Hillary Clinton came to Silicon Valley last week and the women-in-tech community gave her a warm welcome. Her message of inclusivity, diversity and wage equality in Silicon Valley earned a standing ovation from the gathering of over 5,000 women from the worlds of tech, media and fashion. On Friday, I reported on Hillary’s speech and the drive to increase the number of women in tech for the BBC World Service programme, Business Matters. It starts at 37:10 on the BBC podcast and below.
Here is a transcript of my conversation with BBC host, Dominic Laurie. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Laurie: Alison…you’ve been at a conference…the Lead On Watermark Conference in Silicon Valley, part of the drive to achieve more diversity in the tech industry. The thing is, when I think of some of the big tech companies that have really made global success, there is quite a lot of diversity in those companies, so what’s the problem?
van Diggelen: Well, the problem is: the stats are not echoing what you just said. 11% of executives in Silicon Valley are women, 20% of software developers overall are women. You’re in the minority if you’re a woman in tech.
Laurie: Are you talking about gender diversity, rather than ethnic diversity?
van Diggelen: Ethnic diversity is even worse. The stats for Google are: 1% of their employee workforce is black…17% is female, 83% male. So yes, it’s pretty dire.
At this conference, the energy was high. It was electrifying actually. 5000 female executives gathered in Silicon Valley, from the worlds of tech, media and fashion. We had keynotes including Hillary Clinton, Diane von Furstenberg, Jill Abramson, Brene Brown, as well as tech luminaries like Renee James of Intel…I have a clip from Hillary’s speech where she outlined the challenges women face in the tech industry and why this is important for the wider economy, to get more women in tech.
Clinton: Inclusivity is more than a buzz word or a box to check. It is a recipe for success in the 21st Century. Bringing different perspectives and life experiences into corporate offices, engineering labs and venture funds is likely to bring fresh ideas and higher revenues. And in our increasingly multicultural country, in our increasingly interdependent world, building a more diverse talent pool can’t be just a nice to do for business, it has to be a must do.
It is still shocking: the numbers are sobering…just 11% of executives in Silicon Valley and only about 20% of software developers overall are women. One recent report on the gender pay gap in the valley found that a woman with a bachelor’s degree here tends to make 60% less than a man with the same degree. We’re going backwards in a field that is supposed to be all about moving forward.
Laurie: She’s quite a talker isn’t she? Very eloquent woman, Hillary Clinton. Alison I guess the problem is…you listed some very eminent women who were talking, and I guess inspiring people in the conference, but do some people feel that those women are so high achieving that perhaps they’re out of reach? Did you manage to speak to more “normal” people who’ve made it in tech?
van Diggelen: Yes, I spoke to a number of women in tech.* I spoke to the CEO of Watermark, Marlene Williamson and she emphasized the need for women to do it (Lead On) for themselves, do it for other women. That’s how we get economies of scale, that’s how you build your power base. I also spoke with Kimberly Bryant who feels so strongly about this that she wants to help create a pipeline of young tech entrepreneurs and in particular, young black girls. Her nonprofit is called Black Girls Code and her whole mission is to get more black girls from (age) 7-17 exposed to computer science, get them into classes, get them into summer camps and feed the pipeline for young entrepreneurs going into tech. Ones who’re female and ready to change the world…like Zuckerberg.
Bryant: We think there’s a huge need for creating this pipeline of young tech entrepreneurs that are women. But one of my personal goals is: I really want to see a girl or woman leading a major tech company like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or Apple….I think that having a women at the head of a tech company, a founder of a tech company of that level would do so much to really change the whole image of the whole industry being male dominated. This movement for diversity and inclusion is not just a good thing to do, I think it’s the right thing to do, (from a social equity and as a business imperative…to remain competitive.)
Laurie: I took a look at Kimberly’s website. It’s quite a cool website: Black Girls Code. Lots of interesting information…
van Diggelen: She’s doing a lot of good work and she’s actually bringing it to London…they’re hoping to seed a chapter in London this summer.
Laurie: Maybe we could have a chat to her…
Thank you so much Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues.
*Check back soon for my next report from the Watermark Lead On Conference, including interviews with Vicky Pynchon of SheNegotiates, Millennial Kate Brunkhorst of DCR Workforce and Laura Chicurel of Nextinit.
News that the Koch Brothers are planning to raise almost a billion dollars in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election is sending shock waves through U.S. politics. The Kochs are closely linked to the Heartland Institute, an organization described by the BBC’s former environment correspondent, Richard Black as follows:
To itself, it’s a think-tank; to critics, it’s a lobby group, paid to oppose regulation on a number of fronts – including climate change. It’s probably most notable (or notorious) for holding an annual “climate-sceptic” conference in Washington DC.
On the other side of the climate arena is Tom Steyer, a self-made billionaire who launched Next Gen Climate, a Super PAC with the following mission:
“Working at every level, we are committed to supporting candidates, elected officials and policymakers across the country that will take bold action on climate change—and to exposing those who deny reality and cater to special interests.”
Steyer put $74 Million into the 2014 elections, targeting Republican candidates who reject climate science.
Here is a transcript of our conversation. It has been edited for clarity (starts @35:00 above, 32:00 on the BBC podcast)
Roger Hearing: What do you think is the effect of money in this scale – we’re talking a pretty massive scale – on US politics?
Alison van Diggelen: It is massive and it seems to be growing. It’s a little bit scary. I can assure you, because I cover climate change, I’m very aware of the Koch brothers. They’re secretly funding climate denial, basically a climate denial machine…
Hearing: Can you explain that?
van Diggelen: They have been funding various foundations with wonderful names that you’d think you would get behind, like the Heartland Institute. But what the Heartland Institute spends most of its time doing is pulling apart real scientists’ studies and reports; and trying to undermine them….scientist by scientist, report by report, trying to undermine the credibility of the scientist or the report.
Hearing: I guess they say they’re putting their money behind different views, airing views that are perhaps not mainstream?
van Diggelen: That’s the interesting thing. There’s a huge difference between what people think about climate change in America versus in Europe and the rest of the world. I think, for the rest of the world, it’s a done deal, it’s an accepted truth. But here an America, and I think a lot of people would agree with me on this, the Koch brothers’ machine of climate denial has helped muddy the waters so a lot of people aren’t quite sure, especially if you look at Republican candidates, a lot of them talk about “the science isn’t a hard fact.” They’re wary of actually admitting that there is such a thing as global warming going on.
Hearing: Alison, are there any moves to…we heard that there was a case some time back going to the Supreme Court…where there was an attempt to try to clear the position as far as money and politics were concerned. Is there any renewed attempt, ahead of the 2016 election to try to restrict in any way how much money can be put into the campaign?
van Diggelen: Not that I’m aware of. There seems to be the dominance of the 1% here in the US. They’re influencing what is happening in the US in four ways: through policy, courtroom decisions, TV ads, and the education system. They seem to be unfettered in their ability. Perhaps the court case you were referring to is Citizens United? But that effectively gave more power to these political action committees and allowed them to create dark money groups where they’re not actually declaring where the money is coming from. It’s all rather doom and gloom.
Hearing: We talked there about the Koch brothers, and they tend to be backing Republican candidates…but where you are, around Silicon Valley there are a large number of very wealthy individuals who have quite a liberal outlook and could deploy their money there. Similarly people in Hollywood. Does that happen too?
van Diggelen: It is happening. The person of note is Tom Steyer. He’s a San Francisco, former money man, who’s now putting a lot of his millions into an organization called NextGen Climate. They are getting involved in politics and they are targeting mostly Republican candidates, those that are rejecting climate science. I’m all in favor of that: exposing these people with their crazy science ideas…
Hearing: But that’s big money too…
van Diggelen: I agree. That is big money but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what the Koch brothers are able to leverage from the other side. Tom Steyer has the science behind him and to be honest, it’s shameful that big money from the Koch brothers is being used to fund this anti-science and impact not just America, but the rest of the planet
Hearing: Although the people you’re talking about are trying to put big money in the other side.
van Diggelen: Yes, but I think they’re just trying to make things clear. Science is science. They’re trying to expose the truth of the science and the lies of the anti-science.
Hearing: We’ll leave the argument there. It’s an interesting one…
Read more from Coral Davenport in the New York Times re a January 2015 US Poll on Climate Change
“Although the poll found that climate change was not a top issue in determining a person’s vote, a candidate’s position on climate change influences how a person will vote. For example, 67 percent of respondents, including 48 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of independents, said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who said that human-caused climate change is a hoax.”
Correction: I mistakenly called the Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation during the interview. The transcript has been adjusted to correct this error. The Koch brothers are known to be contributors to the Heartland Institute, via their family foundations, as verified by the Center for Media and Democracy.
This week, UC Santa Barbara’s Professor Nakamura (and two colleagues in Japan) received the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their big breakthrough? The Holy Grail of material science for many years: Blue LED technology. It not only enables high efficiency lighting (goodbye Edison’s incandescent bulbs, hello backlit smartphones, and 2300 feet headlights); but one day soon will help double the range of hybrid cars (thanks to its power switching applications).
A version of this story aired on BBC’s Tech Tent on Dec. 12, 2014. Listen to the podcast below:
To give you a sense of just how energy efficient these LED lightbulbs are, Prof DenBaars claims that if everyone in the United States replaced their old bulbs with LEDs, it would reduce the country’s electric light bill from $100 Billion to $20 Billion. Impressive.
Sweden’s Per Delsing gives it a global perspective: “A quarter of all energy consumption goes to illumination,” he said at the Nobel Prize press conference. As a result, any increase in efficiency and consequent saving of energy “is really going to have a big impact on modern civilization.”
While reporting for the BBC, I got a fascinating tour of UCSB’s Solid State Lighting and Energy Center and a chemistry lesson from Steven Griffiths, a grad student researcher. His colleagues Sang Ho Oh and Daniel Becerra also contributed valuable background information (see below for more photos).
Here’s a transcript of my conversation with Prof Denbaars (aka: all you ever wanted to know about LEDs but were afraid to ask):
Alison van D: I’m here at the Uni of California Santa Barbara with the research team led by Prof Nakamura, the winner of this year’s Nobel prize for Physics. He earned the Nobel Prize for his blue LED breakthrough. I want to talk with Dr Steven Denbaars who is a research partner of the professor and start with the basics. What is an LED?
Prof DenBaars: An LED stands for a light emitting diode, it’s basically a semiconductor crystal which glows bright light, in this case, bright blue light when you apply electrical current to it.
van D: Can you explain how they’re used in smartphones, computer screens and in lighting?
Prof D: OK in smartphones the LED is used in combination with a phosphor on top of it to generate white light. That is, the blue is converted with a red and a green phosphor to produce a full spectrum of white light. That is the white light in your flashlight, you know when you take a picture, but it’s also the white light in back of your LCD screen. So it’s called the backlight. So all smart phones today use LED backlighting to do energy efficient displays.
van D: And tell me about the lighting aspect. Is it just the LED bulbs you find at the supermarket, is that the only application for LEDs in the lighting sphere?
Prof D: Well that was the initial implementation, a bulb replacement or retrofit. But what we’re seeing is: now you can use the LED to add additional features to lighting, such as communications. That is, you can have your cell phone control the color of the light bulb or even communicate information between the light bulb and your cell phone or maybe even your Internet server to distribute information into the house. That’s just starting. We call that smart LED lighting.
van D: So can you explain how that works? You get an app on your phone and you can change the mood lighting of your home?
Prof D: Yes, you can change the color temperature from a sunset to a cold day in Sweden, maybe, I guess. 6500 Kelvin would look very bluish white…That is using the Bluetooth feature on your iPhone that communicates with the chip in the light bulb, which then changes the mix of the colors in the LED.
van D: Can you talk about the particular breakthrough?
Prof D: Both Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura basically developed the P-type Gallium Nitride which was the missing link in the quest for the Holy Grail of LEDs at the time. We had red and green, we didn’t have blue.
van D: And why was that the Holy Grail?
Prof D: The blue was the Holy Grail because…if you have a paint brush and you only have red and green, then you can’t make a painting, correctly replicate the visible spectrum. So we were missing a huge chunk of the visible spectrum. People have been looking for 40 years for the right blue illuminating semi conductor …
van D: So do you see in the future, is this LED technology going to completely replace Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb?
Prof D: Well I think it will definitely become the dominant light source. The quality of the light is winning over the consumer, it’s very close to an incandescent as you can see from this demo here…we have a bulb from a US manufacturer which looks almost exactly like a normal light bulb. I think there will still be some uses where people still really like incandescent lighting but that’ll be more for design or decorative reasons. Basically, if you want to have a long life light bulb…that’s the other advantage, these things last for 20 to 50 years. An incandescent light bulb lasts 6 months. So you’re really throwing your money away when you buy an incandescent light bulb. The US spends about $100 B for electricity for lighting and LEDs could take that down to about $20 B, so we could save the US $80 B in electrical costs if we switched over to LEDs, if everybody switched over today.
van D: Tell me about the LED laser headlights
Prof D: The laser headlight…you can see 700 meters in front of the car. Normal headlight is 150 meters. So you may think that this is going to scare the other driver, be bright, but it’s not any brighter to the other driver…it can be more tightly focused and columnated, projected on to the road. So this is a big safety advantage and it’s actually been released by BMW and Audi in Germany. Several thousand dollars per headlight but it’s a safety feature, because on the autobahn you drive about 240 K an hour, so you want to see 700 meters….
van D: So do you see that trickling through to all new cars within 5 years?
Prof D: Wow. The automobile industry is usually very slow to adapt. The LED headlight took about 5 to 7 years. Now you can see LED day-running lights everywhere, all newer cars. But the laser, which is the next generation of this lighting, will take 5 to 10 years.
van D: And what are you personally most excited about for the future of LEDs?
Prof D: Wow. I think it’s just to now be able to make a light bulb that’s smart enough to communicate, turn on and off when you need it. That’s very exciting. But also I think the real promise is: we can take lighting off grid. That is, you can make the LED, when you combine it with a solar cell completely renewable. That is, you just generate the electricity you want with a solar cell like this little solar powered LED lamp I have here, and therefore you don’t need electricity any more. Your light source, you just carry around with you. During the day time it charges up with a solar cell and at night it comes on. That would be the Holy Grail. We can become completely sustainable lighting without having to use electricity. This has the potential to save the world a couple hundred power plants of energy. More than a hundred nuclear power plants.
van D: Finally Professor Denbaars, is there anything else that you would like to share with the BBC listening audience?
Prof D: In electric cars it turns out you can use this as the power switching device (the thing that switches from the battery to the electric drive). Professor Nakamura and myself are also looking at it for power electronics. So Shuji’s (Nakamura) fundamental breakthrough of an LED is now impacting three major areas: not just lighting but it’s impacting displays, but now even electric cars.
van D: And how does that work? If you’re driving a Tesla or a Nissan Leaf, how is this LED technology going to make things better?
Prof D: I saw projections…it would take the Toyota Prius – which gets about 55 mpg – now the hybrid technology it would make it over 120 mpg…because it’s so efficient.
van D: How soon might we see this?
Prof D: This is a much harder problem to solve cos we’ve got to get the cost down and the scale up of the Gallium Nitride power electronics. I’ve seen lab demos… generally from lab demos to implementation it’s 5 years in this field of solid state that I work in.
van D: Are you already talking with Tesla and Nissan…?
Prof D: I can’t comment at all which car companies. But yes, we’re talking with car companies…they’re looking at it and the US government is putting a significant amount of money into this field. It’s called power electronics.
van D: Fantastic thank you.
And the research goes on. Researcher Steven Griffiths and his colleagues are working on further improvements in the Gallium Nitride (GaN) material to produce even higher efficiency LEDs and power swtiching. Below:
A pure nitrogen-containing glovebox is used to handle chemicals which are reactive in air.
The glovebox is used for alkali metals and ammonium salts, which are added to the reactors to aid in GaN growth.
Below: Steven Griffiths shows the interior of a blast containment vessel, which when in operation contains ammonothermal reactors (not pictured) used to grow large gallium nitride (GaN) crystals. The blue vessel is the “blast containment vessel”, to “crush cans” (which dissipate projectile energy in the case of an explosion). The white cylinders are heaters, in which the “ammonothermal reactors” (not pictured) are placed when in operation. The blast containment vessels must be sealed due to the extreme temperatures (>500°C) and pressures (>2000 atm.) used for ammonothermal GaN growth. Ammonothermal growth uses large quantities of ammonia at the extreme conditions mentioned, therefore researchers in the lab space must be protected from explosion, fire, and chemical hazards.
Below: Blue light emission from an LED. Blue light is produced when a bias is applied across the LED. Blue LEDs are composed of indium gallium nitride (InGaN) active layers sandwiched between positive (p-type) and negative (n-type) GaN layers, all of which are grown on a native (GaN) or foreign (Si, silicon carbide, sapphire, or gallium arsenide) substrate.
Below: Burhan Saifaddin (background) and Dan Becerra (foreground). The performance of blue LEDs is tested after crystal growth and device processing. Dan is applying metal to make electrical contact with the positive and negative terminals of the LEDs. Burhan is energizing the LEDs and monitoring their electrical operation/emission characteristics.
Silicon Valley is well known as the global hub of innovative technology. Can four weeks immersed in its unique ecosystem help inspire a new generation of global tech leaders? That’s the hope behind a program called Tech Women, launched by former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and now sponsored by the State Department.
Last month, over seventy tech women from Africa and the Middle East made a month-long visit to Silicon Valley. I met with several of them to explore what they learned, and how they plan to leverage technology to tackle their countries’ challenges when they return home.
A version of this story aired on BBC’s Tech Tent on Nov. 14, 2014. Listen to the podcast below: @20.00
Here is the full length transcript:
Tech Tent Host, Rory Cellan-Jones: One interesting aspect of the tech revolution is that women are playing a bigger role in the developing world than in places like the U.S. and U.K. Over 70 women from Africa and the Middle Easter have just wrapped up a month long visit to Silicon Valley, with the aim of picking up ideas for the technology they can use to tackle their country’s challenges when they return home. Alison van Diggelen met two of them…
Alison van Diggelen: They are two women with ambitious missions. They’ve got the tech savvy and now, after a month building connections and wisdom in Silicon Valley, they’re eager to launch their dreams back home.
Meet Asal Ibrahim who wants to bring massive deployment of solar power to Jordan; and Serah Kahiu from Kenya who wants to jumpstart the science and tech economy in Africa by developing a network of science museums and labs across the entire continent.
Both have lofty goals, but they talk with such conviction and enthusiasm, it’s hard not to believe that these young women will change the world, at least their little corner of it.
I start by asking Kahiu about the current state of technology in Kenya.
Kahiu: “I use mobile technology in Kenya, it’s HUGE. It’s like magic because you can do transactions, money transactions on your mobile. You can pay someone from wherever in a country: school fees, bills. That one has revolutionized life in Kenya.”
She explains how Facebook is a vital tech tool for small businesses in Kenya.
Kahiu: “You can use your phone for Internet. That has really sparked business because you can advertise your product on Facebook, get someone to pay you through M-pesa and then put stuff on a public transport system and it’s transported to your client. That has made it so easy for people like farmers. You cut out the middleman. The farmer gets all the profit. This is huge, especially for women. The majority of small scale farmers in Kenya are women, so that has improved standards of living for many women in rural areas.”
We discuss her grand vision of creating a network of hands-on science and tech centers across Africa, starting in Juja, Kenya, a university town she describes as having “the same vibe as Silicon Valley.”
Kahiu:“We need to embrace more technology because 60% of Africans and youth in Kenya are under 35. We have a bulge of youth who’re not employed. Science and technology is the last frontier for job creation. We must prepare people for that. We import 80% of whatever we’re using. Why do we import? Why not make it in Kenya?
“If the governments of Africa invest in science and technology and put it on its pedestal as an accelerator of development, youth are encouraged to understand science better, and more importantly, to start companies.”
van Diggelen: “So you feel it needs an entrepreneurship spirit kick-started?”
Kahiu: “Yes, kick-started! There’s a need for that entrepreneurship. They’re learning theory, theory, theory.”
van Diggelen: “So commercializing these ideas?”
Kahiu: “It’s very hard…That’s what I want to do. I’ll sit in the gap between the education system and the industry and help people to see the possibilities that there are in science, technology, engineering and math.”
“Every Kenyan child that is being born deserves to know and understand technology. We don’t have a choice. If the world is accelerating the way it is doing, we’ll be left so far behind, we won’t even see the dust. I’m serious.”
“Science and technology should answer your problems. So, I meet people where they are and then we walk together …People care about drinking water, safer roads and availability of healthy foods for their kids. So these are their needs. So I’ll walk with my people from that point and we’ll walk towards particle physics…flying to the moon, or Mars…who knows? (laughter)”
(This interview took place at the Los Altos History Museum, which is currently featuring an interactive Silicon Valley exhibit, now through April 2015)
Asal Ibrahim is a 24 year-old student from Amman, Jordan. She’s been working at a (Vista Solar) solar company in Silicon Valley, soaking up the “can do” attitude.
Ibrahim is enthusiastic about the state of technology in Jordan today, but admits there are many opportunities for improvement.
I asked her how Silicon Valley’s tech obsessed culture compares to that of Jordan.
Ibrahim: “It’s very similar. Everyone is obsessed with technology: holding a smart phone, interacting on social media, using it in almost every aspect of life. On an infrastructure level it needs to be improved: transportation, education is employing technology a lot…we need to improve it way more.
“You can find anything from high tech schools to poor schools in Jordan. We have schools that are winning international competitions like Intel Science Fair or Microsoft Imagine Cup and compete worldwide with their Robotech, with their programming skills, website software. Some schools are more advanced than some universities in Jordan. We’re still lacking equipped labs for example, not only technological advances like IT, but also scientific labs.
“Jordanians are very into technology. They can contribute a lot if they get the chance. We have a lot of international companies that have offices in Jordan, and employ large amount of engineers, like Microsoft, Sony, Yahoo.”
Ibrahim’s goal is to encourage the massive deployment of solar power in Jordan, but she faces an uphill struggle.
“It’s not easy to push this kind of alternate power and challenge the big oil companies. We have to combine all the manpower we have, all the technology, knowledge, NGOs, advocates, to make this happen. It’s a dream that needs to be worked on at a national level.”
Ibrahim was part of a public private partnership that brought 200 Mega Watts of solar power online this year, but she’s determined to keep up the momentum.
“97% of our energy is imported, so if any of surrounding countries that provide us with oil or electricity have bad political situations, which is the case most of the times, we will be out of energy. Renewables are now 2% of energy share. It’s mostly oil now.”
So how has Ibrahim’s month in Silicon Valley inspired her?
“The most special spirit of Silicon Valley is how diverse it is. Having people from all over the world working for the state of technology, for the sake of entrepreneuring, for the sake of innovating, creating new things. How excited people are on the train in the morning – they feel happy, on a mission to accomplish…it has reached me.”
She’s learned an important lesson from her month in Silicon Valley:
Ibrahim: “No idea is bad. If you have a single idea, whether it’s a website, app, any innovation you think can change the face of technology, you should pursue this, because an idea dies if you don’t pursue it.
“It’s all inspiring to me. Everything is possible if you have the persistence and determination to make it happen. The Jordanian culture encourages girls and boys, men to study equally; they’re very encouraged to pursue careers in STEM, to pursue technological and scientific degrees. Being in a male dominated environment in technological companies, can be a bit frightening for girls and women…there is no challenge if you show confidence and if you have a dream to pursue, no one will stand in your way.”
Check back soon for my interview with Sierra Leone’s Fatmata Kamara who wants to bring solar power to rural areas of her country to improve the livelihood of rural communities and help in the fight against Ebola.
As US president Barack Obama visits Myanmar, we ask if Washington has eased sanctions too much too early, while the Burmese government has failed to deliver on reforms. Also, European scientists land a robot on a comet millions of miles into space – we look at whether asteroids and comets can be exploited for minerals, and the commercial viability of mining in space. Plus, we look at the strange, morally complex world of foreign exchange dealers. We discuss all this with Alison van Diggelen, host of radio programme Fresh Dialogues in San Francisco and Heather Timmons, Asia Correspondent for Quartz in Hong Kong.
This summer, I was invited to share Letters from Silicon Valley with the BBC. This is the first of my letters and aired on BBC Business Daily on Friday September 26th, 2014. It was bookended by an interview with Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel and the haunting opus, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, read by Dylan Thomas.
The BBC’s Manuela Saragosa hosted the show. Here’s her introduction:
Saragosa: Seeing the world from a Silicon Valley perspective where failing is essential to success…
van Diggelen: You might be thinking that encouraging employees to fail is the nuttiest thing you’ve ever heard. But here’s the thing: if you don’t create a risk taking culture, then how are you going to invent the future?
Saragosa: … that’s Silicon Valley for you. As Peter Thiel says, it’s a counter cultural kind of place and California’s ultra competitive technology industry has its own way of going about things. Take success: to get there, failure is positively encouraged. Journalist, Alison van Diggelen has this report from San Francisco.
van Diggelen: The popular cartoon character, Homer Simpson famously said, “Trying is the first step to failure.”
I imagine Homer wouldn’t survive long in the tech world of Silicon Valley, where trying and failing is vital to the region’s dominance as the global center of innovation.
In Silicon Valley, it’s a badge of honor to fail, as long as you fail fast and learn from the experience. Here in Silicon Valley, mistakes don’t define you. They refine you.
Fear of failure doesn’t hold people back.
That’s why Google is constantly putting out products “in beta.” They try them out, and if they take off, like Gmail, support goes full throttle.
We all know Gmail, but do you remember Google Desktop, Google PowerMeter and Google Health? Probably not. They were launched and then quietly discontinued. Failures, yes, but you can be sure they delivered valuable lessons for Google products. Google Glass may go the same way, but it won’t damn the company as a failure. Not in Silicon Valley, anyway.
You see, failure is viewed differently here. That’s why innovation blooms in SV.
Some of the most innovative leaders in SV have the mantra, “if you’re not failing half the time, you’re not trying hard enough.”
They create a climate of cooperation, allowing teams to make and learn from mistakes, and change “business as usual.”
For skeptics, you might think encouraging employees to fail is the nuttiest thing you’ve ever heard, but here’s the thing: If you don’t create a risk-taking culture that condones, even celebrates failure, then how are you going to invent the future?
Incremental steps just won’t cut it. True innovation needs giant leaps.
If Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had accepted the DOS command-line-interface and didn’t ‘think different,’ we might still be stuck in the dark ages of black computer screens…
But how to overcome your fear of failure?
I recently interviewed Professor John Krumboltz at the Commonwealth Club of California. He’s the author of Fail Fast, Fail Often and is renowned for his fail fast, fail often mantra. He’s spent a lifetime at Silicon Valley’s Stanford University, exploring why successful people spend less time planning and more time acting.
“Making mistakes is important to human development,” he stresses. “Just do it!”
He cites the example of SV’s Pixar Studios, which makes computer-animated films like Wall-e and Finding Nemo. Pixar’s President, Ed Catmull says a few good ideas are often buried amid many “half-baked and outright stinkers.” By giving themselves permission to fail again and again, the team weeds out bad ideas quickly and gets to the place where real work can occur. Catmull describes the process as going from “suck” to “non-suck.”
In the business world, fear of failure can prevent you sticking your neck out, being innovative, trying something new. Perhaps you’re paralyzed by the Homer Simpson’s defeatist: “if I don’t try, then I won’t fail.”
Instead, remember that no one sets out to fail: failure isn’t your friend, but fear of failure is definitely your enemy.
Alison van Diggelen, of Fresh Dialogues, for the BBC World Service in Silicon Valley
van Diggelen: Ethnic diversity is even worse. The stats for Google are: 1% of their employee workforce is black…17% is female, 83% male. So yes, it’s pretty dire.
Last week, I joined Roger Hearing, 
Prof D: Well that was the initial implementation, a bulb replacement or retrofit. But what we’re seeing is: now you can use the LED to add additional features to lighting, such as communications. That is, you can have your cell phone control the color of the light bulb or even communicate information between the light bulb and your cell phone or maybe even your Internet server to distribute information into the house. That’s just starting. We call that smart LED lighting. 
Prof D: The laser headlight…you can see 700 meters in front of the car. Normal headlight is 150 meters. So you may think that this is going to scare the other driver, be bright, but it’s not any brighter to the other driver…it can be more tightly focused and columnated, projected on to the road. So this is a big safety advantage and it’s actually been released by BMW and Audi in Germany. Several thousand dollars per headlight but it’s a safety feature, because on the autobahn you drive about 240 K an hour, so you want to see 700 meters….
We discuss her grand vision of creating a network of hands-on science and tech centers across Africa, starting in Juja, Kenya, a university town she describes as having “the same vibe as Silicon Valley.”
You see, failure is viewed differently here. That’s why innovation blooms in SV.
