The world premiere of the largest, most comprehensive exhibit of the art, science & engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci is at The Tech Museum for just 100 days.
Wait — make that 99 days!

Last night the red carpet rolled for a lavish celebration hosted by Frank and Denise Quattrone, Tech President Peter Friess and The Tech Board. Friess told ValleyZen, “There are so many engineers in Silicon Valley, and inside the soul of every engineer is a little bit of Leonardo. He’s not a person — He’s a phenomenon.”

Donors and Valley celebs walked the red carpet —-flanked by a 24 foot tall model of the Sforza Horse with its mighty hooves crushing hundreds of fresh rose petals. This bronze sculpture was originally designed as a gift for Ludovico il Moro, the Duke of Milan as a monument to Francesco Sforza, his predecessor. Shipping it from Florence, Italy to San Jose, required two ocean containers…

“What has happened by chance is often difficult to repeat when it is sought deliberately. Chance is a genius.”
-Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training.

This past Saturday, September 6th, marked the second edition of Barcamp Hong Kong. Barcamp began as an un-conference in Palo Alto in 2005. Some bright, enthusiastic, cosmopolitan people have brought the concept to Hong Kong. Yet, I wouldn’t even know of the event, let alone be a participant were it not for Chance…

“We’d like this to be the Sundance Film Festival” for the tech industry – said Jason Calacanis—to over 1700 attendees, partners and press that rocked the San Francisco Design Concourse Center. Sterling sponsors including Fenwick & West, Google, The Founders Fund, MSN Money and Yahoo! made it possible. 52 top startups were selected from 1038 hopefuls and earned coveted 8 minute spots to present before the A-list audience. Short pitching sessions were judged by Valley icons like Google VP of Search and User Experience Marissa Mayer, MySpace Founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe, Angel Rockstar Ron Conway and Youtube Co-founder Chad Hurley. Check out ValleyZen’s exclusive interview with Chad Hurley…

“ValleyZen will be the first to know when we pull the trigger,” said Ron Gutman, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellsphere. A sleep-deprived but adrenalized team gathered around him at Wellsphere headquarters in San Mateo yesterday morning. Having worked around the clock the past few weeks in preparation for today’s launch of Wellsphere 2.0, they seemed none the worse for the wear.

“Welcome to our office,” said Dave Kashen, Co-Founder and CFO.
“It’s NOT an office, it’s a WellHome,” quipped Gutman…