The last week was all about "Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford". The Silicon Czars gracing the occasion included Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Biz Stone (Twitter), Meagan Marks (Wonga) et al. Pre-event a select group of students were given the opportunity to network with some of the elite visitors on Sunday morning. The day of the event, Monday, consisted of two Master classes with the VIPs, two plenary sessions and networking events. Student buddies were assigned to some of the guests to help them around the college (though most of the VIPs have been in the school before, it is always helpful to have somebody around). I was “buddying” Reid Hoffman. This meant that I ended up missing some other events, but it was satisfying to be able to contribute to the event and learn some bits from the master.
My observation is that Reid is a genuine and private person (as was commented by one of his critics in the master class). He is smart without a shade of doubt, and has very little tolerance for either nonsense or pretence (I think that is essentially because he is very busy and these things waste time). He says few words packed with lot of meaning, and it is all up to you to understand and learn.
The networking sessions were good as well. Particularly, I enjoyed my short conversation with Meagan Marks. The Harvard-Stanford super-achieving beautiful lady also has a golden heart and spends a lot of time helping budding entrepreneurs. I found her advice about hiring and product development insightful.
The Oxford debate around the death of Silicon Valley was a non-starter: Silicon Valley is still far from Detroit. It was nevertheless interesting to hear the speakers argue it out.
I did not find the plenary panels particularly useful, but they were interesting. Most speakers gave careful or glib answers, which may or may not be particularly useful. It was however interesting to see them manoeuvring about the questions.
Overall, I think the event was fantastic. The event really pushes up the importance of SBS as a centre for technology entrepreneurship. However, as part of the Technology OBN in SBS, I would like to see most of these firms coming to recruit at SBS as well. But for now I will take what we get: the experience of learning a few things from the titans of an industry where I aspire to be in.
My observation is that Reid is a genuine and private person (as was commented by one of his critics in the master class). He is smart without a shade of doubt, and has very little tolerance for either nonsense or pretence (I think that is essentially because he is very busy and these things waste time). He says few words packed with lot of meaning, and it is all up to you to understand and learn.
The networking sessions were good as well. Particularly, I enjoyed my short conversation with Meagan Marks. The Harvard-Stanford super-achieving beautiful lady also has a golden heart and spends a lot of time helping budding entrepreneurs. I found her advice about hiring and product development insightful.
The Oxford debate around the death of Silicon Valley was a non-starter: Silicon Valley is still far from Detroit. It was nevertheless interesting to hear the speakers argue it out.
I did not find the plenary panels particularly useful, but they were interesting. Most speakers gave careful or glib answers, which may or may not be particularly useful. It was however interesting to see them manoeuvring about the questions.
Overall, I think the event was fantastic. The event really pushes up the importance of SBS as a centre for technology entrepreneurship. However, as part of the Technology OBN in SBS, I would like to see most of these firms coming to recruit at SBS as well. But for now I will take what we get: the experience of learning a few things from the titans of an industry where I aspire to be in.
