A week in the Silicon Valley

I arrived to SFO on Saturday night around 10pm, checked into the same hotel on Lombard street, and had Dungeness crab and Chardonnay at Bobo’s, a restaurant across the street from the hotel. I was fairly exhausted and went straight to sleep. On Sunday, I had lunch in Sausalito with Ben. I ate a clam chowder with crab cakes. After a short walk on the boardwalk, we headed for the Silicon Valley. I arranged to stay with a family through Leo, who had lived and worked in the Valley for years. The family welcomed me warmly. After a short basketball game with the children, who are 6 and 8, we had dinner and had a long and pleasant conversation. I had a chance to practice my Spanish as the mother is from Spain and speaks almost exclusively in Spanish to the children, although she has been in the US for over 10 years and obviously speaks English perfectly. After showing them some pictures on this blog, we called it a day and I retired to my bedroom.

On Monday morning, my elective called “Building Business in the Silicon Valley” started. Here was the schedule:




While I won’t describe each meeting in details, I can say that the week was incredibly insightful and educational. Most people we met were extremely successful in transforming garage ideas into half-billion dollar companies. We visited the Google headquarters, referred to as their campus, in Mountain View. The place is absolutely astonishing! The 3 “Fs” at Google are Fun, Food and Fast. There are many restaurants around campus which serve anything from bio food to Mexican to Asian. There are also hundreds of fridges scattered in every building with every non-alcoholic drink you can think of and all kinds of snacks. There are gyms, a couple of jet pools monitored by a full-time lifeguard and all kinds of other wild things like electric scooters to get around the campus. And best of all, it’s all completely FREE for Google employees. The place is truly buzzing and humming! The average age for the entire company is 26 years old, with tons of undergraduate programmers. Friday’s speakers addressed us on the Wharton West campus in San Francisco, which is normally used exclusively for Exec MBAs from the Bay Area.

Every lunch was super rushed, as the speakers were very interesting and most meetings went for longer than planned. I shoved sandwiches down my throat in 2-5 minutes every day. On Monday night, most of us had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Sunnyvale. On Tuesday night, the entire group had Middle-Eastern food in Palo Alto. On Wednesday night, a student from INSEAD who lives on the Stanford Campus invited the group for a BBQ at his house. On Thursday night, we headed back to San Francisco and had dinner at “Chez Papa”, a decent French restaurant were I enjoyed truly excellent Californian Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, along with Japanese fish tartar and a tender rack of lamb. Ben, Paul and I then went to The Matrix, a cool bar within walking distance from our hotel which sports a fireplace and comfortable seats. On Friday, I headed to SFO right after the last speaker and begun the long journey to Paris via London.

After a 10-hour flight to Heathrow, a 4-hour layover and a short flight to CDG, I grabbed my bags and picked up my Peugeot 307 from Hertz. I am delighted with the vehicle so far. The diesel engine is has nice torque, and there are so many buttons and functions that I haven’t figured out how to use them all yet! I completed the hour-long drive to Fontainebleau without incident, other than catching a ticket (I think) with a photo-radar. I was following another car which did not get the flash, so it’s a bit of a mystery which it flashed me but not the car ahead. I read up on the subject so I now know that the tolerance is only 5 km/h above the posted limit. Considering the effectiveness of the French government, by the time I receive the ticket, I will likely be retired anyways… I slept at Fred’s house in downtown Fontainebleau, and was impressed by the number of charming cafés, restaurants and shops within walking distance. Because of the 9-hour time difference with California, I woke up around 6am, which gave me this chance to catch up on the blogging. I look forward to moving in my own house with Ben, Tapan, Charles and Gustav on Tuesday. Many good times to come in the next two months!

Many pictures to come as they become available.