Crowd funded: The Nikola Tesla statue officially coming to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley will soon be getting a reminder of the power of thinking big: a life-sized bronzed statue of Nikola Tesla in Palo Alto, Calif. Read more »
Silicon Valley is now paying even less attention to climate change and that sucks
Following the collapse of the first wave of cleantech investing, and an attention on digital technology, Silicon Valley has moved even further away from using tech to fight climate change. And that’s too bad. Read more »
Former Google lawyer to lead Silicon Valley patent office
The United States Patent Office will open a branch in San Jose this year as part of its effort to provide better quality patents for regional economies. The office’s first leader will be from a company that has been a prominent critic of the patent system. Read more »
East vs West: Tumblr’s Karp on why New York is no ‘Valley Jr.’
photo: Monaco Media Forum
Start spreading the news — New York’s buzziest new media start-ups draw from a richer cultural tapestry that can lure engineering talent from Palo Alto, Gotham founders say. Now they just need a massive exit. Read more at paidContent »
A guide to Europe’s tech hubs
photo: Shutterstock/Imoloko
Tallinn, Estonia? Berlin? London? Dublin? Those aren’t the only contenders for the title of Silicon Valley of Europe. Read more »
Silicon Valley is stupid (which is why it works)
According to David E. Weekly, CEO Oha.na, Silicon Valley is stupid in three important ways — its startups are stupid, its government is stupid, and its investors are stupid. Companies are successful here because business intelligence is distributed, and the ultimate arbiter of correctness is the market. Read more »
Commutist podcast: How Children Succeed and what you can learn from them
Paul Tough, author of the book “How Children Succeed” stops by for a special podcast interview about the similarities between raising a successful kid and building a successful startup, as well as how busy Valley execs can still be great parents. Read more »
Meet the man who wants to satirize Silicon Valley
British arch-satirist Armando Iannucci – best known for his documentary-style dissections of the political classes — is getting ready to take on his next project: a black comedy based on Silicon Valley’s worst moments of excess. Fish, meet barrel. Read more »
Is VMware’s brain drain a sign of its influence, or of its demise?
The number of principal engineers and other technical leaders leaving the company and trying to have big impacts elsewhere suggests VMware might achieve mafia status a la Sun Microsystems, Facebook, Google or PayPal. But is that good news for VMware? Read more »
Why Silicon Valley is addicted to adventure
While most of us are getting ready to coast into the weekend, maybe making plans to hit up happy hour later, Neal Mueller is setting out with three other men to become the first people to row across the Arctic Ocean. Why? Read more »
Where the jobs are: How innovation sparks growth
Is your city thriving, or does it lag behind? If it lags, can it catch up? UC Berkeley economics professor, Enrico Moretti’s new book, The New Geography of Jobs examines how innovation clusters are causing massive shifts in where jobs, people and wealth are distributed. Read more »
SoundCloud is targeting mobile, tablet… and TV?
Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder of sound-sharing platform SoundCloud tells GigaOM where the company is going — including a new mobile-friendly version and the potential for TV integration — and explains what it’s like being an impromptu ambassador for the Berlin startup scene. Read more »
LinkedIn vet turns VC to link Berlin and the Valley
Konstantin Guericke, a co-founder of LinkedIn, has become a Silicon Valley-based venture partner for the Berlin firm Earlybird, giving its investments a direct link to Californian capital and business networks. Is this a turning point for German startups? Read more »
Forget London v Berlin: Euro startups must join forces
It’s fun pitching cities like Berlin against the Valley, but it’s an artifical contest that makes little sense these days. Two investors believe it’s time to ditch the territorial debate and start building European startups that cross borders. Read more »
Earlybird’s $100m will fund Berlin’s ‘antisocial’ movement
VC firm Earlybird has raised a $100m fund that will be largely focused on Berlin — and partner Ciarán O’Leary says the German capital could become as important as Silicon Valley by playing to its single-minded strengths. Read more »
So where could DST spend its cool billion dollars?
Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies — a significant backer of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other Silicon Valley darlings — is raising a new $1 billion fund. So where will this tranche of money go? Read more »
Why start up in Boston?
It may not be Silicon Valley but the Boston-Cambridge metro area has a lot going for it — infrastructure expertise, a deep talent pool, and VC funding. Facebook famously went elsewhere, but here’s why other local companies started here (and will stay put.) Read more »
Nokia Siemens sets up LTE shop in Silicon Valley
The hub of mobile infrastructure in the U.S. may be in North Dallas, but the allure of Silicon Valley is bringing more telecom vendors to the Bay Area. Nokia Siemens is the latest, announcing the opening of one of its Smart Labs in Mountain View. Read more »
Sun Microsystems is gone, but its legacy is everywhere
Yesterday, I drove past the former Sun Microsystems headquarters for the first time since Facebook moved in earlier this month. It reminded me just how influential a company Sun was, despite its somewhat unfortunate fate. Innovation was never Sun’s problem: just look at its alumni. Read more »
Subscriber Content
Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
This report outlines the myriad issues at play in Facebook’s move, from examining how CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to rewire the world to understanding the company’s infrastructure dependency. But from every angle, it’s clear the effects will ripple throughout the startup and tech communities. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Startups pass on Silicon Valley to find their fortunes in New York
In the past couple of months, New York has attracted former San Francisco startup Qwiki, PlaceIQ from Colorado and recent 500 Startups graduate Snapette of Boston, which spent the past half of a year in Silicon Valley. New York is becoming a destination for startups. Read more »
How Marc Andreessen makes Silicon Valley magic
At just 2.5 years old, Andreessen Horowitz, the VC firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has become a tech industry institution with holdings in Facebook, Twitter, and more. GigaOM talked with Andreessen to get his thoughts on Silicon Valley and the larger tech landscape. Read more »
Turing Fellowship works to fill New York’s engineering pipeline
New York’s got an abundance of most everything but engineers are increasingly a precious commodity. But the NYC Turing Fellows Program is revving up in its second year to really take on the problem and start feeding more tech talent to the exploding start-up scene. Read more »
Leaders In House And Senate Postpone Anti-Piracy Efforts
photo: Shutterstock / Songquan Deng
The push for controversial legislation known as SOPA and PIPA appears to have unraveled completely after leaders in both the House and Senat… Read more at paidContent »
U.S. tech hotspots: San Fran, Boston and … Utah?
I spent some time playing with Google Insights to find out what parts of the country are most interested in technology and when that interest hit its peak. It wasn’t surprising to see Silicon Valley rank highly, but did you know Utah was into next-generation programming? Read more »
Amazon move has Boston-Cambridge in a tizzy
If Amazon opens an office in the Boston-Cambridge area as reported, it would boost a high-tech community that often feels overlooked and undervalued compared to Silicon Valley and Seattle. Amazon is recruiting engineers for an as-yet-unannounced Boston area venue slated to open in 2012. Read more »
Pay-to-pitch startup auction nears $2,000 — and rising
Right now, some of the most reputable names in Silicon Valley, including Y Combinator and Wired magazine are offering up their attention to a startup pitch from the highest monetary bidder. It’s not as shady as it sounds, though: It’s all in the name of charity. Read more »
NVCA survey: VC industry still very white, mostly male
There’s been a lot of media buzz in recent months about the lack of racial and gender diversity in the tech startup landscape. Now new data from the National Venture Capital Association indicates that the VC field is similarly homogenous: It’s very white and mostly male. Read more »
Zuckerberg says Jobs advised him on building Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg saw Steve Jobs as a crucial advisor for building Facebook and its management team, according to an interview with Charlie Rose that will air later on Monday. Jobs is also quoted in his recent biography as saying that he “admire[d]” the Facebook founder. Read more »
Kleiner Perkins wants startups to net top-notch summer interns
Exclusive: There are lots of great summer internships at Silicon Valley startups. But top engineering students often pass them up for the money and name recognition companies like Google can provide. So Kleiner Perkins has partnered with InternMatch to attract top-flight students to its portfolio companies. Read more »
The ultimate startup lesson: knowing what matters
After shutting down energy efficiency startup Hug Energy at the beginning of 2011, serial entrepreneur Marcus Tallhamn writes about the most important lesson he learned from the experience: value systems are crucial, and you’ve got to know what matters. Read more »
Josh? It’s Steve Jobs. We have a really big problem.
When Josh Quittner, now editorial director of Flipboard, wrote a story on the former Apple CEO for Time, the magazine inadvertently betrayed two of Jobs’s core values: his obsession with controlling every detail and his love of secrecy. Read more »
Oh my: Bravo now casting Silicon Valley reality show
Bravo, the cable television network known for such reality shows as The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Millionaire Matchmaker, is apparently looking for young professionals to star in an upcoming reality show based on Silicon Valley. Read more »
Silicon Valley mourns Steve
The technology world lost one of its most influential members ever on Wednesday with the passing of Steve Jobs. His fans, customers, competitors and friends alike have been expressing their grief over his death. Here are the thoughts and remembrances from peers in Silicon Valley. Read more »
At HP, the broad Board problems
Over the past year, HP’s board has led the company through more than a few stumbles. The company’s next CEO will not only have to bring back the innovation of “the HP way” but will also have to wrangle the board back in shape. Read more »
New OpSource data center should boost cloud performance
OpSource Inc.’s brand spanking new Silicon Valley data center should cut latency times and boost network performance for the cloud provider’s enterprise and service provider customers on the West Coast and provide co-location options for enterprises wanting redundancy. Read more »
10 Stories to read this weekend
This is a moving weekend for me so I am going to keep the list of recommendations to read this weekend very short. So without much ado, here are some posts that are worth reading this weekend. Read more »
Subscriber Content
Flash analysis: lessons from Solyndra’s fall
Solar technology startup Solyndra, which has raised more than $1.5 billion in private and government funds, has suspended manufacturing and laid off 1,100 full-time and temporary employees. We conducted a survey and asked GigaOM readers for their views on the fallout of Solyndra’s decision to file for bankruptcy and what the future holds for the company. This research examines the survey’s results. It also includes an analysis of Solyndra’s struggles over the past two years to move into mass production, and to do it amidst difficult and volatile economic conditions. Companies mentioned in this report include Evergreen Solar, First Solar and SpectraWatt. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The app dilemma: Is it a feature, or a business?
Every developer who makes a popular web or mobile app is eventually faced with a decision: They can either stick with the status quo or swing for the fences. These days, many people are taking VC and going big — but is that the right choice? Read more »
New York can’t & shouldn’t try to rival Silicon Valley
New York doesn’t have to rival Silicon Valley; it can be its own success story, with its own unique culture. And that is what the region should be looking at first, rather than trying to gain some bragging-rights parity with the San Francisco Bay Area. Read more »
