I just returned late last night from a whirlwind three-day trip to Silicon Valley. Thanks to my friend, Frank Vargas (a colleague and fellow entreVIEW author who, as regular readers know, currently lives in Mountain View), I was able to meet several angels, VCs, and entrepreneurs in places like Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park, and San Francisco.
While sitting in my window seat on the flight home (next to a guy fittingly reading the Steve Jobs biography on his iMac), I had time to reflect on my trip and make the following observations:
• Apparently, nobody told the folks in SV that we’re in a recessionary economy with a lousy housing market and that the rest of the state of California is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
• Maybe it’s the Stanford vibe or the sunny high in the 60’s every day in the Bay area, but there’s so much energy and activity that it’s palpable. Hanging out at University Cafe mid-morning on a Wednesday, there were about a dozen entrepreneurs meeting to either pitch or strategize their latest ventures.
• Housing (and rental) prices are rising rapidly—I understand that single home sellers often end up getting 120% (or more) of their listing price because of bidding wars. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve so many “new” millionaires (at least on paper) because of recent IPO activity.
• While underwhelming performance of Facebook stock in the public market may have made some investors cool a bit to social media deals, the interest in tech, infrastructure, healthcare, and other industries remains strong.
Bottom line, I’m sure glad that we’ve got feet on the street out there and, like another friend, colleague, and fellow entreVIEW author, Kermit Nash (who has been out there a few times already this year), I look forward to going back to soak up some of that energy (and sunshine) and make connections likely to be valuable to people I know.
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