I spoke on a panel called “Valley of Destiny or Valley of Doom” at the HBS Tech conference this morning. I was working on very little sleep and was a bit…tired after my party last night. That’s my excuse for straying a bit from the assigned topic of “outsourcing”.
The other panelists were Jack Harding, Dave Winer and Dan Gillmor. We tried to stay on topic, for a bit, but we were soon talking about whether or not Silicon Valley is, was and can remain the intellectual and technical capital of the world.
The audience chimed in, and there were heated comments. Dave told me at one point to “get a life”. The audience went quiet until they realized that Dave and I were both chuckling and Dan mentioned that we are good friends. I don’t think anyone realized that Dave and I are in a bit of a disagreement over my planned inclusion of advertising on TechCrunch as well (Dave published a podcast on this topic today before the panel). But as Dave says, he wouldn’t really be my friend if he didn’t tell me exactly what he thinks of my decisions, even when he disagrees.
Jeff Clavier has a great summary post here.
Heh. I’ve personally seen Dave do this to a room. Chins meet clavicles as everyone in the room tries to parse a seemingly inappropriate Winer-ism until they see that the person he’s aimed that barb at is smiling back at Dave and chuckling along with him. The man has no social brakes and he can be quite alarming but he does keep things interesting. And he does say exactly what is on his mind.
In defense of the panel, offshoring was only one of three questions. The other two had to do with the question of bubbles and what we need to do to keep the Valley on top.
Of course, Dave was able to take things in a completely different direction by arguing that the Valley has no soul…which brought on a hailstorm of discussion.
I like to think that this will be the only panel this year that ends with Dan Gillmor eloquently calling out the Valley’s leaders for their hypocrisy in supporting better education, yet not opposing the “bullshit” (Dan’s words, not mine) of Intelligent Design.
Chris, I found it to be highly entertaining and, I hope, interesting for the audience. Please invite me again.