"Valley History" Posts on ValleyZen

I was deeply saddened by the news of Amb. Bill Lane’s death. It’s hard to believe his larger-than-life presence has disappeared. But maybe it hasn’t…

“I had this extraordinary passport to go anywhere” Michael Moritz said today at the luncheon hosted for him today by Silicon Valley Bank at the Rosewood Hotel…

The first time I met Apple Co-Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak was in 1976 when they came to my office to talk about a company they were starting. Back then, Wozniak and Jobs were leaders in the two strongest directions of Collective Intelligence– building tools to achieve extensions of the human being, and facilitating the collection of human thoughts in a shared repository. Indirectly, the two Steves were followers of Doug Engelbart, the leader in the field of Collective Intelligence. Doug Engelbart’s concept of the use of a mouse was implemented by Apple to revolutionize a new human machine interface…

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…

Step inside William H. Draper III’s James Bond-like San Francisco office. Bill Draper is one of the West Coast’s first venture capitalists, starting his VC career in 1962. He was founder of Sutter Hill Ventures and led it for 20 years. In the eighties, he served in diplomatic positions such as head of the Export-Import Bank and chief of the United Nations Development Program. Currently, he is the General Partner of Draper Richards and Director of the Draper Richards Foundation. ValleyZen interviews him. Don’t miss this amazing video!!

ValleyZen covered the Computer History Museum’s sold-out lecture kicking off the “Exhibit Launch of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No.2″ by Dr. Doron Swade, the world’s expert on Charles Babbage and by Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO, Microsoft, founder of Dynamical Systems and co-founder of Intellectual Ventures. Dr. Swade has a unique perspective, because he successfully undertook an experiment completed in 1991 to determine whether Babbage in the period 1847 to 1849 could have built the Difference Engine No. 2. The experiment required Dr. Swade to use 19^th Century tools…

“This exhibition was carried around by Indian elephants,” said Peter Friess, President of The TECH Museum of Innovation, on a gala evening celebrating “100 Years of the Nobel Prize” and its installation at The TECH. Traveling through India, China, Egypt, and now Silicon Valley, the exhibit was conceived in the spirit of the Nobel Prize as an international project…

Check out this video conversation with ValleyZen co-bloggers Drue Kataoka and Bill Fenwick. The video takes place outside and inside the Fenwick & West headquarters. In the video Bill and Drue talk about why ZEN and the Valley go together so well. Highlights include:

• Bill on achieving Zen Calm
• Litigation, Zen & Peace
• Zen and the Valley
• About Bill’s old blog
• Bill’s goals for ValleyZen
• The Power of Zen Silence

The ValleyZen video is here or embedded below.
Checkout this ValleyZen Flickr photoset…

Keep Reading

Check out today’s satori-inducing video with Fred Turner – Stanford Professor, acclaimed author, and expert in Silicon Valley counterculture. He says, “The distance between the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer is not as great as we might think.” Zen takes center stage as Turner shows its powerful influence from early cyberculture to today’s Valley. Watch Turner trace the Valley’s direct lineage from the cyber-pioneers who were also think partners with Zen…