I’ve been fortunate to spend the past few days in Silicon Valley with a great group of people as part of the winners trip for the Talent Unleashed Awards 2016. It’s been an inspirational, motivational and fun few days and I’ve summarised some of the highlights below.
Day 1
We left the hotel bright and early to head into Silicon Valley for a full day of meetings and tours, including Facebook, Stereo Capital, Stanford University and Tesla. It was a diverse day that spanned operating companies (software and hardware) investors and academic institutions. I enjoyed all of the visits, but the undoubted highlight was the Tesla factory – an enormous space that acts as office, warehouse and manufacturing facility. The sheer scale of the operation was impressive, but seeing the symbiotic relationship between man and machine along the assembly process was truly fascinating.
Day 2
We spent most of the second day in San Francisco with meetings at Airbnb, Rocket Space and 500 Start-ups before heading to Mountain View to get a tour of the Google campus. It was a day full of contrasts – from meeting early stage companies at the very start of their journey at 500 Start-ups to touring the sprawling campus of the world’s second largest company. The highlight for me was seeing the Airbnb office – they’ve done a brilliant job at creating a space and atmosphere that reflect their product, culture and values.
Day 3
We started the day by getting a tour of LinkedIn’s city office, which was highly impressive. The standard of their internal facilities seemed to belong in a 5* hotel rather than your typical office – this reinforced a consistent theme across all of the days that technology companies here really do treat their people very well. We then headed out to Cupertino for the main event of the week: a private lunch with Steve Wozniak. It’s not everyday you get to meet the co-founder of a company that has changed the world and in the process become worth over $700bn! It was fascinating to hear tales from the early days of Apple and the relationship dynamics between Jobs and Woz.
Day 4
We finished the tour with a highly enjoyable day in Napa Valley, where we got to try several of the region’s delicious wines – it was the perfect end to a great trip.
I feel some strong relationships were formed over the four days and Richard, Jon and Kay from Talent were fantastic hosts throughout – a huge thanks to them for a truly unique experience.
