Lesson of the day: it is all about the beer and skittles.
Today was a sad day. It was a day filled with amazing meetings, but it was our last day in San Francisco before heading back to the snowy Midwest. In order to celebrate, we began by catching up on book reports. In fact, we got through most, except mine. Pyz talked about the Four Hour Work Week, Bryan discussed the Numerati (a way of predicting people’s behavior), and Aaron talked about the beginning of Facebook from the book, Accidental Billionaires. We reported on the books we read at Peet’s Coffee House. It was crowded, but we succeeded in getting a table and 10 chairs by standing awkwardly until people felt bad and let us have a place to sit.
Once again, the conversation drifted to social networking, which was appropriate as we were headed to Facebook. We met with Dave Fetterman at Facebook and he talked to us about his new position as engineering manager of the mobile Facebook. He talked about how the mobile application of Facebook is like a start-up company in size and the amount of work to do. The good thing about acting like a start-up is that there is energy and innovation along with a sense of purpose. The culture at Facebook is what surprised me the most. There are no cubicles, just one computer after another on long tables. The only belongings employees have are what are on the tiny desk space. The building is all open and I can’t imagine how anyone gets anything done with everyone so close, but somehow, they manage. As we were leaving, we got to add our nametags to the giant ball of old visitor nametags.
We then quickly grabbed some Chipotle before heading to Microsoft. We had no idea what to expect at Microsoft, but were led into a huge conference room equipped with in-table microphones and an array of goodies. We were sitting around when in walks Dan’l Lewin, Corporate VP of Microsoft and developer of Apple (I could go on and on about his credentials, but lets just say it is a long list and he is a very powerful businessman). We had a question and answer forum with Lewin where he answered our remaining questions about Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurial world. Lewin then left us in the capable hands of the tech developers and Justin showed us the demos of the research at Microsoft. It is amazing, and it should be. Microsoft spends $10 billion in research alone. Much of the research is never used in any Microsoft product.
I am quickly going to explain some of my favorite technologies that are either in process, in testing, or an idea for the future. There are technologies like instant translation, multiple points of touch screens, and a transparent computer screen with the ability to scan items onto the screen. I think the computer with multiple monitors but no keyboard would be really cool to own. You wouldn’t need a mouse because you use your touch in order to move the items on the screen. After watching a video and talking about all of the interesting new technology, we got to demo a touch screen that costs $10,000 let alone the software required to use the actual screen. The applications that can be used on the touch screen (it looks like a coffee table) are unique and varied and include a medical application along with plenty of games. We could have spent hours messing with everything but we had to move along to Intel.
After being amazed with everything happening at Microsoft, Intel was a little bit different for me. First, the culture was closed. The entire building was quiet with high cubicles and a sense of gloom hung in the air. Intel personnel have to be incredibly detail-oriented and their work is highly complex. A lot of the discussion with Neil MacAvoy went over my head, especially when getting into the detail about computer chips and such. I still had fun and took a lot away about how to keep innovative when working in such a big company. MacAvoy had a few words of description about start-up companies, their passion, innovation, and energy. According to him, start-ups are “all about the beer and skittles.”
Overall, my brain was saturated with all the information it had taken in during the past two weeks. Starting at Callspark who is in its infancy all the way to Intel, a company that pulled in a good chunk of change, I have learned and experienced so much that will help in my future endeavors. These experiences included trying a whole bunch of new food. My taste testing came to an end as we celebrated our final evening by getting dressed up (well some people did) and eating at the Italian restaurant, La Strada. All those who were legal, tried some wine (I stuck to water which was refilled every two seconds by the waiter). We started by sharing a couple of pizzas, followed by the main entrée of some pasta which I can’t pronounce or spell (I gave a valiant effort though) that consisted of lamb ragu and ricotta cheese, and ended with a chocolate soufflé that was to die for.
The night ended in no other way than us all writing our blogs, reminiscing about the trip, and packing for our return to the Midwest.
Kaitlin
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