Comcate, Silicon Valley, and Whatever at the University Club

Tonight I spoke at the University Club of San Francisco, a private “old school” social club. While the attendance was light, it was interesting and enjoyable. Average age of audience was probably 60 and their professions ranged including one person who was in the Wi-Fi space. Needless to say, my youth was quite an enticing angle for them to ponder and speculate. It was no surprise to me that the question of colleges came up and I said I have no idea where I want to go…but I did toss in a line to stir something up which is my typical “I protest the traditional academic evaluation process.” Probably not the best thing to say to an old-school, Republican, Harvard/Stanford crowd. But I defended my position with vigor, saying that school is a game that if you choose to play means pleasing superiors, become decent at a wide range of topics, and working to get an A but no more. I think they appreciated my position.

I got into Silicon Valley trends a bit and to my surprise the old folks knew about such things like RFID, blogging, salesforce.com, etc. Questions came up about comparing bar codes to RFID, the salesforce model and how it could be emulated, why did we choose Delaware corp over Nevada and why corp over LLC, and are you concerned about losing your high school experience with Comcate. I was not expecting these types of detailed questions but it was fine.

At these types of functions, since most of them are retired or close to it, there’s little they can do right now to help Comcate and me, but a few did offer to introduce me to friends who could be interested. For a free dinner by the Bay Area Chef of the Year and an engaging chit-chat with smart people, I’ll take that offer anytime!