SV 101

Yesterday Shel gave me the first lesson of "Silicon Valley 101" :-)

He was a great host taking me around Palo Alto and Stanford. As usual we had a great conversation about many subjects: cultural diversities, social media, the economy, life, etc ...

He also wrote an interesting post about how blogging and social media allowed him to get in touch with the world.

I tried to explain to him the psychology of Italians/Europeans towards other people's success: the "zero sum game", if I make money, you loose money. That's how stratified societies think, because resources have been historically scarce and social mobility very limited.

In Silicon Valley, on the other hand, there is this idea of "win win" which is pervasive: if I am successful you can benefit from my success. That's the way of thinking of the last frontier, where there is still some space for skilled people. It will not last long though, because this society, as any other society will age in time.