Semi-personal post warning! Read if curious.

If you’re one of the (admitedly few) people who’ve been reading this blog for a few months, you may know how I was planning and antecipating my trip to the bay area. Some of you may wonder, now that I am back (and still jet-lagged to infinity) how my experience was. This post may make sense for people who like me, wonder(ed) why europe doesn’t cut it when it comes to the new web and the startup business.

I will start with the basics: it is so different out there that you need to experience it to actually realize how much the difference really is. Spending two months living and breathing bay area business and spirit, believe me, now I know. And the reasons for the success of the bay are beyond economic factors.

People and business

Lets start by saying a lot of important people live and/or work there. This is a self-feeding feedback loop, because if you have the people, you have more value, which gets more people. You can get the cream of the crop in people you normally only hear about and read in the news to come and give their input with a finger snap - we did it at Techcrunch 3 times with our three parties (the last one being a tremendous success). We also did it with edgeio, by getting great input from people in all the right places.

Everyone is around. The projects that you only hear about months later, are all living and buzzing through the bay before launch. We had visits every day from entrepreneurs building great projects - some with success around the corner, others who are likely to fail (which is not bad if people learn with their mistakes). Investment and VC is enormous. Sandhill Rd is the business mecca.

Risk and fun above everything else

People are not afraid of risk. Only 1 out of 10 startups do succeed, but people try. Guys drop out of Stanford to develop their projects, because they believe they have something to contribute. In europe, you don’t see that happening. People are afraid to stand-up for their ideas and push the envelope - it’s an unfortunate shame. Sitting around and talking about it is never the same as actually acting - we sit more often: another unfortunate shame.

People have fun. I saw people in tricked-out garages building hip browsers. I people them gathering and working in coffee shops and events. I saw them at our parties. We also have people in europe, just not the will to add the social layer to our work.

A lot to walk and pull

We have a lot to walk and pull if we want to take part, or we’ll see things pass by again. I for one will be making an effort, even if in a little country like Portugal. I know we have the people and the knowledge. Now if we can avoid getting sucked into the bay area and create local value, maybe we can actually run with it.

Thank you.

I met a lot of people in these two months - some people who I’ll forget the names of in the next paragraphs (I am sorry if I do). Living with Mike (you have become a great friend - remember not to let work come ahead of yourself), Gabe and Richard was ace. The team (Mike, Keith, Matt, Vidar and me) we have working on edgeio is amazing (we are doing so much with so little, you will only believe it when you see it). Louis (from Google), Jean-Marie (from Apple) and Jeff Clavier have the wisest of advice. Robert Scoble (from Microsoft) is great - keep moving the boat and throwing chairs if you need to. Dave Winer is a great guy - looking forward to the summer, we’ll rock it out, bring out the mini buda.

The guys I met from Adaptive Path (Janice, Lane, Jeff Veen) and 24HL (Gina and Marc Andreessen) are great. Nivi rocks the house - obviously! Scott Beale is a great guy, keep reporting, I keep reading and looking at the photos. Tara rocks - even if you’re a little crazy! Matt is doing great stuff with Wordpress - definitely keep it up and I’ll keep using and evangelizing. Everybody that was at our Techcrunch parties was amazing, thanks for being there.

I know I am bound to forget people - again, I am sorry. One person I cannot forget though, which is why you were left for last, is Kieron - the little things count, driving over to say goodbye was something I honestly appreciated. I don’t know how to thank you properly - feel free to drop by and visit, I’ll be sure to as well.

Those I wanted to meet while I was around and couldn’t - I’ll be back soon to fix that. The most important thing in all of life - people.