I had the opportunity to attend TieCon 2008 this year held at Santa Clara convention center in silicon valley. It was a nice show organized by Tie and the event was widely covered in the media. The bay area news paper San Jose Mercury news had a headline “At TiEcon, it’s all about making the connection”. To me it served a bigger purpose than merelT making connection. It is inspiration, it is education, it is insights..so many things to me. In one of the panel discussion on solar energy and clean tech I heard one of the panelist say..building a successful company is all about passion, focus and commitment. I couldn’t have agreed more! One other panel discussion I attended was why should we be investing in the sate of Tamilnadu in India. The panel was moderated by the chief secretary to the state of Tamilnadu (Mr.L.K.Tripathy)who did a good job and also threw in a good dose of humor. Amongst other, the distinguished panelists promised a golf course in the city of Chennai for the returning Indians interested in investing in the state! I have worked in this town for couple of months during the 90s, the South Indian authentic dishes, the beaches, the company picnic to Mahabalipuram- a near by resort town, stuff memories are made off! Nice to know this city is changing..changing for the better, the top bureaucrat of the state and his team is pitching the benefit of state to potential investors…finally the power of capitalism is taking root! The chief secretary talked about welcoming new investors with open mind..so that was kind of cool.
Attending these seminars , what struck me most was not the army of VCs or the distinguished keynote speakers making rounds, but the modesty and humbleness of some of the successful entrepreneurs. In the Tamiilnadu forum, One gentleman was saying, we are a small company with 500 people based out of Chennai, with a goal to become a billion dollar company in the next few years.. Man 500 people , and he is saying a small company!! Ask a valley entrepreneur and he will tell you how hard it is to afford 50 in the valley.. I guess it’s all relative! I also attended the panel discussion on consumer platforms by Chamath Palihapitiya, VP product marketing, Facebook. This one was a good one too, and Chamath talked about how facebook is evolving into bigger than what they had anticipated, as if we are still just scratching the surface of this movement. He talked about how two people who wanted to protest against a radical organization, eventually formed a group of over 100,000 people across the globe on Facebook and voiced their protests. He said so far music is the biggest add on feature on the facebook and video is likely to take off too. Although it seemed what he was talking made sense, but frankly many times it seemed too much of a leap of faith, with the monetization aspect of it still to be proven.. I am still a skeptical and I am not alone. During the lunch hours I joined a group of like minded people in the adjoining beautiful Hyatt Regency for a pool side lunch hosted by TieCon. I found a lot of people scratching their head on what Facebook has achieved and the kind of valuation it is commanding ( a cool 15 billion dollars!). This guy from Cadence system says our business has been stagnating for the last few years. Our small group nodded in agreement, in general

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I had the opportunity to attend TieCon 2008 this year held at Santa Clara convention center in silicon valley. It was a nice show organized by Tie and the event was widely covered in the media. The bay area news paper San Jose Mercury news had a headline “At TiEcon, it’s all about making the connection”. To me it served a bigger purpose than merelT making connection. It is inspiration, it is education, it is insights..so many things to me. In one of the panel discussion on solar energy and clean tech I heard one of the panelist say..building a successful company is all about passion, focus and commitment. I couldn’t have agreed more! One other panel discussion I attended was why should we be investing in the sate of Tamilnadu in India. The panel was moderated by the chief secretary to the state of Tamilnadu (Mr.L.K.Tripathy)who did a good job and also threw in a good dose of humor. Amongst other, the distinguished panelists promised a golf course in the city of Chennai for the returning Indians interested in investing in the state! I have worked in this town for couple of months during the 90s, the South Indian authentic dishes, the beaches, the company picnic to Mahabalipuram- a near by resort town, stuff memories are made off! Nice to know this city is changing..changing for the better, the top bureaucrat of the state and his team is pitching the benefit of state to potential investors…finally the power of capitalism is taking root! The chief secretary talked about welcoming new investors with open mind..so that was kind of cool.
Attending these seminars , what struck me most was not the army of VCs or the distinguished keynote speakers making rounds, but the modesty and humbleness of some of the successful entrepreneurs. In the Tamiilnadu forum, One gentleman was saying, we are a small company with 500 people based out of Chennai, with a goal to become a billion dollar company in the next few years.. Man 500 people , and he is saying a small company!! Ask a valley entrepreneur and he will tell you how hard it is to afford 50 in the valley.. I guess it’s all relative! I also attended the panel discussion on consumer platforms by Chamath Palihapitiya, VP product marketing, Facebook. This one was a good one too, and Chamath talked about how facebook is evolving into bigger than what they had anticipated, as if we are still just scratching the surface of this movement. He talked about how two people who wanted to protest against a radical organization, eventually formed a group of over 100,000 people across the globe on Facebook and voiced their protests. He said so far music is the biggest add on feature on the facebook and video is likely to take off too. Although it seemed what he was talking made sense, but frankly many times it seemed too much of a leap of faith, with the monetization aspect of it still to be proven.. I am still a skeptical and I am not alone. During the lunch hours I joined a group of like minded people in the adjoining beautiful Hyatt Regency for a pool side lunch hosted by TieCon. I found a lot of people scratching their head on what Facebook has achieved and the kind of valuation it is commanding ( a cool 15 billion dollars!). This guy from Cadence system says our business has been stagnating for the last few years. Our small group nodded in agreement, in general