From what I can tell so far about LeWeb, is that there are a lot of pissed off bloggers and journalists of with the lack of leWiFi. I was lucky enough to nab a table with an ethernet cable, but am thinking I’ll need to pee around my desk when/if I go grab some food as I just may lose it.
The feeling in the room throughout the morning was a bit hard to gage as the doors were/are open and there’s cold air blasting throughout the building, despite the fact that it’s so cold outside it snowed earlier.
I think the people who are unhappy with things are the ones voicing things on Twitter, and perhaps the more pleased and engaged people are perhaps being a bit quieter and keeping to themselves. (As is the way with the world.)
Personally, I think that it's going pretty well. Sure I'm freezing and barely got any lunch. But, I feel good about the fact that I'm listening to all the speakers and trying to get a feel for what this LeWeb conference is truly trying to be about.
One of the first speakers of the morning was Nikesh Arora , the SVP of Google and President of EMEA. Arora encouraged entrepreneurs to think “global”, but also noted that even if you don’t speak English and don’t make reaching an English speaking audience your first priority, a kick-ass technological idea is universal.
However, Arora says that he doesn’t exactly think that any of the entrepreneurs or start-ups should be bitching about not getting funding.
“Google, Microsoft, all created in financial downturns...The economic climate does not dictate whether or not you’ll be successful...I do not think that they’ll have problem getting access to capital.”
A guy in the audience stood up and said that he disagreed, as he has a start-up, and said that it’s “impossible” to find capital. Arora still said he disagreed and asked “all” the VCs in the audience to raise their hand. Out over 1000 participants today at LeWeb, five VCs stuck up their hand.
Hmmm...
David Weinberger, from the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was the best speaker of the morning, by far. He spoke about leadership, and what makes a good leader, verses a bad leader, and what this has to do with the end of the information age.
Weinberger described, with magnificent enthusiasm, how hyperlinks are the opposite of information, as they connect things, and give them textualization.
Weinberger explained how and why leaders who do not hoard information and give off the “imposed sense of scarcity of information” and use their network to help them organize and process information and to make decisions are the most successful. Apparently Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia is a good example of how this style of leadership works, and Obama is another example of this from what Weinberger saw in his campaign.
Michael Arrington, editor of TechCrunch interviewed Myspace COO Amit Kapur, in what seemed like talk/interview that existed purely because Myspace and Tech Crunch are sponsors of LeWeb. I completely understand that in order to get sponsorships or funding that you need to give something in return - but having Kapur’s lacklustre announcement of a MYSPACE TOOLBAR is hardly exciting and/or a treat for anyone here.
I don’t really care and I don’t think there’s anyone here who cares about a Myspace Toolbar. Kapur explained that it’s “for hardcore Myspace users”, but I don’t even think I personally know a “hardcore Myspace user”. Probably because I’m not a 15-year-old girl.
Arrington and Kapur’s talk didn’t even attempt to fit into the LeWeb theme of love, which I didn’t exactly mind, but without even a tie-in to the theme, the talk just seemed sort of pointless. I don’t care of if Beyonce is at the top of Myspace Music, do you?
Linda Avey from 23andMe was the first female speaker out of the five women speaking today. Two women are speaking on their own in an interview/talk, and the rest are either interviewing someone or are speaking as part of a panel.
While I’m thrilled that Linda is representing the small group of women here, she talked about spit. Yes, spit. Her company sells kits that you spit in, and send to their headquarters where they analyze your DNA, and then post the findings online.
This talk had a lot to do with keeping your personal information safe online, and apparently they use the same sort of safety features and web development that banks use – but, and the big but here is: what does this really truly have to do with love, love of the web or entrepreneurship, or even the web in general? I know it's a website and a web service, but I don’t think there was a large enough group of health and genetics business owners here at LeWeb for there to be a big enough demand for it.
The afternoon provided more entertainment and more enriching talks, and in my next post, I'll shed some light on the truly positive aspects and fabulous speakers that were here at the first day of LeWeb.
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