Paul Roche, from McKinsey & Co.

«Now is a tremendous time to be starting a company in the Silicon Valley given the availability of talent and sites and this opportunity of a convergence of the three waves»

Interview by Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues, editor of Gurusonline.tv

This interview with Roche complements the other done with Dr. William Miller about the "New Convergence"

Paul Roche is another member of the Next Silicon Valley Leadership Group of the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network.
Contact by email: Paul_Roche@mckinsey.com

How you justify that the new wave will be a convergence of tech revolutions in bio, IT and nano?

I think we would argue slightly differently which is that all three of these "waves" are happening separately, albeit with longer time frames on the bio and nano side than the IT, and that each of the latter build on the successes and technologies of the former. For instance, bio-informatics, biological material designed nano, chip-based bio diagnostics, etc. As such, having a leading position at the "convergence" of the three is immensely valuable for companies and for the pace of innovation.

Is the Silicon Valley and the Bay Area of San Francisco prepared to lead this new period of innovation, despite the lost of reputation in the last two years?

A variety of factors affects where innovation happens. Some are quantifiable such as: concentration of companies that "spin out" ideas/people/technology, availability of funding and other resources (e.g., accounting, legal) that support new start-ups, culture, etc. Some, like reputation, are less quantifiable although they can still affect success.
We at Joint Venture Silicon Valley believe that most of the relevant factors are still more prevalent in Silicon Valley than elsewhere. In fact, now is a tremendous time to be starting a company in the Valley given the availability of talent, sites, etc. Silicon Valley has a strong position in IT and in Bio. It has a good position in Nano but there is a lot of investment also occuring in other areas of the US and the world. A focus on the core assets that make SV different, good venture work and attention to needed social issues like traffic, housing costs, etc. can insure that SV has a significant role to play going forward.

Despite the special habitat so praised, one of the current problems of the SV is a certain operational model like "silos of activity", that the Joint Venture reports mentioned? How this barrier can be surpassed?

I believe you are asking how the IT, Bio and Nano silos can be brought together. If so, that is one of the questions we are thinking about going forward. Certainly there are some recognized ways: multi-discipline programs in doctorate programs, cross-discipline research parcs, sponsored programs to bring IT, Bio and Nano executives together, etc. We do have a solid answer yet but are looking at these and more

Another problem is the social side of the innovation movement. What is being done to overcome this problem?

Again, this is a work in process. JVSV has convened a leadership group from business, government and social organizations to identify the biggest issues (job flexibility and migration, education, housing, etc.) and brainstorm appropriate approaches. Clearly we are not the only group that is working on these agendas. There are many forums for discussion and action on these issues in the Valley.

How you benchmark Silicon Valley against other US and world locations?

A soft answer is that we believe SV is well positioned relative to many of the other locations in its: (1) entrepreneurial culture, (2) high degree of local funding, (3) quality of the start-up infrastructure, (4) ability for start-up executives to network, (5) depth of talent in each of the 3 key waves (examples = SV dwarfs other US locations in number of certified engineers, or members of key engineering societies, number of patents), etc. Clearly different locations have some of these and may have spikes in others. We did not benchmark specifically against other locations in a "fact-based" way.

© Gurusonline.tv, 2002