq’s Un paléoanthropologue dans l’entreprise. If you do not read French, you will have to wait until I translate my French contribution. Hopefully in a few days.

A history of venture capital

hlebret — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:18:13 +0000

I am surprised not to have published this before. It was one of my first work before I even wrote my book. It became its chapter 4. Venture capital is about 50 years old and it has changed a lot in parallel to innovation and high-tech. I hope you will enjoy these very visual slides! [...]

Smasher, another Silicon Valley mystery

hlebret — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:18:21 +0000

Smasher is the second Silicon Valley thriller from Keith Raffel that I read. After reading dot.dead, I found this one more complex, and certainly as interesting. A mixture of a traditional thriller where the hero’s wife is smashed by a car, together with a good start-up story where the leader in the field is trying [...]