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Even the Smartest VCs Sometimes Get it Wrong – Bill Gurley and Regulated Markets

Steve Blank

Bill’s closing line, “The reason why Silicon Valley is so successful is that it’s so fxxxng far away from Washington” received great applause. Tech Companies Use Regulatory Capture In my first two decades inside the Silicon Valley bubble we built products people wanted and needed. Bill Gurley’s point.)

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Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Today with every city, state and country trying to build out a technology cluster, following Dino’s progress can provide others with a roadmap of what’s worked and what has not.

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Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?

Steve Blank

For decades large companies have gone shopping in Silicon Valley for startups. Silicon Valley – a Corporate Innovation Candy Store. Corporate business development and strategic partner executives are flocking to Silicon Valley to find these five types of innovation.

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The Government Starts an Incubator: The National Science Foundation Innovation Corps

Steve Blank

19 of the 21 teams are moving forward in commercializing their technology. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Given that Silicon Valley had started with scientists and engineers not MBA’s, I thought this was a bet worth making. Your Country Needs You.

Incubator 301
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Hacking For Defense In Silicon Valley

Steve Blank

BMNT , a new Silicon Valley company, is combining the Lean Methods it learned in combat with the technology expertise and speed of startups. REF expanded its operations to include forward teams in Kuwait and Iraq to provide technology to fill capability gaps and to counter the highest priority threats. The Gulf Wars.

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China Startups – The Gold Rush and Fire Extinguishers (Part 5 of 5)

Steve Blank

business models. But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Entrepreneurial Culture.

China 323
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Convergent Technologies: War Story 1 – Selling with Sports Scores.

Steve Blank

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. Convergent Technologies was one of those OEM suppliers. Their engineers hated us.