Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Insights and Opinions: Avoid Monoculture
For today's Insights and Opinions piece, we turn again to prolific blogger and local venture capitalist Mark Suster of GRP Partners, for his insights into how a wider experience--beyond the confines of the startup world--can help you as an entrepreneur.
I sometimes feel that the Silicon Valley culture and we as technologists more broadly can breed monoculture in our approach to entrepreneurship, problem solving, market analysis and technology solutions.
Experiences way beyond any hack-a-thon, startup blog or your current company engagement can enrich your thinking and challenge you to think more broadly about the solutions you offer in the market.
I remember once sitting on a panel with Esther Dyson who is one of the most travelled and broad-experienced technologist I know. It was an “enterprise 2.0” panel at the dawn of what people began calling “web 2.0.”
Esther was talking about problems and entrepreneurs as far away as Russia. She was talking a lot about how the broader world doesn’t operate how we in Silicon Valley always perceive that it does. She encouraged people to get out and travel, see the world, see how other people live and operate. (Continued...)
Read the rest of Mark's post, Avoid Monoculture. Travel. Read Widely. Let Experience be Your Compass.