Over the weekend, many companies in the tech industry had to live through their worst nightmare as the bank holding the cash that many companies in the industry rely on collapsed. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was the largest bank in terms of deposits in the Silicon Valley area up until its collapse on Friday. The … continue reading
Even before the wave of bad Valley news last night, January made things in the San Francisco Bay Area tense. We’ve been on edge for months here in anticipation of the Super Bowl. Now that those immense proceedings are over, the Bay Area seems to be exhaling a large sigh of relief. Thing is, maybe … continue reading
Just as in “Game of Thrones,” winter is coming, and with it come huge risks to investors and employees of the so-called unicorns. Unicorns are broadly defined as startups worth US$1 billion or more. Once rare and mythical, there are now more than 100 unicorns, according to some estimates. However, once these firms are faced … continue reading
I had a high C-level in the valley tell me, during a heated interview a few weeks back, that he didn’t fear anyone coming after his products with huge swarms of developers. Rather, he feared teams of three to 10 people. It’s a sentiment I heard years ago, while interviewing Verizon’s CIO. His internal software … continue reading
When it comes to the Silicon Valley, there are two titans that make all the decisions: CTOs and venture capitalists. At least one newly minted VC finds that being a CTO is quite similar to being an investor. Steve Herrod was VMware’s founding technologist, having developed the virtualization technology behind the company while at Stanford. … continue reading
Mirantis and its competitors were in full selling mode this week. The company was in Santa Clara to exhibit at the OpenStack Silicon Valley conference, and to show off its brand new US$100 million investment from Ericsson and Intel. While Mirantis’ investment was big news at the show, listening to the conversations and speaking to … continue reading
If anyone had any doubt about the potential for going IPO as a modern enterprise software company, the last two days should have removed that doubt completely from their minds. Hortonworks and New Relic are both dominating the markets right now, rising quickly and looking to be poised for an even higher rise over the … continue reading
I’m calling it now. Keeping in mind while I do this that I have been fabulously wrong in my predictions before, I am now, as we speak, calling this the peak. The bubble might get a little bigger, but it’s coming time for it to pop. Again, I’ve been very wrong before. I called tablets … continue reading
