Category: Places
I was at a Nima board meeting today and was asked by a new friend on the team about my link to Homer, Alaska. After a brief explanation, I said “McDonald’s made Homer famous around some Super Bowl by making a completely inappropriate TV ad there.” I couldn’t remember the year – I thought it was in the 1980s somewhere.
It was 1990. Google found it immediately. It’s hilarious, and completely inappropriate. This is where Amy and I live, some of the time.
And then after the game.
San Francisco destroyed Denver 55-10. Don’t ask me why I knew that.
I’m finally home after three solid weeks on the road which included Austin, Dallas, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. It’s delightful to sit in my green zebra chair in Amy’s upstairs office, with a cup of tea, the Diana Krall channel playing on Pandora, and just catch up on stuff.
The extra points from my trip was getting to spend some face time with close friends and family that I haven’t seen in a while. Amy joined me in LA and we had dinner with Fred and Joanne Wilson and then went art shopping with Fred on Sunday. I spent a weekend in Dallas with my parents and went to Dairy Queen for Blizzard’s three times with my dad (my mom tagged along and even had a Blizzard one night.) I had dinner with my Uncle Charlie, Aunt Cindy, Cousin Jon, and his son Jack. You get the picture – even though the travel was intense I got some time with humans I love and don’t get to smell as often as I’d like to.
At the end of the trip, I spent two days at the Upfront Summit in LA. This comes on the heals of Upfront managing director Mark Suster’s great post titled Embracing Your Community as a Strategy which I encourage you to read as it is magnificent.
I have a long relationship with LA. In my first company (Feld Technologies) my first large client was in LA (Bellflower Dental Group). While the company – a large 100 person dental practice – was based in Bellflower, the dentist that owned it lived in Mandeville Canyon and I usually stayed at his house when I was in LA (he was the step-father of a fraternity brother, which is how we got connected in the first place.) I drove a lot in LA and learned things like how the 10 connects to the 5 to the 605, or the 405 to the 605. I learned that if you left at the right time, each route was only 30 minutes, but if you left at the wrong time, it was over two hours. I heard about Wolfgang Puck before he was in airports everywhere. I enjoyed the non-meat dishes at Hamburger Heaven, went to The Palm when there was only one location, and hung out in Santa Monica before it was techie cool and the only thing around was Peter Norton.
Today, our current investments in LA include Oblong, Nix Hydra, and recently Two Bit Circus. In the last five years, there has been an explosion of startup activity in LA that continues to be exciting as the startup community grows and evolves. Mark and his gang at Upfront Ventures are in the middle of it and are having a huge positive impact on things.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve attended and hosted many VC annual meetings. I’m an investor in many early stage VC funds and, while I’m not a rigorous annual meeting attender, will go if one of the GPs asks me to. I always offer to be part of the content of whatever meeting / summit / dinner they do if it’s useful to them.
Since I was already in LA on Monday, I told Mark I’d stick around for the Summit if he thought it’d be useful to him and the team. He immediately programmed me into the content for Wednesday (LP/GP day) and Thursday (entrepreneur day). Mark also invited me to the Upfront annual meeting given (a) our Next strategy and (b) my new partner Lindel Eakman being a prior investor in Upfront when he was at UTIMCO.
The annual meeting was solid and consistent with high quality annual meetings. But the Summit on the follow two days was easily the best VC-driven summit that I’ve ever attended. The content was incredibly high quality, diverse, and stimulating. There was plenty of networking time organized around the content. The venues were awesome. The coordination and organization was first class. The attendee list was dynamite. My understanding is that Mark / Upfront are going to post the content online and I’d encourage you to watch many of the videos when this happens.
It being LA, the special bonus things I got to do, like the one pictured below, was about as good as it gets. Yes, Kevin Spacey is extremely smart, interesting, and extremely articulate – as I expected, but there’s nothing like getting to spend a few minutes with someone you admire (he’s always been one of my favorite actors), but have never met.
Mark, Greg, Stuart, and gang – thank you for including me in this. You are doing amazing things in the LA startup community.
In the article The biggest tech company founders from every state I win the callout for Arkansas.
“Arkansas: Brad Feld has bounced around a lot: born in Arkansas, raised in Dallas, then lived in Boston for over a decade before moving to Boulder, Colorado. He’s most known for founding Foundry Group, a prominent venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investment, but also co-founded startup accelerator Techstars.”
I was born in Blytheville, Arkansas on an air force base in 1965. My dad was in the Air Force for several years during the Vietnam War after being drafted. Once he finished his service a year later, he moved to Boston to finish out his residency at Mass General Hospital. Then, in 1969, he and my mom, with two kids in tow (me and my younger brother Daniel, who had just been born) moved to Dallas, Texas. My parents knew one person in Dallas when they moved there and they chose Dallas (over Kansas City, which was a near second) as a place they wanted to build their life. My dad’s brother Charlie followed him to Dallas a year later in 1970.
I don’t view myself as being from Arkansas even though I was born there. It’s one of those weird artifacts of one’s life. I used to be able to roll it out in big group introductions when each person is asked to say one thing about themselves that no one else in the group knows. I now have to come up with something else, like the age I was when I read The 158 Pound Marriage by John Irving (answer: inappropriately young.)
I grew up in Dallas, Texas. When I went to college at age 17, I thought I’d move back to Dallas and live there after I graduated. Within a year of living in Boston, I knew I wouldn’t move back to Dallas, even though I never really thought I’d stay very long in Boston.
Twelve years later I moved from Boston to Boulder, Colorado. While I lasted 11 years longer in Boston than my dad did, I sometimes feel like I lived in Boston for 11 years and 364 days too many. Upon serious reflection, Boston was very good for me, but it never felt like home.
When Amy and I moved to Boulder in 1995, we knew one person. He moved away several months later. Then, a year later, my brother Daniel moved to Boulder. I don’t think we realized we were following the same pattern as our parents and my Uncle Charlie, but 20 years later, we are still living near each other in Boulder and 46 years later my dad and his brother are still living in Dallas.
I’ve now lived in Boulder longer than anywhere else. So – where am I from? While I comfortably say that I grew up in Dallas, I’m from Boulder and have built my life, with Amy, around being here.
My parents, who were both born and grew up in the Bronx, are definitely from Dallas. Same with my Uncle Charlie.
Until the Business Insider article put me as being from Arkansas, I had never really pondered where I was from very much. It was easy to describe where I lived, and it often felt self-indulgent to parade around as a Texan, which at some point I got over. But I never felt like I was from Arkansas or Boston.
When I say I’m from Boulder, it feels good.
I’m running another competition for a startup to live for a year for free in my Kansas City FiberHouse.
When I bought my house in Kansas City in 2013, I announced my intentions clearly.
“I’m not going to be living in it. Instead, I’m going to let entrepreneurs live / work in it. Rent free. As part of helping create the Kansas City startup community. And to learn about the dynamics of Google Fiber. And to have some fun.”
So far we’ve had two different companies live/work in the FiberHouse. HandPrint spend the first year in the house and LeapIt spent the second year.
The third year could be you! Apply today.
I’m in Telluride for the day. I drove from Aspen (where we are hanging out for the week) through some of the most beautiful mountains and countryside you will ever see and ended up in the magical place called Telluride.
I’m here for the Telluride Venture Accelerator Demo Day. This is their third program and I’m looking forward to the day. While Telluride is known for being a super high end beautiful magnificent ski town, it’s also the second home to a lot of very interesting and successful people who are committed to making sure their corner of paradise has a long term sustainable future beyond just tourism.
In addition to the accelerator, there is a fascinating entity called NextLaw Labs here. At dinner last night I sat next to Joe Andrews, the chairman of Dentons (the largest law firm in the world) and heard about why he and Dan Jansen have set up NextLaw Labs in Telluride to create the future of legal technology.
In the afternoon I went for a short hike with Marc Nager, the Chief Community Officer at Techstars, who lives in Telluride with his wife Ashley (who is the program director for the Telluride Venture Accelerator). Marc, as always, is looking trim and happy in his green Techstars shirt and sandals.
Today, I’m doing a fireside chat with Jesse Johnson (TVA co-founder and CEO) to kick things off. Then, after demo day, I’m spending 15 minutes with each company. While I know they are looking to me as a potential investor, it’s a low probability for each of them. As a result, my goal will be simple – I’ll try to do at least one thing for each of them that is helpful to moving their business along. In most cases this will be a connection (the drone company here will definitely get connected to 3D Robotics), customer feedback (I’ll become a customer), or something that is tangible that goes beyond just feedback.
And then, I’ll drive back through the mountains from the glorious place called Telluride to another spectacular place called Aspen. I so deeply love Colorado.
Amy and I just got back from a great week off the grid in Paris. We were both exhausted and badly needed a break. When we want to get away from humans, we go to our place in Homer. When we want to lose ourselves in a big city, we go to Paris. We both are incredibly refreshed feeling and happy to be home with the rapidly growing puppy Super Cooper and his friend Brooks the Wonder Dog.
Before I left I did 15 minute interview on WGBH’s Innovation Hub program. I’m happy to do an interview with WGBH anytime they call given the number of hours of my life I spent listening to them during my twelve years living in Boston.
I listened to it on the ride home from the airport yesterday and thought it was one of the better short interviews I’ve done in a while. Enjoy!
There has been a lull in the chanting that “Silicon Valley is the center of the tech universe.” I’m in Boulder for the next three weeks and I woke up pondering something Ben Casnocha said to me the last time we were together.
Silicon Valley is a religion, just like Crossfit is a religion.
This has stuck with me for a long time and I’ve read many posts about Silicon Valley through this lens. For a quick frame of reference test, try these three:
- Silicon Valley: A Place or A State of Mind
- What It Will Take to Create the Next Great Silicon Valleys, Plural
- Losing My Religion
I’ve been trying to decide the best phrase to describe the phenomenon around Silicon Valley. All of the easy phrases – culture, dynamics, ecosystem – either feel wrong or are too limiting. Religion seems to be the one that works.
Since religion is a loaded word for so many people (including me), I went searching for a comfortable and expansive definition of religion to use that transcends human history and belief systems. I liked the Wikipedia definition of religion.
A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle.
Let’s change this to “The Religion of Silicon Valley.”
The Religion of Silicon Valley is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the order of existence. It has narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of Silicon Valley and/or to explain the origin of Silicon Valley. From their beliefs about the human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle.
That seems like it works. As an observer, but not participant, in Crossfit, this definition also seems to work for Crossfit. It also seems to work for Fight Club, which I watched recently at an offsite with Seth, Jason, and Ryan and we all agreed that it definitely does not pass the test of time.
Religions are incredibly powerful, but they have great weaknesses and limitations. Religious leaders are dogmatic. They are slow to change their fundamental beliefs and in some cases refuse to. Over time, some religious leaders alienate their subjects or try to control society through top down control. And, when religions clash, conflict and human extermination can be quite dramatic. Religious leaders are often overthrown after a period of time.
Metaphorically, this is a risk of the Religion of Silicon Valley. I’ve been saying for over 20 years that there are many different ways to create amazing companies. Recently, in my book Startup Communities, I asserted that you can create a startup community in any city in the world.
The Silicon Valley way is one of them, but not the only one. Today, it’s a powerful epicenter, just like Detroit was a powerful epicenter in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s even earning a place in America’s Arsenal of Democracy during World War II with its sister cities Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. But the notion that the Silicon Valley way is the only way is a dangerous one.
I’m intrigued by people who say “the only place you should start a tech company is Silicon Valley.” I keep thinking that I’ll never hear that again, but I just heard it two weeks ago from an entrepreneur I met. He’s very accomplished and starting a new company not in Silicon Valley. He called me looking for an understanding about how to combat the argument he was getting from VCs he was talking to who said “the only place you should start your company is in Silicon Valley.” I was in New York on Friday for Techstars Demo Day and I saw evidence over and over again that the statement was false.
Religion often devolves into “my way is the only way.” I strongly believe in freedom of everything, including religion. I also believe you can learn an enormous amount from religions, even if you don’t subscribe to them. I’m sure this shapes my view that there are some amazing things about the Religion of Silicon Valley but some to be very careful of, or avoid entirely.
I like this metaphor a lot. I’m curious what reaction it invokes in you.
Amy and I are spending the week in Dubai together. Today was our first day here and it reminded me of a great quote by Cayce Pollard in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
“Jet lag is your soul catching up with you.”
That perfectly describes today. So, I’ll leave you with a bird’s eye view of Dubai starting from the Burj Khalifa, which is pretty epic at multiple levels.
There has been a lot of recent noise in Boulder about growth, challenges, and the impact of the tech community on the city. I stirred the pot a little more with my post The Endless Struggle That Boulder Has With Itself. It generated some private emails, including non-constructive troll-like ones such as “Get the fuck out of town, you and people like you are ruining everything” at one end of the extreme to “It’s so frustrating that the all growth is bad crowd is framing the public debate right now and portraying so-called overpaid tech employees as a major cause of all that is wrong in Boulder.”
Andy Alsop, an entrepreneur in Santa Fe who has spent a lot of time in Colorado, sent me a note with some thoughts about his view and experience from working as an entrepreneur in Santa Fe. I asked if he’d write a longer post from his perspective and he took me up on it. Following is a guest post from Andy that I think adds nicely to the discussion.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Santa Fe and I love New Mexico. This is where my kids were born, where three out of the six kids in my family own property and where I have lived for the past 20 years. This is my perspective on why the Boulder City Council should be grateful for the gift it has been given.
I have chosen Colorado as the place where I want to focus the next chapter of my startup life because of its similarities to New Mexico but with the benefit of a rich and diverse tech economy. Since approximately July of 2014 I have been spending half of my time getting to know people in Colorado and half of my time in New Mexico where I work and where my family is currently based. This has allowed me to spend time in Boulder with some exciting startups and some interesting and successful business leaders.
To give you some background, I moved to Santa Fe, NM from the East Coast in 1995 to start a company with my older brother. Prior to making the decision to move out West I asked myself, “Is Santa Fe the right kind of place for me as a technology entrepreneur?” I thought about it for a while before making the move and decided that I was in love with the beautiful outdoors, the endless blue skies, the culture, the great food and the interesting people so with bravado I said to myself “Hell, I’m smart and hardworking and this whole ‘Internet’ thing is everywhere. It doesn’t matter where I live.” As a result, I founded two startups, one of them a spinout from Los Alamos National Laboratory and have been a part of three other startups all of them based on technology.
I find the debate around Boulder’s “dilemma” to be very interesting because Boulder and Santa Fe share a lot of the same characteristics. Both are similar in size, both have educated populations, both are a short drive from a larger city, both are absolutely stunning in terms of the landscape and the outdoors, both are set in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains restricting their ability to grow in all but one direction and both have a high cost of living and a high cost of housing.
In contrast to Boulder, Santa Fe has a stunted economy because it doesn’t share some of the key characteristics of Boulder – including several of the four elements of the “Boulder Thesis” that Brad outlined in his book “Startup Communities.” Santa Fe’s anemic economy is due in large part because Santa Fe has an older population made up primarily of retirees in addition to federal, state and local government workers and service-based workers. We have one “larger” company based in Santa Fe: Thornburg Investment Management which thankfully provides 250 high wage jobs. There are a handful of other smaller companies in Santa Fe but the majority of our businesses are tourism and services based – restaurants, art galleries, hotels, B&B’s, etc. This makes it difficult to make a living in Santa Fe (see Santa Fe’s Living Wage). You will frequently hear people joke about the fact that to make a million dollars in Santa Fe you need to come with two and to live in Santa Fe you must have two to three jobs just to survive. “Young people” come to Santa Fe based on their attraction to the beautiful outdoors and leave when they realize it is difficult to make a living. Santa Fe ends up being a turnstile for young professionals.
Having attempted to recruit experienced knowledge workers to Santa Fe I would always get the same questions from the candidates – “Where are my kids going to go to school?” (While improving, Santa Fe and NM have some of the worst public schools in the country) and “Where am I going to work if your startup doesn’t make it?” Boulder on the other hand has a great school system and a diverse tech economy so that when knowledge workers are recruited to Boulder the recruiter can say “We have great schools and if this position doesn’t work out there are plenty of other places to work.” That means recruits are willing to uproot their families and bring them to Boulder.
So, when I hear members of the Boulder City Council saying “…locals say they don’t like the tech folks…” and the startup economy is attracting “highly paid white men to the city, and they were pricing out families and others” I can’t help but think – Are you crazy? Having a robust tech economy is what many communities like Santa Fe WISH they had. Our civic leaders have to deal with the higher cost of housing from wealthy out of state housing buyers yet the local workers are trying to survive on minimum wage jobs and the government on an insufficient tax base. As a result I have seen NM increasingly tax everything not because it is greedy but because we have to take care of a far poorer population. For instance, the “gross receipts tax” (NM’s version of a sales tax but it is levied on both goods AND services) in Santa Fe has steadily risen from just under 6% 20 years ago to over 8% now and it continues to climb.
Imagine the problems Boulder would have if it were in the same shoes as Santa Fe and didn’t have a thriving tech economy to rely on? Be Bolder Boulder and embrace the gifts that have been bestowed upon you. Work with the tech community rather than making divisive statements and see the members of your thriving tech economy as your friend and not your enemy.