Design in the 21st Century: A Coffee with Barry Katz (Part 1)

It’s 8:45 in the morning and I have just sat down for a cup of coffee and a chat with Barry Katz. A bit whimsically, he describes himself as a “dyed-in-the-wool humanities guy”; however, it is very easy to see past his humility and recognize his tremendous passion and intellect within. He is a historian

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Stanford’s Seed Fund

While we’ve been on the topic of seed funding, Techcrunch is reporting the launch of a new seed fund at Stanford.

April 4 Invitation

I want to invite my readers to an exhibition of work by a dear friend and an artist for whom I have the highest regard.

In France, Failure Sucks

We have had some discussions in the past here about how Silicon Valley’s success owes itself to the fact that risk-taking is encouraged here, and failure is not a stigma that you have to carry throughout your career. I recently attended a roundtable at Stanford with a delegation from France, where this topic came up

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eBay of Latin America: Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperin (Part 1)

I did this interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during my recent trip consulting with Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest online marketplace. I found the story fascinating, and wanted to capture it for my readers all over the world. SM: I would like to hear the story of how you built Mercado Libre. Let’s start with

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Venky Harinarayan on Kosmix and Vertical Search (Part 1)

Someone asked me earlier about Kosmix in one of the discussions on this blog, and I had said that I hadn’t looked at the company yet. Well, now I have, and I am happy to bring you a conversation with Venky Harinarayan on the genesis and direction of vertical search startup, Kosmix. SM: Please describe

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Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 3)

SM: Where did you go after Stanford? EB: The first company that offered me a job was Zilog. They were the second microprocessor company in Silicon Valley; Intel was the first one. The inventor of the microprocessor, Federico Faggin had left Intel and founded Zilog. I joined him about 12 to 18 months after he

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The Next Big Innovation in Microprocessors: Anant Agarwal (Part 1)

I write this series with great pleasure, as my former graduate school advisor and renowned MIT professor Anant Agarwal unveils his so far stealth-mode company Tilera this week. Tilera could well be the next big breakthrough in processor design. SM: Anant, please give us some background on where you come from. AA: Growing up, I

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