Secret Silicon Valley: Deconstructing Silicon Valley While Exploding The Myths & The Memes

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


Business Is Simply Warfare Without The Pleasantries and Veneer of the Geneva Convention

• What if most of the accepted truths and official narrative about why certain startups, new ventures or new products have succeeded or "failed" are completely wrong?
  

• Worse, what if these accepted truths and official narratives are not just simply wrong but dangerously destructive?
  

• And worst of all, what if these destructive "truths" have become so accepted and so ingrained that they are now enshrined as series of powerful Myths and Memes?

We'll explore and explode some of Silicon Valley's most accepted truths and purported reasons for success and failure. And while we're at it, we'll explore not just the technology component, but the more important and far less analyzed and understood business and human resources components.

From the structure of investment financing and the design, development and marketing of product to the challenges of hiring, deploying. managing and retaining strong talent, we'll discuss key but often overlooked factors such as government market distortions (e.g., regulatory capture, SEC regulations related to investor accreditation, etc.) and the ubiquitous yet ever destructive office politics.

We'll leave no stone unturned as we propose that today's Silicon Valley (now including San Francisco), is less and less about technology and more and more about psychology, influence, persuasion, Jedi-level business development and sales, talent acquisition, management, retention and deployment along with strategic and tactical execution.