Unicorn Hunters ~ Investors in Ventureland...

In her Bloomberg piece Goldman in Ventureland, Katrina Brooker writes of newly emergent players in later stage financings in so-called unicorns and more...

"Wall Street used to wait for startups to go public before investing in them. These days, however, entrepreneurs don’t need the public markets like they used to; private capital is plentiful. Uber has raised some $6 billion in equity and debt, and it hasn’t announced any plans to go public. “By the time you IPO as a company with a $60 billion market cap, you are really in the stratosphere,” [...] “The opportunity to invest has passed; the explosive growth is often behind them.” This market moves fast: When Airbnb raised money in April 2014, the company was valued at $10 billion; a year later, that valuation had more than doubled to $25 billion, when it raised another $1.5 billion. Included in the latest round were East Coast investors, most of whom would never have invested at such an early stage in the last tech boom..."

Giants Speak ~ MIT Founders of Silicon Valley...

A bit of Silicon Valley history as told by the creators (all MIT alums)!

Six Californias ~ Draper on Rebooting Politics

VC Tim Draper proposes Six Californias in VB interview, saying it's...

"The right way to hold politicians more accountable and to make the state more governable. The deadline to gather 807,615 signatures and put it on the November ballot if July 18. He said that the state is a lot like a monopoly, with high costs, low satisfaction, and little choice for those who deal with it. He came up with the proposal after trying to fix California’s educational system for years. “I marveled at the number of choices we have in the private sector because of entrepreneurs,” he said. “Then I realized we only have one choice of government if we want to live in this kind of weather.”

R.I.P. Pat McGovern ~ MIT Venture Philanthropist

Very sad to hear MIT alum Pat McGovern passed away yesterday March 19th.  Founder of IDG, Pat later reconnected with his early passion for all things neuro and became philanthropic financier of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.  On a personal note, he not only hosted me and a couple dozen peer new-admits to MIT at his Silicon Valley mansion -- an eye-opening and inspiring occasion -- but also inspired the various venture Salons I've been part of organizing since the mid-1990s, including thematic ones with Bob Metcalfe (e.g. NanoSalon, SocioSalon, NeuroSalon) and the later MIT Chairman's Salons.

Boston Cluster ~ On BBC's Next Silicon Valleys...

The BBC's Richard Taylor reports in the Next Silicon Valleys series that Boston breaks through: Speed reading and life-size robots making a lot of noise over the supposed east vs west coast rivalry...

"What grates here is that Mark Zuckerberg famously started Facebook from his Harvard dorm room, but before long took the social network to the other side of the country [...] all too often Boston start-ups end up being snapped up by their bigger, West Coast brethren; witness Google's recent purchase of another local robotic success story, Boston Dynamics. The challenge for Boston, it seems, is not just to develop the talent, but to hold on to it too."

Sorry, what most grates is that Taylor entirely missed the real story which is that Boston has intentionally been exporting innovation -- i.e. successfully distributing the enabling pieces, processes, and philosophy of progress and prosperity -- for over a century.  MIT people, for instance, went out to co-found Stanford University and then later Stanford's Research Park, Hewlett-Packard, Watkins-Johnson, Shockley Semiconductor, Fairchild Semi, Intel, Kleiner-Perkins, and dozens more essential elements which actually made Silicon Valley possible in the first place.  The problems of our planet are too many for us to be geographically parochial and not spread the innovation ethos everywhere.

How Big is Amsterdam? ~ Interactographic Map

Nice interactive map comparing metropolitan Amsterdam to other geographies. Here's vs Boston... And here vs Silicon Valley centered on Stanford... Vs Cape Town... Vs Doha... Vs Aqaba+Eilat... Vs Mumbai... Thanks to MapPorn for spotting.

Cluster Crafting ~ TR on Tech Hot Spot Secrets...

TR's Antonio Regalado writes In Innovation Quest, Regions Seek Critical Mass asking "What’s the secret to becoming the next technology hot spot?"

"Kendall has become what economists call a cluster, a concentration of interconnected companies that both compete and collaborate. [...] net job growth comes from startup companies, especially the kind that explode from a few employees to several thousand. In technology, those winners have a way of producing more winners. The process reaches critical mass in the web of intertwined companies, resources, advantages, ideas, talent, opportunity, and serendipity that defines a technology cluster. It’s clear that what’s essential is proximity to human talent and new ideas. [...] The big questions in this month’s MIT Technology Review Business Report are why technology clusters arise and what the ingredients are to create one."

Secret History of Silicon Valley ~ Blank++

Plus check out logos in SV tour video...

Silicon Valley ~ Epic PBS American Experience!

PBS American Experience spotlights Silicon Valley! Note, btw, how Silly Valley was really born as MIT-west with Francis Amasa Walker MIT President co-designing Palo Alto's Stanford University, Fred Terman MIT SB'24 creating Stanford Industrial Park, Bill Hewlett MIT SM'36 co-founding HP with first product based on his MIT Masters audio oscillator, William Shockley MIT PhD'36 co-inventor of transistors and co-founder of Shockley Semi, Bob Noyce MIT PhD'53 co-inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of both Fairchild Semi and Intel, Tom Perkins MIT SB'53 co-founder of Kleiner Perkins VC firm, Bob Metcalfe MIT SB'69 co-inventor of Ethernet and co-founder of 3Com, and dozens of other key MIT alumni figures playing early roles!

Waves of Innovation ~ Blank on Social Media...

In his latest piece on Why Facebook is Killing Silicon Valley, Steve Blank shows this simplified infographic on Waves of Innovation (which is drawn from his great must-see Secret History talk!-)