Last night we attended a special evening arranged by Peter Thiel and the Thiel Foundation entitled “Audacious Optimism.” Held at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, this unusual philanthropic summit brought together 8 organizations to present their visions for the future.
The evening began with a reception and cocktails and then a welcome from the Thiel Foundation and Patri Friedman, grandson of economist Milton Friedman and co-founder of the Seasteading Institute…
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We recently met with Charlie Rose, host of the Charlie Rose Show. Rose was this month’s featured guest for Dick Henning’s Celebrity Forum. While swinging through Silicon Valley, Rose also interviewed some Valley luminaries including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams and Stanford’s President John Hennessy.
BUT— ValleyZen interviewed Charlie Rose!
Don’t miss this exclusive backstage interview where Rose takes time to chat before addressing one of three sold-out crowds at Flint Center…
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Go all access with us at Tim O’Reilly’s home, as he graciously opens his doors to ValleyZen.
Join us in an exclusive video experience where twisting country backroads lead to the home of the Founder & CEO of O’Reilly Media. ValleyZen was invited to O’Reilly’s Sebastopol dwelling which is nestled on 6 acres of farmland–far from Silicon Valley hustle and bustle, and tucked between California earth and sky.
O’Reilly is candid, open and relaxed, taking us on a tour of his home, his kitchen, and even his treehouse. This video is filled with action, movement, and satori!
The trailer below shows a few minutes of highlights taken from footage shot over the course of an entire morning…
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Logitech Co-Founder Daniel Borel is celebrating the creation of ONE BILLION mice. “That’s enough (end on end) to stretch to the moon and back,” he told a packed Stanford Memorial Auditorium gathered to honor the 40th anniversary of Douglas Engelbart’s landmark 1968 “DEMO” at SRI that signaled the dawn of interactive computing.
Don’t Miss ValleyZen’s exclusive VIDEO interview with Daniel Borel:
Watch a video with Jim Barnett, Founder & CEO of Turn, Inc. Jim Barnett’s Zen insights are interesting for entrepreneurs , business people, or anyone implementing a big vision.
ValleyZen was invited to the third Singularity Summit 2008 – a conference discussing “The Singularity” a point at which machines will be able to surpass human intelligence. Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies and author of The Singularity is Near headlined the conference along with technological and academic heavyweights like Intel CTO Justin Rattner, X PRIZE Foundation Founder, Chair & CEO Peter Diamandis, Investor/Entrepreneur Esther Dyson, MIT Center for Bits and Atoms Director Neil Gershenfeld, CEO of Novamente, director of research at SIAI, Ben Goertzel, and over a dozen others.
At a private reception hosted the night before the conference at the Tech Museum, we spoke with Ben Goertzel. Drue asked Ben if a machine could reach enlightenment. Please check out his response. It’s sure to provoke you…
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On Sunday, famed video game developer Richard Garriott launched into space aboard a Soyuz TMA spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. For more than $30 million, he has become the sixth private citizen to travel into orbit.
The Russian rocket lifted off on schedule at 1:01 p.m. (3:01 a.m. EDT), carrying precious cargo including a revolutionary experiment in art —the first in-space art exhibition. Highlighting the importance of private space travel to future generations, Garriott is hosting this zero-gravity art exhibition. Included is an original brush painting by Drue Kataoka, created for this historic
mission…
“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…
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!!
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ValleyZen’s Bill and Drue spoke with Prof. Hiroshi Ishii after his Stanford lecture for Prof. Terry Winograd’s CS Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. Ishii granted ValleyZen an exciting satori-inducing interview at Drue’s studio. Watch the video…
Drue Kataoka
is an Artist sharing a Zen perspective on modern life, Silicon Valley and the world. Drue's paintings
Bill Fenwick
is a founder of Fenwick & West, a leading Silicon
Valley law firm focused on technology and life sciences.
