Silicon Valley Study Tour: July30 to August 2, 2013
By Richard Foristel, Director of SUFE-Webster Joint MBA Program
Silicon Valley is entrepreneurship and innovation. It’s the financial fountain of venture capital, home of angel
investors, and some of the most successfulpeople on the planet. The place breathsnew ideas, and products that make
their way to the global stage. I am excited thatyou are going as one of the Study Group members for a week of
visitsand discussions in and around Silicon Valley. We’ll start our rounds Tuesday morning, July 30th and be on
business visits and tours until the end of August 2nd.
We’ll meet with people at Morgan Staley,Silicon Valley to hear about how idea people find the money for their
productconcepts, and how he money people think about how and why they invest.
Elance just acquired $16 million of capital, itself, to put innovate people all over theworld to work with company
projects big and small. Many of you asked to hearfrom internet business, and social networking. Elance has a great
mix of both: and they will tell us how differentkinds of Silicon Valley companies, and others, think about employers
andcontract workers. They know aboutcompanies as perse as Apple to Facebook, IDEO to Tesla. Elance is a
venture company, and works in thethick of Silicon Valley.
TeslaMotors has invited us for a lecture and tour. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, just celebrated, thispast week, his second
delivery of goods to the International Space Station viaone of his other companies,Space X.
We’ll be at Stanford to see and talk with people of theInstitute of Design School(ofproduct and service
development), which is directed by David Kelley co-founderof the award-winning IDEO. The Stanfordvisit will
include a fuller talk and discussion about Stanford University andit’ssignificant role in making Silicon Valley a
success.
The staff from our Program and at SiliconValley is still talking with a few other companies about visits. We’ve
talked with SUFE-Webster Joint MBA Program alum who works at Apple-Cupertino, and Cisco contacts we know
at the Beijing American Chamber of Commerce. We’ve not set downfor landing at San Francisco, but we’ve already
learned a great deal abouttalking, reading and following companies that operate out of the Valley.
There will be a special visit from ourhotel location to shop at a large outlet mall known for a wide range of clothes,
bags and other accessories at the best prices.
If you have any questions, please email me –rickf@websterchina.com, or Candy Zhang--candyzhang@websterchina.com