Se potentialen i det nyaste nya

Foto: Johanna Hanno.

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Vi sparkar igång Estradhösten 12 september, föreläsaren heter Martin Kenney och är professor vid University of California, Davis. Några av er hörde honom kanske på Sweden-U.S. Entrepreneurial Forum 2011. I samband med det intervjuade jag honom för en porträttartikel i Entré. Han sa bland annat att ”Den som inte levererar är rökt” och syftade på den ganska hårda tillvaron i Silicon Valley.

Kenney har växt upp i Kalifornien och forskat om riskkapitalindustrins rötter, framväxten av bioteknik- och IKT-företag samt hur industrin och akademin samverkar. Han har djup kunskap om mekanismerna i Silicon Valley och kommer att diskutera de spridda mytbilderna. Missa inte det! Anmälan är öppen.

Så här säger Martin Kenney om sin Estradföreläsning:

“In many respects, the debate about regional innovation systems has been framed by the success of Silicon Valley.  Despite the many reports, articles and books written about Silicon Valley, the complex history of the region is often reduced to a simple recipe based on a snapshot in time.  Such simplistic accounts often omit the role of the federal government particularly in the early days of the region, while other accounts attribute the entire success of the region to government policy.  This presentation seeks to provide a historically nuanced and balanced account of the region’s evolution.  This account, in some respects, finds the success unique and therefore irreproducible. However, we also believe that there are lessons that other regions can apply to their own unique endowments to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.

Building upon our previous work, we describe a model of the Silicon Valley innovatory economy based upon what we term “Economy One” and “Economy Two.”  Economy One is composed of existing firms and entrepreneurs intent upon building firms that will produce goods and services for businesses and individuals.  This is the normal economy that firms and consumers inhabit.  However, Silicon Valley has built another economy, Economy Two, which consists of various intermediaries whose role is to facilitate entrepreneurs in commercializing new technologies or business models through the medium of new firms.  This is the economy of venture capitalists, lawyers, accountants, etc. that specialize in providing services to new firms.  These intermediaries assist in recruiting managers and executives, making introductions to potential customers, and providing the myriad of other services that a fledgling firm requires to grow rapidly.  Their product is new firms that can be sold to either existing firms or public stock markets for enormous capital gains. It is these intermediaries that are the gatekeepers looking for the “new” new thing that will lead to these capital gains.

The key to an economy such as Silicon Valley is to be able to “peer over the horizon” and see the newest technology.  For this ability it is necessary to attract the brightest, most highly motivated engineers and managers in the world.  Having three of the top ten universities, Stanford, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco – an unrivaled concentration – is important.  The concentration of powerful technological leaders such as Cisco, Google, Intel, Oracle, Yahoo!, to name the recent leaders, is vital.  These are the sources of trained managers and entrepreneurs.

This presentation discusses the history and development of Silicon Valley and some unique features of the California legal system, such as an inability to enforce non-compete agreements and ease of filing bankruptcy, that further lower barriers to entrepreneurship.  Finally, we speculate on potential lessons applicable to Nordic nations.”

Glad höst!

/Åse