Chapter 68 Section 3 Equal Opportunity

Silicon Valley can become the capital of science and technology, and its long-term prosperity must have its brilliance.One of the most critical is to ensure equal opportunity.No one, no country, or any system can guarantee absolute fairness in our society. (In fact, there is no need to pursue absolute fairness.) However, a good system must ensure that everyone has equal opportunities. Silicon Valley is a place where authority is everywhere but never believed.There are not only giants like John Henessey (Principal of Stanford, one of the inventors of the RISC processor system architecture), Larry Ellison (President of Oracle) and outstanding industrial leaders like Jobs. There are also John Doeer (partner of John Doeer KPCB) and Michael Morris (partner of Michael Moritz Sequoia Ventures), known as the king of venture capital.There are nearly 100 winners of the Nobel Prize, Turing Award and Shannon Award here.Academicians of various national academies of sciences and engineering academies are numerous.If your car breaks down on the road, the well-meaning person who stopped to help you could be a big shot. (Alan Eustace, Google's first vice president of engineering, was there to help.)

However, Silicon Valley has never been superstitious about authority.Anyone who wants to be successful here has to show real talent and presence.In many places in the United States, especially in traditional industries, personal experience (Resume) is generally valued or even overemphasized rather than the ability to do things.For example, if a graduate wants to do research at the IBM Watson Laboratory in the eastern United States or the former Bell Laboratory, he must come from a prestigious laboratory and be recommended by his advisors and professors. (This is especially true in Japanese companies) When a large company hires an employee in a supervisor or senior position, it first depends on the experience and title on the resume.This approach is of course reasonable, but no matter how real the resume is, there are some exaggerated parts, not to mention that the experience on the resume is only what a person has done before, not what he can do in the future.When looking for a job in Silicon Valley, resumes are important, but personal skills (including soft skills in dealing with people) are what companies really value.Due to the great pressure on each company's products and the high elimination rate among companies in the same industry, what companies in Silicon Valley need is not an authority to point fingers, but someone who actually does things.Decades of experience in Silicon Valley has proved that those young people who are fledgling and capable of doing specific things may be more useful to the company than an experienced authority who has already had high-sightedness and low-handedness.Many people have complained to me that Google ignores previous work experience when hiring people.Actually, this is a misunderstanding.Like most Silicon Valley companies, Google believes more in its judgments obtained through interviews than in resumes and recommendation letters. Therefore, when recruiting people, it always likes to take a test.No matter how famous the interviewer is and how high the level is, it is useless to fail the exam.A classmate of mine who is a professor in a top computer department in the United States first recommended one of his students to apply for a job at Google, and he was hired.Later, when he came by himself, Google wanted to take a test similar to the one his students took, but he didn't pass it. Although we felt sorry for him, there was nothing we could do about it.This professor was very unconvinced, and told me that my students are far inferior to mine but you want it. I have published so many papers and received so many funds but you don’t want it, which shows that your vision is wrong.I admit that what he said is very reasonable, but you can't break the rules for one person.Judging from the successful experience of Google, Ebay and countless Silicon Valley companies, this approach of not superstitious authority and treating everyone fairly is generally correct.It does sometimes make the company miss a competent authority, but it allows Silicon Valley companies to absorb more fresh blood and be full of vitality.

Not only are companies not superstitious about authority, but so are individuals in Silicon Valley.A young engineer will seldom follow the rules just because experts from IBM or Stanford say what to do, but will continue to challenge traditions and find new ways.Within the company, people with high positions cannot use power to overwhelm others, but must convince them with reasoning.Anyone who knows a company like Google knows that being a boss is not easy.Within Silicon Valley companies, although there are grades, they are already much better than companies in traditional industries.More importantly, the promotion within the company is rarely directly related to the graduate school, education background, and length of service.Therefore, there is often a strange phenomenon in Silicon Valley. John used to be Bill's boss in a certain company.A friend of mine joined a large Silicon Valley company through the introduction of his senior in school, and his senior is the veteran of this large company.This friend of mine worked very hard and became the boss of his brother after half a year.This eclectic use of talents makes Silicon Valley companies the most competitive in the world.

For entrepreneurs, qualifications are useful, but they are far behind the top few in terms of importance.Entrepreneurs with big names and high positions have rich experience and wide contacts, and can easily find money and markets, but they are far less aggressive than fledgling calves.In the eyes of venture capitalists, a person's ability, including the "soft" ability to deal with interpersonal relationships (Soft Skills), is the key to determining the success or failure of a business.A person's position only represents the past, while wealth and status sometimes become a burden for entrepreneurship.This is why many well-known companies in Silicon Valley such as Cisco, Apple, Yahoo and Google, including Netscreen and Webex founded by the Chinese, were founded by unknown young people, but it is rarely heard that the successful company is an original It was run by the boss of a certain company.

It is a fact generally acknowledged by venture capitalists since ancient times that heroes are born in youth.The investors of Sequoia Ventures talked to me about their principles for choosing investment targets, one of which is that entrepreneurs must have a sense of hunger.It's hard to imagine that a rich man with a lot of money is more likely to run a company than a student eager to get out of poverty.Because the former set up a company just to add icing on the cake, while the latter is to put it to death and survive.This is why Jobs encouraged young people to keep hungry (Keep Hungry).I will elaborate on how venture capitalists choose investment targets later.So experienced entrepreneurs and inexperienced young people have their own advantages, but the opportunities are equal.Successful people at all levels in Silicon Valley are almost without exception relying on their own hands to achieve success from scratch.

Another aspect of equal opportunity is that the top picks come out.One hundred and sixty years ago, San Francisco was dominated by gold diggers, and a German named Levi Strauss also came here from New York to pan for gold.After he came, he found that there were a surplus of gold diggers, so he picked up his old job of cloth merchant and tailor, and used canvas for tents to make strong work clothes for gold diggers. This is now the most famous Levi's in the world. jeans.More than a hundred years have passed, and the traces of the gold diggers have disappeared, but Levi's jeans are still popular all over the world today.

Fifty years ago, people began to dig a new gold mine - IT gold mine on the old abandoned gold mine.Like the pioneers of the older generation, there are not many people who really made their fortunes from panning for gold.But in the young land of Silicon Valley, as long as you work hard, you will have a chance of success in all walks of life. Because there are some gold-seeking "adventurers"-tech upstarts, there is a need to take care of their finances for them. Today, San Francisco and Silicon Valley have become one of the areas with the highest concentration of investment banks.In addition to the venture capital that we will specifically mention later, the Private Wealth Management business here is also very developed.For example, the well-known investment bank Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs), more than 10% of personal wealth management managers are in Silicon Valley, making Silicon Valley the second largest branch in the world after its New York headquarters.Due to the high housing prices in Silicon Valley, the large amount of housing transactions, and the high mobility of the population and the large number of housing transactions in Silicon Valley, a large number of real estate intermediaries have long been established. Among them, those who have done a good job earn much more than the boss of a listed company.According to Bill Gorman, a well-known real estate agent, he has traded houses totaling US$800 million in more than ten years.Calculated according to the American standard 3% commission, his cumulative income is as high as 24 million US dollars, which is more than that of the bosses of many listed companies.It's interesting that a lot of people working in finance and real estate are IT-trained engineers.They found that the IT industry in Silicon Valley was overcrowded, and they switched to other jobs, which was much more successful than being an engineer or even a company executive.

Even if you don't work in a highly profitable industry like finance and real estate, you can succeed in your career as long as you work hard.Let's take a look at these two examples.A friend of mine just finished decorating his new home, and the floor was installed by a Chinese boss.He didn't go to college, and he worked as an apprentice for others after graduating from middle school. However, he loved to study and was diligent, and soon became an expert in floor installation.A few years later, I came out to work alone and started to take on some small jobs.Because of his cheap price and good quality, he soon had too much work to do, so he hired some workers, and the business developed.He recruited skilled floor workers with high salaries (similar to IT practitioners), so the quality has always been good. Slowly, he began to receive contracts from large companies, and his career developed rapidly.Even now that the real estate in the United States is in a downturn and many decoration companies have no business, he still has too many contracts in hand.A second example is my own gardener, a Mexican immigrant.He started out by himself weeding and tidying up the yard.His employers recommended him to their friends because of his warmth, willingness to help others (such as often using his own truck to deliver bulky goods for customers), and keeping his promise.Soon he couldn't accept the new employer, so he brought his younger brother in to help. Apart from weeding and tidying up the yard, the two began to do some simple house repairs and landscape work.Gradually he accumulated some wealth, hired some helpers, and started a small garden planning business.In Silicon Valley, where housing prices are very high, he also bought a house and realized his American dream.

On the contrary, if a person cannot do something down-to-earth, no matter how famous and talented he is, it will be difficult to get along in Silicon Valley.Most of the time, Silicon Valley companies need people who can actually do things, and don't value fame that doesn't bring real benefits.In 2000, due to the excessive prosperity of Silicon Valley caused by the Internet bubble, almost all companies could not find people. At that time, finding a job was largely based on one's mouth.Many people who often change jobs and do not do things in a down-to-earth manner jump around and jump to the position of a supervisor. After 2001, many companies with improper employment closed down or were forced to lay off a large number of employees. The real masters either stayed in the original company, or were hired by other companies, or transferred to academia.And a whole bunch of punks of all levels are up for grabs in the "talent market."Many of these people were originally technical elites and management talents, but once they have been pampered for a long time and their names are not worthy of their names, it will be difficult for them to survive in Silicon Valley.Occasionally, one or two small companies will go there to find people to do things, and often a large number of people will surround them at once.If you ask them what they will do, most of them will give you the same answer, "If you give me a team, I will be able to manage it for you." Although there are many real managers here, many of them are masters with high eyesight and low power.Recruiting companies are obviously not stupid, they need people who work, not retirees.

Compared with other places in the United States, Silicon Valley has the most opportunities and the most equal opportunities.Therefore, although the work pressure here is high and the competition is fierce, there are still people who are willing to come here.Many countries around the world want to learn from Silicon Valley to build their own technology parks, but so far none have been as successful as Silicon Valley.I think the managers of these science and technology parks should first ask themselves whether they provide equal opportunities for entrepreneurs, or divide people into ranks and ranks in advance according to wealth, experience, and fame. (I am very disapproving of the fact that some science and technology parks introduce talents and attract investment based on academic qualifications and professional titles.) Since ancient times, regardless of the origin of the heroes, today's down-and-out students may be tomorrow's industry leaders.