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Thank you everybody
apologize for being a little late getting to this conference Irish had
been earlier
it seems like a very wonderful in fine conference
I was told to tell you a little bit about myself
you no one quite sure where to start because I grew up in a very different
world
I in a very different world from there
I've ended up I grew up in India I
I came from a family that had no connection to the the business
or technology or signs my dad was up
often many was three and joined a nah mean the ranks
were shipped off to fight for the British during second world war in Egypt
up but there's something I'm
that I think Cup really mattered to me which was
just reading and I'm sure up
I'm many of you do that I
but what transpired for me when I was probably fifteen
was reading in the late sixties about the phone
funding up a company called Intel Craig Barrett the CEO of intel is here
and it developed as a role model for me
what I wanted to do of course a at that stage a
my life it seemed very very far away up but
many years later on
and I'll tell you later that I'm a big fan of a risk
I learned hang gliding and while watching a movie
about hang gliding I saw this quote at this dedication to the movie
and it went something like this: dedicated to those who dare to dream the
dreams
and then are foolish enough to try and make those dreams come true
in the operative word here
is foolish because unless
you transcend what's traditional and I think we've talked about this earlier
unless you go past what's reasonable
you're not going to get someplace
different most people
do the traditional paying and get the traditional places
there is no other way the
other thing that has so I do well up very early on
Avast to found the company I
I even though I'd no reasonable basis in 1976 when I graduated from college in
India
from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi act like to start a company
in
New Delhi a technology company New Delhi which was
to next to impossible but I didn't give up
I just said i'll come to the states and I started to move to work so I can rally
because I had a single purpose
and I couldn't get there directly I
at Carnegie Mellon to pay for me to go to Carnegie Mellon for a Masters program
and then I got Stanford to
except me after that and that led me to the rally
and I was still in college in nine be a program at Stanford when I started my
first company called Daisy
but that thing about entrepreneurship
is it's not about business it's not about
investing its about
having a desire to make a difference
most good for companies and I suggest you look at every one of them
are built from passion for a region
you have a vision when I started my first company
Daisy systems I look at how engineers used to design chips
I said that with Celine that with there was three of us we just said
will change that way I and it was the first cat company
really there were a few others but none not doing quite what
days he was doing as soon as we started looking and AZ
it would be realized that engineers what the wrong way
all engineers not just silicon engineers
and we started Sun because you wanted to change that
let I
sincerely believe to this day to achieve anything you really have to have passion
for wage in on today
on I feel sad sometimes to say
the Silicon Valley become a very much snow replace
it was really in has been to the last few years a place for missionaries
people who are using technology for a mission to change something
you know the way out other people work the products you can produce the
services you can get
so in frankly the other thing I've done in my life is never really
worried about having a job I
I will always created work as a hobby
it's always been fine I've been very fortunate
I that after
after Sun I decided I was actually going to do something different
went to capitol was the furthest thing from my mind
I admire people like mile and others who it to design fun stuff
I actually paid I'd probably end up in something like that rather than the in
technology
but something else I
should have crossed my path which was the notion of coaching and mentoring
and today what I do
even though it's called a venture capitalist I A have often been quoted in
the press as saying
I don't want to be considered a venture capitalist summer went assistant
I'm a coach in a mentor for entrepreneurs
and a coach and mentor for anybody who wants to change
something and now I am thats
always be now very important for me
on so that
thats all the that's been driving my life for the last few years
but as I look forward
from here on I'm very very conflicted
you very fortunate to have a number a very important people here
on last time are sitting in the galapagos
I read a book by Ray Kurzweil called they just virtual machines
I suggest most if you read it after you read that book
I went back and read a book I had read years earlier which was Richard Dawkins
book
called the blind watchmaker I know how many people have read that book
I quite a few I'd suggest you read these to put books together
I think all of you we live in an extraordinary time
days some very simple things happening
pro-business point of view in I don't believe business is important as people
make it out to be
but what we hear about the new economy
is a fundamental transformation of our society
a hundred years ago I like to say
agriculture was the bulk of employment in this country it still is today
in my home country India more than fifty percent of the people who work there
twenty or thirty years ago the industrial age many faxing
with the bulk of employment in this country
more than fifty percent all this is changing
but didn't there there's a new knowledge-based economy
and I see thirty to fifty years from now
almost all goods being free I wonder what the
concept of money will mean been the production cost if everything is so low
that the concept a weld doesn't mean anything
the more important paying is this issue that Ray Kurzweil brings up in his book
on which is what is the definition of a human being
I think out be talked about
culture a little bit in the previous session
we've talked about how technology is impacting that
high-paying you in your lifetime Dollface
one the most interesting challenges
I Richard Dawkins and I think I ray also refers to what
implies that be as evolutionary human beings
have reached a point vs Martin up to invent a platform
different than the carbon-based genetic based platform that
be have the world on that in fact it's a natural course of evolution
that human beings for the next 50 years well-stocked we've all gone a different
Blackpool
not or the subjects that a more interesting to me today
and I hope I get to work with them let me stop here
and answer some questions are I only bring up
the future because I think all of you should be reading these books in
considering them
because the impact will be far greater
in the very simplistic notion of Technology impacting culture
let me open it up for questions
hi my name is David Bowman and I'm from Oklahoma City
what do you look for in a business the you are
funding on what do I look for a business out
you you might find it surprising that unlike most investors
I haven't looked at the financial support business in 10 years I don't
care about the financial
so what matters what matters more than anything else is the people
the team how good they are
it doesn't mean experience it doesn't mean having run a company before
just means how good they are led many many definitions a good
sometimes you just how interesting there up
that's most important the second most important thing to me
is that what they propose to do really makes a difference
add some value is it true
societal and business value proposition
there's a contribution I find and I don't do this for
reasons other than the fact that you keep long-term
build a viable business without making a real contribution
most people look at
they can start a business to an IP 0 make some money
almost always that leads to
businesses that our round trips
but I call good to go up and go down to build a durable business you really have
to focus on the value proposition
thanks hello
my name is Alex percent from Reno Nevada and
you had mentioned earlier that you
established son because engineers were doing something wrong and he wanted to
fix that I was wondering
exactly what the engineers were doing wrong and
how son is unique in that men are
in those days the computing model was very much
decentralize computers in glass houses
people then have access to in technology had come to a point
and I know it may be hard for people here too remember someone that
up BR it was possible not too happy shared many of the things
that were shared back that
there were other things that still needed to be shared believe it not
describe
were still important still very expensive and technology had brought
together
the possibility that you could separate some of these things and build a new
computing model
I it was a lot more useful model from the point today engineers it made a real
contribution in how they work how much control they had on the computing
environment n
economics work so that was really the basis of Sun
okay
okay I was like I'm go ahead now I'm sorry I was bored
I was wondering what the reaction from other venture capitalist has been to
your more unique
mentorship approach you know
I'm there's always room for multiple styles a business
I am and
people accept the fact that there are different ways to do thanks
I happened to have been better interest at a very very different than business
interests I'm
really never considered myself a businessperson on
I'm never worried about it I've never worried about financials
I'll or money or any of the traditional metrics it's always been a
fun than a hobby thing in people accept that very much more when the nice things
about the valley is it is such a cost cross-cultural place
that is a wide acceptance of many many different things
last question on
11 za sorta today and
throughout this Anna gathering has been plane ride to the idea
that technology artificial intelligence in
other such things will be the next step in human evolution
inge I just wonder if a buddy I'm
at ice can come up in Example love any organism
sore sort consciously affecting its own evolution
knowing that evolution going forward
min and give one particular way of life in yet still consciously going forward
with it
up
you know first at
obviously this is a complex question I wanna
make two statements pushed that
there is more than one way in the technology is going to impact our lives
Aug I'll talk about to let me answer your specific question on evolution
by signing if you really a philosophical about it
it is almost irrelevant you know today we have chosen
to be the superior being on this planet
yaar other animals
not able to determine the future of this planet just because we won
this particular species wonder the evolutionary battle got smart now
they gained enough of a lead now we may go back and consider them differently so
evolution is just one simple aspect
let me tell you the other one that I worry about a lot more
I would say worry about news about
if you think about how the world is organized today and how our society's
organize
it came to be quite incidentally
because the communication channels we had many many years ago
what what are important communication channels they were reverse
mountain passes ports so we have cities
we have states we have countries wall organized
around the communication channel that was the relevant communication channel
five hundred years ago
the Internet is a new communication can hold military organized society
my 12-year-old daughter reminded me that already there's a site where the only
language you can speak
web site on the internet is clean up
we did the internet will allow for different organization
I wonder whether the notion of nation-states is important
that just another way I can't think of six other ways
that all lives will be impacted and
why technology will become a driver of society let me stop there
I thank you very much