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Although I missed the lecture about International Space Station, I didn't miss a great meetup with Tina and Jin.
Silicon Valley is a great place to meet people - smart people, entrepreneurs, VCs, and techies, geeks... I didn't really get it for the first few trips to the Bay Area. Although I visited most high tech companies, the most fun part of being in the Bay Area is to spend time with People! Tina and Jin are obviously among the interesting and inspiring people in the valley.
Started with a Short Drive, and Entered a Closed Cafe
Jin joked why Stanford students work hard since all the restaurants and bars, and cafe close early. We went to one on El Camino Real only to find out it is closed. Closure of business at 6:00 PM seems an unreasonable time for me. It is especially so for a tea house.
Then we moved to the University Ave., THE street of Stanford. Last time I went there was with RC. There ARE some bars there, and they are pretty crowded, with even long waiting lines outside. Stanford students do have some place to go on Friday night.
I settled down at Coupa Cafe. Elliott put it as the first recommendation when we choose the meetup place for tomorrow. It was really nice!
Topics
We chatted a lot of topics, and many of them are interesting. For example:
History of Palo Alto -> Stanford -> Foreign International companies in China -> Trespassing -> Vote of BART extension -> Six Apart and Husband/Wife business -> VCs -> Sand Hill Road and VCs on it -> HYSTA (Hua Yuan Science & Technology Association) -> Community and Circles of Friends of Innovation/Startups -> GSR and NLVC -> Life in the Bay Area -> Logistic of McDonald/P&G/Starbucks -> Failure and Success of Microsoft China -> Google in China? ->Stages of a Startup -> Types of VCs (Grand Hytta type?)...
Anyway, there are a lot of topics, and I should definitely write some articles to summarize the thoughts of my visit to the Valley. I start to feel the value of the Silicon Valley - the inspiration, the people, and the network just stress people to think (think out of box), and generate new ideas one by one.
Let me write it up.
Tomorrow? Whole Afternoon in University Cafe
Tomorrow, I will have lunch in Buck's Restaurant at I-280 and Woodside Road. After that, I will be at this location from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM:
In case anyone want to drop by, you are welcome.University Café
271 University Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Update November 11, 2006
I may leave University Cafe earlier, like 5:00 PM. If anyone plans to come, please notify me in advance by posting a comment on this page. I will check it before I leave the University Cafe via GPRS (roaming mode) on my mobile phone.
Posted by Jian Shuo Wang at November 11, 2006 5:54 PM
Copyright: You are free to redistribute this work, as long as you keep this disclaimer
and this link: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20061111_chat_with_tina_and_jin.htm
Why you guys go take a look at another English blog done by Chinese? It's http://blog.sina.com.cn/m/jianfeng. Jianfeng is an amazing writer.
Posted by: Steven on November 12, 2006 1:52 AMYou are definitely a night owl, if that is not because of the jet lag. :)
Have to say thank you again for the thought-provoking conversation. I enjoyed it and very much look forward to your write-up.
Meantime, let me quote what Carly Fiorina (in her recent book, "tough Choice") said about Stanford and MIT, regarding how hard people were working in these two places, as she is an alum of both.
"At Stanford people are plenty smart, but when I was there, the atmosphere was quite relaxed. I, and many others, worked extremely hard, but you didn't have to. At MIT everyone did- and you had to."
This might lead to another interesting topic, regarding the working culture/people's mentality at east coast and west coast. It might add some insights to the comparison the two most regarded entrepreneurship communities in US, Silicon Vallay and Boston. Anyway, lots of interesting topics we can talk about later.
btw, Highway 66, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66
Enjoy your stay at Bay Area.
Steven, your link cannot be opened in China mainland.
So we guys have to stay here, as this blog is still open in China !
carsten, good news for you:
Beijing Eases Ban on Wikipedia; Chinese-Language Filter Remains
Wall Street Journal (subscription), NY - Oct 16, 2006
http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB116103081597594276.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj
Chinese Government Relaxes Its Total Ban on Wikipedia
New York Times, United States - Oct 15, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10915FF35540C758DDDA90994DE404482