Spring Break
Immersion Experience - Reflections on the Silicon Valley IXP
Why this IXP is important to students at HBS
Patrick Chun (NB), Contributing Writer
Issue date: 1/26/09 Section: Features
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Supplemented by internal discussions on how to foster innovation, and what institutional and personal factors lead to success in such an environment, students got a first-hand opportunity to explore the rewards, risks, and challenges of an entrepreneurial path.
About fifty HBS students ventured out to the rather umimpressive suburban landscapes of Palo Alto during the first week of January for the first-ever Silicon Valley IXP. And while the flat (albeit tree-lined) vistas, one-story bungalows, and dreary weather of Silicon Valley may not have compared to the breathtaking landscapes of many of our fellow section mates' treks to foreign lands, my decision to spend a week living and breathing start-ups was one the best decisions I've made since starting at HBS.
Having spent my immediate two years prior to HBS working in technology private equity in the Bay Area (including time on the venered Sand Hill Road), I harbored a strange mix of both excitement and hesitancy when deciding to take one of the coveted RC spots on this IXP. On one hand, I'd be returning to the Bay Area, where after a semester at HBS I could re-surround myself with the zeal and youthful entrepreneurial energy that Silicon Valley is (in)famous for. On the flipside, I asked myself, was it smart to be spending one of only two winter breaks returning to a place where I had once lived, rather than signing up for a once in a lifetime trek to, say, Africa or South America? After much contemplation, I decided "yes", due in no small part to revisit my network in Silicon Valley, but also with the hope to reinvigorate my desire to engage in the entrepreneurial zeitgeist of the region.
For a little over five days, we engaged in various VC meetings, start-up tours, and small group/mentor sessions with entrepreneurial companies and VC firms, depending on which track (join a start-up, join a VC, or start your own business) we signed up for and which broad industry focus (consumer internet or cleantech) we were interested in. Although this sounds complicated (and the logistics certainly were, though seamlessly executed by our coordinators Laurie Matthews and Allison Wagonfeld), in retrospect the well-balanced mix of meeting with successful entrepreneurs, direct question-and-answer time with some of the region's most experienced VCs, and filtering strong (and often times conflicting) opinions from various experts in the region provided us an opportunity to step back from the horrible economic situation and (speaking for myself, at least) often myopic perspective of summer recruiting, to ask ourselves how entrepreneurs have come to define Silicon Valley, and whether this sort of aspiration makes sense for each one of us personally.
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