Starting Up Silicon Valley Style(youtube.com)

128 pointsby StudyAnimalhá 15 anos19 comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0fYKnKbM6s

10 comments

I've never heard of the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association before, but they've recorded some very interesting interviews. I recommend looking through their uploaded videos. There are a lot of gems in there.

I've heard some crazy stories about financial difficulties before, but Atari takes the cake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY8GpCCBWWc . Sheriffs standing in the lobby to garnish income. Everyone rushing to the bank to make sure their paychecks didn't bounce. It's totally crazy and I'm amazed they had the determination and luck to survive that time.

BrainScrapshá 15 anos

This video picks up where Steve Blank's secret history of Silicon Valley left off: http://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-val...

I enjoyed Blank's very thorough description of the military / government agency technology that originated in the Valley and this clip helps to tie it very nicely to recent times.

nikcubhá 15 anos

I just watched his entire presentation, which was better than his blog posts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ&feature=relat...

absolutely brilliant and a must see. Steve's blog is great, but he also has a good presentation style thick with interesting content.

StudyAnimalhá 15 anos

I believe it is the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association.

AngryParsleyhá 15 anos

Whoops. Thanks for correcting me.

martinkallstromhá 15 anos

I was amazed at some of the deals these founders took. Starting up owning 5% of the company on day one. Or taking in $7M on a $9M valuation. Are these kinds of deals still happening?

pghá 15 anos

No. That's what's so interesting about it for me. The shift in power from investors to founders isn't just something that's been happening during the last 10 years. It's been happening throughout the history of VC.

[deleted]há 15 anos

danielhahá 15 anos

Just spent a little while watching through 5 of those videos. Incredible stuff... good clips to play in the morning just in case you need that right kick in the pants.

marcamillionhá 15 anos

Oracle was started with $2000!

That's insane.

ThomPetehá 15 anos

Atari was $250, crazy stuff.

staunchhá 15 anos

I think Oracle had a CIA contract from nearly day one. So CIA was pretty much an investor. If In-Q-Tel had existed then they probably would have funded Oracle from that.

RealGeekhá 15 anos

Today, we need few million dollars for a Facebook poke game.

fourspacehá 15 anos

Funny to see that some of the buildings shown as various companies in 1998 are all owned by Google today.

pghá 15 anos

This is fascinating.

rooshdihá 15 anos

Incredible how these world renowned companies we know today started out with so little and were denied by most of the venture capital firms at the time. Definitely inspirational and an example to look up to when bootstrapping. I'm keeping this bookmarked.

bitwizehá 15 anos

"First you need a buzzword,

Then a second and a third,

Pick at least two industries you'll revolutionize.

Find yourself an engineer,

Feed him pizza, buy him beer,

Give him just a fraction of a fraction of the pie.

Need a good domain name,

Must be cheap, can't be lame,

Something cool like Flickr, Meebo, WikiYou, Mahalo, Bebo,

'Telephone' without the 't',

'Digg' but with a triple 'g',

Make your elevator pitch,

Code it up and flip the switch!"

--The Richter Scales, "Here Comes Another Bubble"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I

mayukhhá 15 anos

This is great! About 8 minutes in listen to Bob Graham talk about the negotiation with a firm that wanted all of the company for 7mm. His response was classic.

rogerjinhá 15 anos

Talk about perspective...

pitdesihá 15 anos

There's a new documentary coming out about the creation of the VC industry called Something Ventured

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssR0sdKqNs4&feature=playe...

Looks pretty good