Silicon Valley is a Meritocracy

Paella – heynoobz sur Foursquare

“Silicon Valley is a meritocracy. Here, people don’t care if you are black or white, a woman or a man, young or old. It’s just about what you’re achieving.” A. Coppola

Today I met Alfredo Coppola from US MAC. We had a nice paella lunch at B44 Catalan Bistro in the financial district of San Francisco.

We talked about many things. But what grabbed my attention was this kind of sentence that made me feel like I am coming from the old world (Europe) and arriving in a much simpler social environment with less structure and fewer preconceptions. That doesn’t mean that it’s easier to make your place here. Competition is hard. You have to prove yourself all the time. You have to stand out and be humble at the same time.

“I like helping people that wouldn’t have the resources to come here in the first place. Here, if you have a product that is good and stands out, the market will respond to it,” says Alfredo.

“I like helping people that wouldn’t have the resources to come here in the first place. Here, if you have a product that is good and stands out, the market will respond to it,” says Alfredo.

That made me curious. I wondered aloud if the hippy-thing, the counterculture movements that evolved from San Francisco had anything to do with its openness. Alfredo thought that this came to the area even before, back when the European started settling themselves on the West Coast. “Those that went to the Wild West were tough guys” with an entrepreneurial spirit, for sure. That is true for the settlers of the 18th century, but also for treasure seekers rushing here to seek the Californian gold in the 19th century.

“Guys like Jobs and the founders of companies such as Oracle, they were outsiders, rebels. But here it was okay. That allowed them to do great things!” And their “sons”, the next generation, they’re at the leading edge of technology. People are early adopters here. “This is why you can’t make Silicon Valley anywhere else in the world.”

What I really like in San Francisco is the combination of this hippie-hobo-beat generation, gay-friendly people and the business-tech-venture people. This is what makes the Bay Area unique. Even though it also generates problems, such as the dot-com bubble and gentrification, it’s a place where many, very different types of people can find a place to feel at home, from vegans to tech entrepreneurs and a host of others.

by Laurence Bianchini #svMSW

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