Archives mensuelles : juin 2008

EDA, une industrie de la Silicon Valley

Penny Aycinena m’a demandé d’écrire un bref article pour EDA confidential, qui résume mes inquiétudes et mes espoirs quant à l’innovation et aux start-up. Il est publié aujourd’hui (30 juin 2008).

Laissez-moi lui ajouter quelques lignes:

Le chapitre de “Start-Up” qui a été le moins remarqué est le chapitre 6. Il est pourtant un de mes préférés. EDA signifie Electronic Design Automation. Aujourd’hui aucun architecte ne peut concevoir un bâtiment complexe sans logiciel spécialisé ; il en est de même pour un ingénieur qui conçoit une automobile, un avion. C’est exactement la même chose pour la conception des circuits électroniques.

Il y a vingt-cinq ans, l’EDA n’existait quasiment pas. Il y a quarante ans, les circuits étaient conçus en interne (et manuellement) chez IBM, Motorola,… mais petit à petit, de nouveaux acteurs apparurent, des start-up minuscules sont devenus des géants, et une industrie s’est bâtie. L’EDA a représenté plus de $5B de revenus en 2007. Le cycle typique de créations et d’acquisitions de start-up s’est perpétué sur presque vingt ans, mais depuis, 2001, il ne s’est plus passé grand-chose : pas d’IPO, peu d’acquisitions de taille, et il y a quelques jours, Cadence, le no1 mondial, a lancé une offre hostile d’acquisition contre Mentor, le no3. Les deux sociétés ont été fondées dans les années 80.

L’EDA est une parfaite illustration de la Silicon Valley: un réseau dense d’individus, chercheurs, entrepreneurs, investisseurs. Ce qui est intéressant à propos de l’EDA est que son centre est Berkeley (plus que Stanford ou Sand Hill Road) comme le montre la figure qui suit. Pour terminer, voici deux citations de légendes de l’EDA, deux récipiendaires de la Kaufman award, le prix Nobel de l’EDA:

– “Risk taking in EDA is gone.” Joe Costello

– “If there is a single point I wish to make here today, it is that as a discipline, both in industry and in academia, we are just not taking enough risks today.” Richard Newton

Il est possible que la maturité de l’EDA comme de la Silicon Valley ne soit pas un très bon présage.

Y a-t-il une recette pour l’entrepreneuriat?

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Les étudiants de l’Ecole Hôteliere de Lausanne qui ont un goût naturel pour la gastronomie m’ont posé la question récemment. Je me suis inspiré de Paul Graham et de Steve Jobs pour en fournir les ingrédients. Le texte en anglais est disponible en pdf. Voici la réponse (en anglais également) …

Is there a recipe for entrepreneurship?

“Launching a start-up is not a rational act. Success only comes from those who are foolish enough to think unreasonably. Entrepreneurs need to stretch themselves beyond convention and constraint to reach something extraordinary.” Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems

Europe is aware that it is not as efficient with entrepreneurship as the USA, and Silicon Valley is the extreme illustration of the American model. Google, Yahoo, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, Intel are only a few examples. What are ours? What did we do wrong? My answer is that we have not bet on passionate individuals ready to take risks and face uncertainty: young people who may fail but will learn from their mistakes.

If you are not convinced or surprised with the argument, let me quote some Silicon Valley icons. Steve Jobs said about Silicon Valley success: “There are two or three reasons. You have to go back a little in history. I mean this is where the beatnik happened in San Francisco. It is a pretty interesting thing…You’ve also had Stanford and Berkeley, two awesome universities drawing smart people from all over the world and depositing them in this clean, sunny, nice place where there’s a whole bunch of other smart people and pretty good food. And at times a lot of drugs and all of that. So they stayed… I think it’s just a very unique place.”

The main investor in Apple, Steve Jobs’ company, Don Valentine adds: “Founders are genetically impossible by choice. There were only two true visionaries in the history of Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs and Bob Noyce [Intel’s founder]. Their vision was to build great companies… Steve was twenty, un-degreed, some people said unwashed, and he looked like Ho Chi Min. But he was a bright person… Phenomenal achievement done by somebody in his very early twenties… Bob was one of those people who could maintain perspective because he was inordinately bright. Steve could not. He was very, very passionate, highly competitive.” By the way, Bob Noyce mentored Steve Jobs.

Let me add one more quote by another investor, Tom Perkins: “The difference is in psychology: everybody in Silicon Valley knows somebody that is doing very well in high-tech start-ups; so they say to themselves “I am smarter than Joe. If he could make millions, I can make a billion”. So they do and they think they will succeed and by thinking they can succeed, they have a good shot at succeeding. That psychology does not exist so much elsewhere,”

Quotes may not be any proof, but consider the age of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs: Steve Jobs was 21, the Google founders were 25, the eBay founder was 28, and the Yahoo founders were 27 and 29. Do not think this is linked to the Internet. Mister Hewlett and Packard were 26 and 27 in 1939 when they founded HP. Founders often come also as a team of two; many are foreigners, immigrants who have something to prove, “hungry people”.

But if we would try to find a recipe, a recipe that Europe could use to bake fresh Entrepreneurs for their economies, what would it be? Paul Graham, an entrepreneur whose blog, www.paulgraham.com, is a must-read, has his strange advice: two main ingredients are needed, rich people and “nerds”. In my recent book, “start-up”, I use his advice for my very own recipe:

– Take rich people and nerds.

– Do not add any bureaucracy, do not add concrete.

– In order to attract and keep enough nerds/cooks in a place, there is a need for a large and nice plate.

A university is a good choice, it needs personality, and it needs to be creative. Not only on its campus, but also in its surroundings, so that the ingredients feel comfortable in the plate.

– The ingredients should be fresh, i.e. they should be young and dynamic.

Graham also mentions liberal environments, which, he claims, tolerate strange and brilliant individuals. [Read again what Jobs said above about SV].

– Then the ingredients have to be put in the oven for a very long time.

Silicon Valley began in 1957. It took ten years, even twenty years, to make this region successful; it is about the time it takes to grow infants into adults.

– The oven should not be too hot, so that the desire is not killed, then the temperature should be increased to maintain the enthusiasm.

A temperate, pleasant climate is therefore necessary.

If all the conditions are in place, the result will probably be interesting.

Lausanne has many assets to become such a place. Lausanne has EPFL, Unil, EHL, IMD. It has rich people. It has a nice climate and nice food, a rich cultural environment. So what we “just” need is the desire to try. Of course, ideas and projects have to be well managed. But first and foremost, we need young people, not afraid of being ambitious. As a final word, I think we should also take more inspiration from Silicon Valley. First, visit the place and understand it better; second, invite back the Europeans who live over there and have experienced this unique culture. We have to learn from them. So you have my recipe for entrepreneurship. The recipe for success is more an Art than a Science and listen again to what Steve Jobs said in 2005 at the first graduate diploma ceremony he ever attended: “Stay foolish, stay hungry.”

Sources:

Paul Graham and Silicon Valley
http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html

Steve Jobs at Stanford
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

“Start-up, what we may still learn from Silicon Valley”
https://www.startup-book.com

Innovation: le moteur des affaires?

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La Fondation Ditchley est une étrange chose, du moins je l’imagine pour un non-britannique. J’ai participé à la mi-mai à un workshop sur l’Innovation où les participants (car tout comme dans la technologie, la gente féminine y fut très minoritaire) discutèrent du sujet dans un très beau château XVIIIème siècle !

Les discussions furent détendues, amicales (cadre oblige) mais aussi sérieuses et passionnées. La leçon principale que j’en ai tirée est que l’innovation est toujours vue comme un processus d’institutions établies et pas comme ce que les start-up font le mieux. Pour ceux intéressés par une vue rafraichissante du sujet, la synthèse produite par le chairman de Ditchley et de grand intérêt et disponible en ligne.

Ode au Désordre

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Trop d’organisation nuit à l’innovation.

Tels sont les titre et sous-titre du brillant article (de fond) de Julien Tarby dans le nouvel économiste publié le 5 juin. Un article proche des mes préoccupations sur l’innovation en Europe. L’article fait la part belle aux problèmes qu’ont les grandes entreprises à innover et l’analyse est passionnante. Mais il relève aussi des points connexes assez édifiants. Par exemple :

– 1 euro investi dans le venture-capital génèrera 10 fois plus de retombées qu’1 euro versé dans la R&D traditionnelle des entreprises (Source : Samuel Kortum et Josh Lerner)

– Selon Pascal Picq, paléoanthropologue développant la théorie de l’évolution des espèces pour les entreprises : les start-up qui s’adaptent pour survivre son darwiniennes. “Malheureusement l’éducation française reste lamarckienne avant tout, considérant que les organisations s’améliorent dans un schéma de développement (administrations, grandes entreprises). C’est le pays des grands projets planifiés (avion, train…) et non des ruptures.” Cette culture de la norme n’admettrait pas la variabilité, ignorerait la phase essai/erreur, pousserait à améliorer les domaines d’excellence, non à créer de nouvelles filières.

Comme l’article est gratuit sur internet sous forme pdf, filez le télécharger !

L’Espagne est passionée par l’Innovation

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J’ai eu le plaisir d’être interviewé sur le livre Start-Up par Doris Obermair. Le texte est disponible en Espagnol et en Anglais dans le magazine If… La Revista de Innovation : Más pasión y sueños, menos infraestructura y experiencia (version anglaise)

et la video (anglais) est-elle disponible sur le site Infonomia.

Cerise sur le gâteau, je participerai le 10 juillet à la conférence Ifest pour parler à nouveau du sujet. La conférence me semble passionnante en raison de la diversité des intervenants.

Founders at Work

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Voici un livre passionnant, si passionnant que je me décide à écrire un post alors que je n’en ai pas achevé la lecture: Jessica Livingston dans Founders at Work a interviewé 32 entrepreneurs. Les leçons sont convaincantes et souvent fascinantes. Sans obtenir son autorisation, j’en copie ici quelques extraits. Le livre est un vrai plaisir même s’il y a quelques fois des longueurs relatives au descriptif spécifique des start-up, mais cela fait dans doute partie des contraintes de l’exercice. A lire absolument !

Paul Buchheit, créateur Gmail à propos de la prise de risque

As I say, for people, it depends on their situation if they can take that risk of joining a startup or moving to a new city if they don’t live in the right place. For me, I was actually single at the time, I didn’t have a mortgage, so the idea of joining a little startup that may well be destroyed was just like, “That will be fun.” Because I kind of thought, “Even if Google doesn’t make it, it will be educational and I’ll learn something.” Honestly, I was pretty sure AltaVista was going to destroy Google.

Mike Ramsay, fondateur de Tivo à propos de la Silicon Valley

I was curious to see what’s the attitude of a typical startup in Scotland compared to here. I found that they are just culturally a whole lot more conservative and cautious. And somewhat lacking in self-confidence. You come over here and . . . I had a meeting recently with a couple of early 20-year-olds who have decided to drop out of Stanford because they got bored, and they are trying to raise money to fund their startup. They believe they can do it, and nothing’s going to hold them back. They have confidence, they have that spirit, which I think is great and is probably unique to this part of the world. Being part of that for so long, for me, has been very invigorating.

Joshua Schachter, fondateur de del.icio.us à propos de l’exécution

But the guy who says, “I have a great idea and I’m looking for other people to implement it,” I’m wary of—frequently because I think the process of idea-making relies on executing and failing or succeeding at the ideas, so that you can actually become better at coming up with ideas.

…et à propos des VCs

In general, I found VCs to be significantly politer than the folks I worked with. The worst they did was not call me back. I’d never hear from them again. Brad Feld does a nice blog talking about how the VC process works. He says they never call you back to say no—they don’t want to close the door in case they want to open it again, but they don’t want to actually give you a response. Very few VCs actually said, “Sorry, we’re not interested.”

Craig Newmark, fondateur de craiglist sur la définition d’une start-up

“in the conventional sense, we were never a startup. In the conventional sense, a startup is a company, maybe with great ideas, that becomes a serious corporation. It usually takes serious investment, has a strategy, and they want to make a lot of money.”