06.03.08

Guy Kawaski + Vinton Cerf in Malaysia

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Events, Web Technologies at 7:34 pm by adrianoh

X-Cnet Intern & Guy

Notice the name card i’m holding, it got super huge fonts that you can see from 2 miles away.

Guy kawasaki (famous apple evangelist and silicon valley VC) and also Vinton Cerf (father of TCP-IP) were here - Thanks to Malaysia for being the host of WCIT 2008, we have a chance to meet some of the very top brass of Silicon Valley.

Off topic:- If you wondered where i got the CNET t-shirt, i enrolled in Cnet Malaysia back in 2002 as an intern before it was dissolved - i swear the closure got nothing to do with me. Now CNET is happily acquired by CBS for a whopping USD 1.8 Billion and damn! i don’t get a single cents out of it!

So i’m not going to delve in details here. I will just touch on some of the highlights that manage to leave an impact (very likely less than 72 hours) to my tiny little brain.

First on Guy Kawasaki.

One most inspiring thing mentioned is D.I.C.E.E. - the way of creating a truly world class products that sells like nobody business (think ipod & iphone), else risk being listed here. Btw,

If you miss the event, you can still grab some of the crucial point of the presentation by Guy here at:

Guy Kawasaki on creating Insanely Great Products , How to do an effective pitch & What to do with unexpected customers using your products unexpected ways.

See guy kawasaki photo journalism on his 45 hours trip to KL.

Vinton Cerf gave another inspiring speech in a special appearance arranged by MDEC 2 days after guy kawasaki. He touches on the very future of the Internet, IPV6, Silicon Valley Wannabe, Mobility etc.

One interesting he brought up is how many “silicon wannabe” that fails. reasons is you cannot just simply copy silicon valley without realizing the substances that make it successful. He describe Silicon Valley as an “fine-tuned turbo engine” where all the components fits into each other perfectly to keep pumping out great and optimum horse power.

So What does it take to be Silicon Valley?

Venture Capitalist (VC)
Unlike the traditional banks, VC dare to risk in new venture without holding on any collateral, it’s like they are banking on the idea, the business model and the team behind it. Out of every 10 investments, VC expects 6 to fail, 3 to do so-so and 1 hitting the jackpot.

Don’t shoot capitalism, embrace them.

Matured Capital Market
US got Nasdaq. Singapore got Sesdaq and we follow with Mesdaq. IPO is an important route for high growth technology company to gather capital and expand their business, it’s also the most crucial channel for VC to cash out on their startup investment (apart from being bought out by the industry stalwarts).

NASDAQ - Where you find Micro$oft, Intuit, Intel, Cisco and lot more!

Supply of Trained Employees
In technology business, it’s all about the People. Silicon Valley doesn’t accidentally “grow” around top university like Stanford. It’s the continuous brain capital supplied by the Top Universities around the area that made Silicon Valley. Likewise, we have our Multimedia University (MMU) too, the only different i can see is that MMU is planted there as part of the MSC Grand Plan. Isn’t it ironic this ERP company claiming they will lose half their staff strength moving to MSC Cyberjaya?

Do we have enough supply of geeks?
Steve, where are you?

Access to Experienced Manager
Very simple fact, young and bright engineers starting up companies need experienced leaders that can guide them and lead the company forward. Just like why Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired Eric Schmidt and even made him a billionaire.

3 makes a company

Tolerate Failure
Vinton mentioned Steve Jobs highlight this point to ex-UK prime minister, Tony Blair when he asked the Top CEOs of Silicon Valley on what makes Silicon Valley a success. Steve Job said:”I dunno what makes us successful, but i think every CEOs here in the room have fail at least once before.” Seems like in Silicon Valley, Failure is the rule rather than the exception, remember, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. See how apple co-founder steve wozniak learned from failure.

NOT all apple product a runway success

This is very interesting, who would have thought this is one of the “substance” of success? And can failure be bought with $? (even if you can, nobody sane would buy failure) If not, how do you replicate it?

I would say it’s part of the cultural trait that’s hard to mimic. In US generally, failing is not seen as a bad mark of incompetency, people are willing to give you the 2nd chance (or more). In Malaysia and many parts of the world, Failure is being seen as a bad mark of incompetence. If you fail once, not just VC will ditch you, probably your girlfriend will dump you and you stand a risk of your parents disowning you too.

Market Size
Is the domestic market big enough? If not, then think Global, how an you reach and serve the market outside of the country? You gonna THINK BIG! ACT Locally by moving forward one step at a time.

Notice one point missing ? Yes, he did not mention anything about HARDWARE aka building or so called “infrastructure”. Silicon Valley is what it is today all because of the “software”, it has got little to do with hardware.

The blind spot in our MSC Grand Plan (and alot other silicon valley wannabe) has been the sole focus on hardware instead of software. Why? it’s because you can buy your way through hardware and you get instant gratification! Hooray! As long as you got the cold hard cash, hey, u can even hire alien to build highest building in the world to fill your ego. Make no mistake that there’s no shortcut for software (ppl development), it takes a long long time to develop people and talent. Money just cannot buy you this shortcut no matter how deep your pocket is.

As an entrepreneur myself, can you tell me why Malaysia need Yet another MSC Cyber city? In what way does it really benefit the technopreneur? Does a nice office transform a mediocre programmer into a super hacker that can cramp up codes like nobody business? Does paying higher rent psf that enrich the property owner instead of yourself make your product more likely to succeed in the market? It just doesn’t make sense to me. All i see is that it only benefits the contractors.

Instead, why don’t the government just focusing on bringing up the level of the skilled knowledge workers and give the country a cheap, reliable and abundant broadband and let the entrepreneurs take care of themselves.?

Last but not least, Vincent also highlight that FDI (Foreignt Direct Investment) will create jobs, but not creating wealth. To create wealth, you need to own the company. So if you are reading this, why wait? start your own company today and if you are thinking of e-commerce, Don’t forget to drop us an email to find out how we can help you on that. Nite.

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