This is a slightly overblown view of Silicon Valley’s network effects and tech culture for Tolpagorni's 2014 Market Insights Conference. Goal: drive discussion about what can be borrowed to other tech centers like Stockholm, and what resources/attitudes are harder to copy.

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Why Silicon Valley Continues to
Innovate and Rock the World
Rich Mironov
Market Insights Conference
13/14 November 2014
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© Rich Mironov, 2014

2. • Veteran product manager/exec/strategist
• HP, Tandem, Sybase, 5 B2B startups as
“product guy” or CEO
• The Art of Product Management
• First Product Camps, first agile
product manager/owner tracks
ABOUT RICH MIRONOV
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3. Ø San Francisco is the center of the (tech) universe
Ø Network effects are huge
Ø Innovation as a cultural attitude
Ø What are the next few revolutions
(and where will they happen)?
AGENDA
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4. Historical accidents?
• Fashion design: Paris, Milan
• Stock markets: London, NYC
• Automobile design: Detroit, Tokyo, Stuttgart
• Pharmaceuticals: Basel, Brentford, New Brunswick
• Security software: Tel Aviv
GEOGRAPHIC SPECIALIZATION AND
NETWORK EFFECTS
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5. • Stanford University (1891)
• Hewlett-Packard (1939): electronic test equipment
• Fairchild Semiconductor (1957): integrated circuits
• Varian (1948): vacuum tubes, radiation therapy
• Intel (1968), Arpanet (1969), Xerox PARC (1970),
Lucasfilm (1971), Atari (1972), Apple (1976), BSD UNIX
(1977), Oracle (1977), 3Com (1979), Adobe (1982)…
SILICON VALLEY’S
HISTORICAL ACCIDENTS
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6. • Most established tech companies
• Most startups, most incubators
• Most venture capital
• Largest tech employment market, most job mobility
• Depth of experienced tech veterans, managers,
mentors, researchers, role models
• Easiest place in the world to grow a tech startup
NETWORK EFFECTS MATTER
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7. • 16,000+ open jobs for software engineers
• 1800+ open jobs for product managers
• 4000+ startups
• Every café is filled with hackers, pitch decks, lean
startups, angel investors, recruiters
• Tech is our local sport
SILICON VALLEY TODAY
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8. VENTURE CAPITAL
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$24B
$20B
€4B

9. SOCIAL NETWORKING
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10. Silicon Valley Rest of USA Europe Asia
Apple
Google
Oracle
Intel
Facebook
eBay
HP
VMware
Yahoo
Salesforce
Twitter
LinkedIn
Microsoft
IBM
AT&T
Amazon
Verizon
Dell
Ericsson
SAP
Nokia
Philips
Alibaba
Samsung
NTT
Tencent
Foxconn
Baidu
Hitachi
Panasonic
Toshiba
LG Electronics
Sony
LARGEST ELECTRONICS/TECH/
COMPUTER COMPANIES
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Sorted by market cap, > $15B

11. • Company half-life is short: product managers work
for many companies in their careers
• Employment velocity à deep personal networks
• Startups always trying to disrupt
existing business models
• “What did you learn at your
last company?”
INNOVATION AS A CULTURAL VALUE
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12. • Except for people, software startups cost $0
• Talent and speed-to-market matter
• Find the smartest people at any price
• Validate, build, launch, repeat
• Profitability is entirely about scale
• Can we reach 10M users? 100M? 1B?
SOFTWARE ECONOMICS IS ABOUT
TALENT, SPEED AND GROWTH
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13. • Free or cheap for
thousands of attendees
• “We can validate any
product idea and build a
prototype by Sunday
afternoon”
• Build/measure/learn at
warp speed
LEAN STARTUP WEEKENDS AND
HACKATHONS
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14. OUR ROCK STARS ARE INNOVATORS,
CEOs, CTOs, ENGINEERS, FOUNDERS
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15. • Transportation: Uber, Google autonomous car, Tesla, SpaceX
• Mobile: software IP crushing hardware value
• Wearable computing
• Biotech: bioengineering components
• Internet of Things: billions of smart, interconnected devices
• Manufacturing: 3D printing, Do-It-Yourself movement
• Investing: automated portfolios
• Software-Defined Networks
• Every corporate function/department
• Engineering, Finance, Sales, Marketing, HR, Real Estate…
INDUSTRIES TO BE DISRUPTED
OR CREATED
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16. • We want to disrupt industries
and reach B’s of users worldwide
• Rules (laws) are local or national
• Some rules are outdated, others
designed to maintain status quo
• Market momentum often wins
• Second choice: high-priced lawyers
WE OFTEN IGNORE RULES
(AND SOMETIMES LAWS)
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17. • Speed matters: time is the enemy
• Funding exists, technology is not unique
• Biggest waste is building the wrong product
• Validate, validate, validate, validate
• Paper prototypes, integration testing, early adopters, beta
• Revenue outvotes politics
• Product management tied to revenue
HOW THIS CHANGES PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT
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Voltaire (1772):
“The perfect is the
enemy of good”
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Muhammad Ali:
“Everyone has a plan
until they get punched
in the nose.”
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20. • Target worldwide markets
• Expect multiple competitors in every segment
• Open a Silicon Valley office
• Urgency, talent, venture money, partners, foolish optimism
• Fail fast, learn fast, ship often
• Velocity and market momentum beat perfection
HOW TO COMPETE FROM STOCKHOLM
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21. CONTACT
Rich Mironov, CEO
Mironov Consulting
RichMironov
@RichMironov
Rich@Mironov.com
+1-650-315-7394
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