Monday in the Valley

On Monday we only had one meeting that took place at 5 PM so we figured we would use the day to relax some and do some hiking. Brad, Jake, Daniel and I went back to the area where Brad and I had biked on Sunday and decided to hike in the National Park.

It was a beautiful day with clear skies and we could see for miles. An ocean view accompanied us to our right and a view of the San Francisco Valley to our left. It was even more beautiful than on Sunday because there was less fog coming in from the bay.

When we got back I went down to the pool and read some of my current book along with getting a little sun. Apparently, 70 degrees and sunny is terrible weather here in San Francisco because we received many weird looks while laying out trying to get some sun in our swimsuits. Must be the thick blood from the Midwest.

Afterward, we were able to pick current CEO of Krugle's brilliant mind for about two hours. Steve Larsen is a proven CEO for multiple companies with a particular skill for leading venture-backed technology companies. Having hired over 500 people himself, he gave us some great tips for preparing for interviews and questions to ask when being interviewed. His communication skills impressed me a lot and told many stories about how he was able to get people on his side in the business world.

We talked about many of the core differences between business in the Midwest compared to that on either coast. I thought in many ways he was right on in his comparisons. Out here is it not unusual for people to work for companies for a few years, leave and find another job and follow this trend their whole life. It creates different goals and makes you be more known and versitile. In the Midwest many people stick with the same job for most of their life even if they don't like it. I found this interesting and he had a good analogy to job decisions in that making them is like a distributary on a river. You have many options to choose from but once you choose one, it makes it more difficult to go back and choose another. Some other differences we also talked about related to family life, friends and values.

The best piece of advice I took from his talk with us was when I asked him who he looks to for advice. He excalimed that no matter how much of an expert you think you are at something, you are not. Why does Tiger Woods have a golf coach? Why do professional football players have trainers? Everybody has something else they can always improve on and everybody has their own special talents they can share with others. Above anything else, you can always read to attain new knowledge. That is one of the biggest things you can do to stay ahead in this world by never ceasing to harness new knowledge because so many times it is just that extra %5 that makes the most crucial difference in this world.

It was a great start out to our last week here in the Valley and we will continue it tomorrow with a trip to Hummer-Winblad which is the top venture capitalist firms here and a trip to Revision 3.

What extra %5 can you give today?

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Sunday Funday!

Sunday, Brad and I went to the local bike shop to rent bikes and go for a road ride. It is always fun to get out of the city when traveling and see the beautiful scenery that is not made up of cement. It was awesome to see hundreds of people outside enjoying the weather and biking. Bike lanes are plentiful and all drivers expect one were great with sharing the road.

We completed an epic ride that I have mapped out here.

While some ventured into the city here is what Brad and I accomplished/saw.

Rented a hot pink Trek Pilot 5.2 women's bike for my ride because the bike shop had no other men's bikes.



Saw 27 miles of beautiful scenery under the power of our own legs.

Saw some California Redwood trees.

Completed a climb reaching 2,500 feet.

Passed people in a hot pink bike.

Rode with an ocean view to our right and the valley of San Francisco to our left.

Biked in 70+ weather.

The views that we saw today is what make life great and biking up that extremely long and steep road so rewarding. I am blessed to have been presented such great opportunities in life.

Make the best of your day.

Pier 39

On Saturday we were able to take some time for the usual tourist activities. We started our day at Pier 39 and immediately Jake, Brad and I found a bike rental to see the area. Two of my favorite things combined in one is a no brainier: bikes and sightseeing.

We were given directions to the Golden Gate Bridge and took off accordingly. It was about a 4.5 mile ride to the bridge and an additional 1.5 miles to get across it. Biking was definitely the way to see the area because we were able to cover a lot of ground and make it back in time to grab some grub before our Alcatraz tour. I was not planning on eating until I spotted a store selling crepes and decided I was getting one regardless. Brad and Jake followed cue and afterwards we walked around a bustling Pier 39 area before meeting the rest of our group.

At 4:20 our boat left for our night tour of Alcatraz, home of many past criminals including Al Capone. The tour was very interesting and had lots of escape stories. The nightime provided us with a great opportunity to see San Francisco lit up at night and people in our group got some awesome pictures. Check out our flickr account here. I have been trying to upload photos but for whatever reason blogger is not letting me.


When we arrived on shore we found a seafood restaurant where I ordered some Mussels which are one of my favorite seafood's (thanks to Anne for getting me hooked!). We then headed back to our hotel for some 500 and bed.



Until next time,

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Friday in the Valley

Sorry for the delay in postings, activities that run well into the evening along with 500 games back at our room have detoured me from my blog.

On Friday we headed into San Francisco for a morning visit with Citizen Space. This business is a co-working facility where entrepreneurs can rent out a workspace for $425 dollars per month. One of the coolest aspects of this business is that anybody can come in for a day and use their facilities when vising San Francisco and need to keep their business activities afloat. The people who "rent" here are a very close knit group. Many times their businesses are unrelated but everyone is open to suggestions and shares their experiences openly. Definitely a cool approach to business.

We quickly rushed off across the Bay Bridge towards Pixar, where we were told we had an 11:30 showing and could not be late. Pixar, of course, is a digital animation company that makes movies and has collaborated with Disney on many pictures. Their movies are appropriate for all ages and are awesome for adults. Some movies they have produced are Toy Story, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and their most recent film was Wall-E. It was a stroke of luck that we were even allowed into Pixar. Our Prof was talking about our trip on a cruise over Christmas break and somebody knew somebody who works for Pixar and got us in! As such with companies such as Google and Apple, you must have some pretty good connections to get into any of these companies.



Aside with touring their campus and seeing all of the artwork with impeccable attention to detail that goes along with creating their characters, their ingenuity impressed me the most. Thousands of ideas are generated each year and everyone is told that their ideas are good, the question is how can they make it great. Thousands of storyboards are written before the movie goes into production. Finding Nemo had over 40,000 slides sketched before it was produced.

Before our tour had ended we saw a short for an upcoming movie that I cannot remember (or probably say because of the NDA anyways) that was very funny and will see when it comes out in four years. Afterwards we ate at the Pixar caf where I took way to much food from the salad bar that was about as extravagant as a salad bar can be.

Our last stop for the day was at MobiTV. This company simply streams live TV to your phone. For instance if you were on the subway this coming Tuesday during Barrack's inauguration you could watch it live on your phone. Pretty awesome huh?! One of the six founders of Tivo who is now with MobiTV gave us a great presentation about life as an entrepreneur, life in the Valley and lots of background about the company. It was one of the most productive meetings we have had on this trip and the view was just as awesome. Located on the top floor of the building, our meeting room was wide open with an awesome view of the Bay.


I will keep the night short because this post is getting lengthy....we basically hung around Union Square. Stephanie held an event at the Clift Hotel which we attended for a while and then checked out more of the square before eating dinner and heading back to the hotel.

Until my next post in about a half hour.

Big Businesses and Big Hits

Sorry for the delay in postings. Our days have been full (as expected) and has led to my slacking in the blogger area.

On Thursday we visited some companies named Google and Apple. I previously thought that Google was just some extremely large number and that Apple was a fruit company.....I was way off-base.

We arrived at Google with much anticipation. Rick Klau (Feedburner developer) and former Luther grad Craig Cornelius gave us a quick tour. We were able to see many things although there is not much I can discuss because we signed an NDA. Google's campus is amazing, filled with energy and friendly people along with beauty. The courtyard consists of a company garden, volleyball courts, swimming pool, outdoor dining areas and bicycles scattered everywhere to accompany its many buildings. You would think with all the extra curricular within the work environment that not much would get done, this is far from the truth. Google has such a commitment to their employees it only builds more confidence within their work environment. There is so much I could talk about from how the company has shuttles for people up to 60 miles from work to the free cafeteria to their green initiatives and their interesting work environment.

Google's main purpose is to engage people online and organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Everything in this company is data driven. There is no such thing as a "hunch." Bring data to the table and present it. Did you know that every minute 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube? Or that every four hours enough information is uploaded to the Internet by Google to fill the Library of Congress? This philosophy is heavily rooted in the fact that they believe the world will be a better place if people are knowledgeable; which will lead to people making better decisions.

As if visiting Google wasn't cool enough, we were privileged enough to visit Apple headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Palo Alto, Ca. Jeremy and Joe gave us the opportunity for some Q and A before a walk inside the courtyard and provided us with a meal at the Apple caf. This was an extreme benefit because it is extremely rare that anybody who is not an Apple employee to be allowed inside their buildings, let alone the courtyard.

It was neat to hear from Apple employees describing their work environment and how they handle their work. A lot of projects are done on teams and it appears to be somewhat secretive among workers and then people up the ladder link them together. Where with Google people are working on side projects with workers in completely different departments with their 20% of work time to explore other company interests. Apple seemed to be a much more secretive company that was less transparent. Either way, both strategies seem to be working fine.

We then headed south to San Jose for the Sharks game. It was my first hockey game and we were hooked up with tickets thanks to Stephanie's friend and Luther Alum, Jen. The Sharks lost 3-2 to Calvary but the game was exciting to watch....a lot better than on TV.

For now, it is nearly 1 in the morning and I am tired after a day filled with more travel. We are heading back into San Francisco tomorrow for a day of tourist events including a trip to Alcatraz.

Until next time,

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Day Two

Guy Kawasaki

Our first thing on the agenda for today was to meet with Guy Kawasaki. Guy was Apple's evangelist (he told everybody about a little brand named Macintosh) when they were first getting off the ground and is a very important, influential person here in the valley. He is a true veteran and we were able to harness a lot of his knowledge during our meeting with him this morning. His career has ranged from an evangelist, venture capitalist and speaker at over 95 events a year.

Stephanie has let me borrow one of his books to read and it has lots of information about being an entrepreneur. It contains information on how to sell, speak publicly and present yourself, raise money and how to build a team. Aside from my reading, there were many pieces from listening to him talk that have stuck with me. He encouraged us that if we feel we have something important to say, say it and say it often. There is so much information out there and what you don't know, you don't know. It can be your job to empower people and help make this world a better place by sharing your talents with the world. It is the ideas of great men and the reality that they let everybody know about them that have established the world we see it as today.


After our talk with Guy we had an hour to kill around Palo Alto so we visited the local Apple store and then walked around downtown.

We then had lunch with Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research and author of the book Groundswell. The book is also written with another analyst and incorporates "practical, data-based strategies for companies that want to harness the power of social technologies like blogs, social networks, and YouTube." There are many opportunities for companies to grow if they properly used these applicatoins. We also talked about how her career started and the difficulties of balancing home life along with work.

After lunch, we walked from downtown to Stanford University and checked out the campus and its bookstore. It was a beautiful day today and I felt a little guilty knowing that everybody back in the midwest is stuck in miserable below zero temperatures. Stanford has a beautiful campus and I am sure pictures are being posted as I am writing now.

Tesla Motors

After leaving campus we headed to Tesla motors which is a company who first envisioned a car where people could have the look of a sports car along with the economy of a hybrid. What they came up with is a totally electric vehicle that can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. These cars are incredibly sleek in their design and cost pennies per mile to run. With a price tag around $110,000 I do not forsee myself owning one anytime soon, but they are really cool. In a sence they consider themselves a tech company because the batteries they use to run the cars are litium ion batteries much like the ones we use to run our computers and iPods. Unfortunatly the cars exterior is made of carbon fiber which can also contribute to why bicycles are so damn expensive as well.

The cars themselves are assembled here in the US but with products shipped from all over the world. We were able to see the shop and drivetrain instiliation plants here in Palo Alto.

We then headed to a neat Indian restaurant for dinner with current Google employee and former Luther professor, Craig Cornelius. Dinner was excellent and we will see Craig again tomorrow when we visit the Googleplex and then we are off to Apple in the afternoon and the Sharks game to cap of another awesome day.

Until next time,

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Updates

Check out everybody's photos taken on our trip (I did not pack my camera):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lutherlive

Also, check out Jake's blog from the trip as well here.