Summer is here in Silicon Valley

I just realized it's been 6 months since my last blog post. How time flies! Here's what's been happening so far.

In late Oct 2011, I attended the legendary (at least to me) Y Combinator's Startup School 2011 in Stanford university (Thank you Paul, Jessica and Y C crew). It was a very unforgettable and rewarding day. I finally got to see many celebrities in the startup community in person, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen,  Max Levchin and Aston Kutcher :) just to name a few. Here are a couple of photos I took there (sorry about the terrible layout, it's blogger's fault):

One funny comment one of the speaker mentioned was a lot of startups are a lot like the South Park episode: Gnome. If you don't have time to watch the video, there's a wikipedia page. The business plan includes 3 phases: 1. collect underpants 2. ? 3. profit

I went back to Hunan province, China during Christmas to vist my parents. It was cold as usual. I got sick for the most part of the trip. But it was good to be home. A lot more ex-colleagues in Shanghai got cars now. About half of the people who went to dinner with me in Shanghai drove. I think only one person or none had a car when I left for the U.S. in 2008.

I attended the 2012 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas in Jan, 2012 right after I got back from the holidays. It was an event I wanted to see for a long time. But it turned out to be a big disappointment. I like to interact with people and attend pannel discussions when I go to conferences. CES is more like a big trade show. If you're into gadgets and enjoy spending time looking at numerous electronics products with little differentiation, it's a good event. Otherwise, save yourself some money and don't go :). I'm speaking from a non-business attendee pont of view. If you go on business, that's a different story.

The only highlight of CES was seeing many Chinese companies coming up with Android devices. I especially liked the ones at Huawei's booth. They feel good holding in my hand and run the latest Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) version of Android. Here is a photo of the booth:

It rained for 3 weeks or so here. For a State that's famous for its sunshine, that's a long time. It finally stopped raining a week ago and weather has been really nice since then. 

I saw a Techcrunch article: Stop Looking For A Technical Co-founder last week that really resonated with me. I find it very true that "Most quality software engineers today have offers of amazing work environments and 6-figure salaries from the likes of Google and Facebook. Few are crazy enough to say no to that. Those that do typically have their own ideas, aren’t sure they need you, and have heard enough cliche pitches to ignore you by default."

Fortune's article Warren Buffett's $50 Billion Decision was also a good read. "Although I had no idea, age 25 was a turning point. I was changing my life, setting up something that would turn into a fairly good-size partnership called Berkshire Hathaway. I wasn’t scared. I was doing something I liked, and I’m still doing it." If you're 25 and are reading this, this (doing something you like) is probably the best advice you can ever get.

If you're like me, living in a country other than your home country, this New York Times article probably will make you home sick: The New Globalist Is Homesick. "Like Mr. Valencia, 20 to 40 percent of all immigrants to the United States ultimately return to their native lands. They know that Skype is no substitute for actually being there."

SXSW 2011 notes

The above image has nothing to do with my experience with SXSW. It's the first image that came up from Google image search for "sxsw girl". Trying to see if this increases readership if I put random attractive female picture on my posts.

3/11 Day 1

I test drove Chevy Volt. It's an electric car for the first 40 miles or so. When the batteries run out, it runs on gasoline. I didn't think it's such a revolutionary car like my colleague does. Certainly not for the $33 000 price tag.  But I praise the marketing people working there. Chevy hired the fight folks. They did a good job generating buzz for the car.

The most interesting session is the one Brain Wong a 19 20 year old entrepreneur held about how to succeed being young. Later, his company Kiip received $4 million funding and is generating buzz. 

3/12 Day 2

My colleague was very impressed about the conference. He made a comment something along these lines: "All these wonderful things could be happening right now and we would have no clue if we weren't here". I think a big part of SXSW interactive is about generating serendipity and there's plenty of it.

Another thing I learned at a session is stop listening to your customers. Don't bore them with your surveys. Observe your customers instead. I think it's a very useful advice. People often lie or can not articulate about their needs. This resonates with another useful advice, especially for girls. If you want to know whether someone loves you, do not listen to anything he/she says. Only pay attention to what he/she does.

Life after YC is a very interesting session with founders from Airbnb, dropbox and two other companies I can't recall (one of which Jessica Mah is the founder). 

Keynote from Seth Priebatsch is good. He is in his early 20s and have done some cool things. No excuse for the rest of us:).

Frog's party is less interesting this year after hearing the augmented reality toilet thing they did last year. Nothing particularly memorable.

The rest:
Groupon's marketing person did a funny session about corporate creativity. I start to pay more attention to the text they write on their web pages. 

Keynote by Chris Poole from 4Chan is kinda boring. I think it mostly have something to do with his presentation skills and my unfamiliarity with 4Chan. Now my profile image on my instant messenger is from 4Chan.

Google party is okay. At least there is a Google party.

Vimeo party is awesome. It's a rave party in a power plant. Well done. 

In conclusion: It's a cool conference if you have some $2 000+ to spend. Or if you have never been to Texas (like me). For the lucky ones working in marketing department in some startups, it's a conference where you get made, paid and laid.

SXSW 2011 notes 3/10 day 0

Ever since I got back from South by South West or SXSW this week, I got some questions about the event. So this will be a relatively long post. If you work in the tech sector, it's hard to avoid hearing about SXSW in the past week. All the major press have some coverage for this event. In this post, I hope to add some of my personal takeaways and share some of my thoughts about the event. So you don't have to spend money and vacation hours to be there. 

SXSW is a conference/festival held at Austin, Texas every year. It contains 3 major parts: interactive, music and film. Traditionally, Music has been the most well-known portion of the event. However, this year, more people attended interactive than music. 

I attended the interactive portion this year from 3/11-3/15. Everyday, there're around 300 events scheduled in Austin Convention Center and surrounding hotels. Events includes keynotes, pannel discussions, presentations, core conversations, meetups and etc. Every night, there're at least 7 or 8 industry parties organized by major companies like Google, Microsoft and 20 or 30 parties organized by startup companies like Foursquare, Groupme. 

While sitting at San Francisco airport terminal, the first thing I noticed is that almost everyone on the flight is going to SXSW. I convinced my colleague Suresh who recently switched job to Product Manager in search to come with me to attend SXSW. Since he want to go again next year. I guess I've made the world a better place by influencing one person at a time ;). Suresh is Indian. I'm Chinese. Neither of us have been to Texas before. I kind of felt like the movie Herald & Kumar where an Indian and a Chinese go on a funny trip. 

Just before we boarded the plane, we noticed a prominent silicon valley angel investor, Dave McClure, is about to board the same flight.  Dave gave me his business card last time I met him at a SXSW meetup in San Francisco. I had no idea who he was at the time. He sat 3 rows behind me. I had a hunch that I'm going to the right place this time. 

After we landed, I noticed there are a lot more white people around us compared to the bay area where there are a lot more Asians. I've occasionally heard things like rednecks and roadkill about Texas from Californians. So I was a bit alerted about the environment and surroundings. The rest of the trip proved me that it's unnecessary. I was surprised how nice people are there. I had a great time in Austin. Suresh said he want to stay there forever:).  

We spent the rest of the day checking in the hotel and getting our badge at the convention center. Getting our badge before the 1st day proved to be one of the best decisions we made on this trip judging the length of the line the next day. 

It's good to see Google's "old friend" Aol's presence at SXSW:

Smiley Media opened its office to host a party with free booze. I've never heard the company before. But hard to resist free drinks. The office is in a very nice hotel building which I can't recall the name. The interesting thing about the office is that it has a secret room behind the book shelf. What a brilliant idea.

I'm turning into an Apple fanboy

I got my first Mac computer a couple of weeks ago after my friend Rahim described me what a versatile platform it is. I ordered my ipad online because it's sold out in 4 stores near Sunnyvale. I even called a store today to make sure they had it in stock. But when I got there 1.5 hours later, they were sold out.

I use Nexus One Android phone and really want Iphone 4. However, I liked Tethering support on Froyo (Android 2.2). It helped a lot when I first moved to the bay area since there was no internet in my apartment. I could just use my laptop's wifi and my Nexus One as an AP. I got decent Internet speed for browsing and chat. Also, when I visit countries outside the US, unlocked Android will really help my phone bills. Because I can basically buy a local pay-as-you-go plan and not pay outragous International roaming.

Before I started my job at Google, I went to Yellowstone national park in Wyoming. It was a very good experience. I camped by the lake with a few friends. We even rented a moter boat and had a fun ride on the lake.

Back from San Francisco

Met amazing people in San Francisco and the Bay area. Special thanks to everyone I met at Google, Ricardo, Caris, Yvonne and Pei.

Used my Nexus One phone through out the trip. Navigation, checking emails, making calls, twittering, getting public transportation, finding restaurants...The only problem is short battery life and overheating when mounted on the wind shield as a GPS. So I will bring my actual GPS on my future trips.

I'll try to return the car kit tomorrow since I won't be using Nexus one as my main navigation device. I'm keeping the Nexus One phone because I'm still on the AT&T 2 year plan till August, 2010. Nexus One is still the most powerful Android phone on AT&T. I plan to sell the Nexus One and switch to Verizon's most powerful Android phone then.

Here are some pictures I took on the trip:

2010-4 san francisco networking

Back from Nanking

check out the web album

Pros

• Nice bullet-train ride from Shanghai to Nanking(though not as fast as bullet-trains in the rest of the world, well, not yet). 300KM in 2.5 hours, 3 stops in between.
• Hunan Rd is nice in the evening for food (if you like real Chinese food).
• Confucius temple, Qinghuai river are nice
  

Cons

• Youth hostel close to Confucius temple under poor management.
• Not as clean(organized) as other neighbouring cities

Rating: 3 out of 5
Conclusion: old capital, so it's old. Somehow not well maintained and developed in my opinion

Back from Ningbo (宁波)

last last weekend, 2 days trip in Shanghai :) Pictures 2be uploaded later.
last weekend 2 days trip to a 4 hours away from shanghai city called Ningbo.

High

• Seafood is SOOO GREAT. I was so hungry and I keep eating eating and eating, so no picture of food taken this time. My apologies
• City is great too. A good escape from the hustle and bustle Shanghai.
  
• People are greater:). Nice and friendly (though I had a little water-fight using my paddle with a couple of local boys on the other boat)
• Taxi drivers are good. I mean they drive like F1 driver, yahoo!
  

Low

• A city like this should be 30 mins maximum from Shanghai~!
• Night life isn't as fancy as Shanghai
  
• There might not be enough high-end jobs for young professionals

Rating
4 of 5. Definitely a recommend if you have a few days to kill. I will visit there again, when there's plenty of seafood in autumn.

Check out the web album

Back from Wuzhen (乌镇)

Extremely low budget trip to a old town. 140 KM to the west of Shanghai

Motivation: a TV soup (似水年华) was shot there.

Schedule:
S at, Jan 13th 14:50 Shanghai->Jiaxing (1h Train) 16:50 Jiaxing->Wuzhen(1 1/2 h Bus)
Sun, Jan 14th 12:50 Wuzhen-> Shanghai(3 h Bus)

Highs:

• Buildings & Old looking streets on the sides of the river (canal).
• Friendly local folks.
• Free sample of local distilled liquor.
  

Lows:

• Packed with tourists from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m most times of the year.
• Expensive entrance tickets.
  
• Most buildings and streets are (re)built in year 2000 with the old looking according to a local lady:(.
• "official" lodging and food inside the "scenic" area way to expensive
• The rest of the town is just as plain as other un-developed area in China.
  

Rating & Conclusion:
2 of 5. I would recommend you to take the day return trip from Shanghai, Hangzhou or other close-by city, if you insist to go there.

Online album.