IN ENGLAND, 15 miles north of Cambridge lies a boggy marshland called the Fen Land that is kept dry by a system of drains the Dutch introduced in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Due to the amount of hi-tech and IT companies in the Fen region and the area around Cambridge the area is known to locals as Silicon Fen (or the Cambridge Cluster).
India has Bangalore, the ‘Silicon Valley of India’, and the nation has been developing Kolkata and Delhi, and other areas of the sub-continent for tech innovation – each likely to also self-declare being a ‘Silicon Valley’.
In Skolkovo, near Moscow, the Kremlin wants to create a tech hub with billions in investment and a university modeled after Stanford and plans to launch a tour the second half of 2012 across the UK, Spain, France and Germany to attract foreign investors to help create Russia’s Silicon Valley.
Mexico and South America each also have their respective ‘Silicon Valleys’.
And, no one can deny China’s claim (forget about knock-offs and IP theft for a minute) in successfully attracting technology companies in areas like Zhongguancun (in the larger Haidian district) plus, you might already know that 250 miles west of Shanghai on Route 312 lies Hefei (pronounced Hu-fay) which is targeting to be THE Silicon Valley in China by 2020.
There are countless more aspiring ‘tech’ valleys dotting the globe. Think of how many times you’ve heard the phrase, “We’re the Silicon Valley of [insert any location here].” (Get list of contract electronic service providers in Silicon Valley / Bay Area)
And, closer to the source, there are various technology triangles and innovation parks scattered across the United States.
But, there is only one Silicon Valley and in Silicon Valley, if you take the Woodside Road exit about one mile heading west off interstate 280, you find Buck’s restaurant located in Woodside, CA, an Old West logging town.
If you pass the 20-foot carved wooden salmon near Buck’s roadside parking lot you’ve gone too far.
The owner of Buck’s is Jamis MacNiven and most people who know Jamis might agree he is the unofficial diplomat of the independent nation of Silicon Valley and his restaurant has developed a reputation for being the destination where business and innovative thinkers and leaders plan startups, and mergers, and make decisions about pouring millions of dollars into new companies.
In this exclusive interview with VentureOutsource.com, Jamis talks about how Buck’s and Silicon Valley have both evolved over the years; people he admires, his TED Munich talk (watch video below) while he also shares some interesting stories and insight.
But if you stop in the restaurant for pancakes one morning and you see Jamis, say hello, but whatever else you do don’t ask him to hook you up for venture funding.
Transcripts from that discussion follow…
Good morning, Jamis. Please take a minute to tell readers about yourself.
MacNiven: I got my start as an artist in New York City in the early ’70s, as a sculptor, and I gave that up because I found that to be a very lonely business so I ended up in the restaurant business, which is anything but lonely.
A phantasmagoria filled with boy toys is how Japanese Websites, badly translated, refer to Buck’s, and it’s full of a lot of stuff I collect and also build.
I like to get home as early as I can to go into my shop and work on various projects.
I’m working primarily now in plaster and fiberglass making large, fanciful creatures that I supply to the Humane Society in Burlingame. Their lobby and the various floors are filled with my animals.
I also get to create for our other restaurants as my sons allow me. I’m in business with them in San Francisco.
How did Buck’s begin?
MacNiven: Well, I was a builder for many years, and I built a lot of restaurants; built savings and loans, houses…and I thought that when I built the Hard Rock Café in San Francisco that I was at least half as smart as that guy, and that’s turned out to be true.
So, when I was remodeling a restaurant in Woodside, the Woodside Bakery, and the Stagecoach – an old, down-on-its-knees restaurant next door for sale – I thought this was a good time to try that.
So, we bought the location 20 years ago and, after an abrupt learning curve, figured it out, and we’ve been there ever since.
What is one of your favorite food items on the menu?
MacNiven: Our favorite item, by sales, seems to be our grilled and seafood stuffed marinated artichoke, something I concocted that we now also sell at all our other restaurants.
The extra large artichoke sometimes is in short supply, and somebody actually raided a field once and stole all the extra larges.
My supplier said, “We can’t get any for two weeks.” And I said, “Well, do you have the thief’s number? I’ll call him because running out of that’s a problem.”
Buck’s restaurant menu layout has stayed relatively the same over the years sans a few exceptions / additions to menu items. Meanwhile, you write a menu cover story that changes over time. How did the idea of the menu story begin?
MacNiven: Well, the cover story comes out every 90 days and it’s a two-page, color photo-embedded set of news stories about people in Silicon Valley; things I’m involved with and travels that I’ve made.
I usually highlight an up-and-coming business or something else interesting that’s going on.
Below are front and back menu cover images from Buck’s restaurant menu taken at the time of this interview. Stories this time around involve former EMS provider Solectron’s CEO Koichi ‘Ko’ Nishimura (Solectron was acquired by Flextronics) and world-renowned ear surgeon and inventor Dr. Rodney Perkins, and Steve Jobs.
(Click to enlarge for reading.)
This month we’re talking [on the menu] about Ecopia Farms which is an indoor farm of the future that uses multi-tiered levels of grow lights to produce greens I’ve never seen anywhere else – little, tiny, baby lettuces. It’s amazing. Many firms like that have such great stories I just felt compelled to write them.
The menu gets fairly widely read and has actually resulted in some nice partnerships of people that have read them and gotten involved – so it’s real news.
Jamis also talks about his encounters with Steve Jobs in this video recorded at a TEDx Youth@Castilleja event. (Refresh page if video does not immediately load – Video 1 of 2)
During the early days of Silicon Valley, did you notice a different mindset among some of the thought leaders you were meeting at that time: venture capitalists, private equity guys and company executives with hot start-ups compared to today?
MacNiven: Well, we started the restaurant in ’91. It was February 14, 1992 when Bob Metcalf was writing an Internet column for InfoWorld – Bob founded 3Com and co-created Ethernet – said he was having a power breakfast at Buck’s. I’d never even heard the expression, power breakfast.
There was also a mention in The Economist that John Doerr was having breakfast at Buck’s in ’93 and I’d never heard of John Doerr.
And then it sort of snowballed, and we all started looking at each other, going, “Oh, this is interesting.” But then, it morphed from interesting to meteoric in a few years.
What was your personal view of Silicon Valley during the early years?
MacNiven: Silicon Valley was just a place we lived. There wasn’t really anything wildly distinctive about it. I’ve lived all over the world. I lived in New York and Los Angeles, San Diego and Silicon Valley just seemed interesting.
I went to Berkeley, so I was familiar with San Francisco, and I came down the peninsula a couple of times.
But it wasn’t until about 1995 that we started looking at each other and saying, “You know, there’s something going on here that’s – that’s unique. That’s not happening in other places.”
And, of course, that was the Internet. We were around for the growth of the PC, and that was pivotal. But, compared to the Internet, the PC was training wheels.
If you could have a two-hour conversation while sharing breakfast with anyone living, dead or fictional who would you choose, and why?
MacNiven: I’d pick Jack London because Jack London is both a Californian, he was wildly successful, and a complete failure.
He was an incredible combination of things – he was wherever he wanted to be – he was a diamond stickpin socialist and he also wanted to hang out with all of the Crockers and the Stanfords, but he claimed to be for every man.
And, many things he touched, from his yacht that he had built, to his house that burned down, were complete disasters, and he burned himself out at the age of 40, yet he left this body of work about himself and his life that was very transparent, and I think he’d be a terrific character to hang out with.
This unique decorating style at Buck’s, regarding your collecting of various items for the restaurant, how did this begin?
MacNiven: Well, with my background as an artist I’ve always liked the quirky and odd. We started decorating with sort of a Wild West theme because it’s so equestrian and old timey California. But soon it evolved – or rather devolved – into just American whacky.
I like to have a humorous twist on the things I bring in.
Some items are authentically historic and some are even significant, but most are just crazy whims.
Tell readers about the acquisition process of a couple of items you acquired and are on display.
MacNiven: I have a Russian space suit hanging from the ceiling I acquired when I went to Russia. I found out where they were made and went and banged on the door and they ended up selling me one on the strength of me having come in with the business card of General Leonid Ivashov, who was head of the Russian Army.
He had come to Buck’s one morning with Bill Perry, who was the recently retired U.S. Secretary of Defense.
They were just having breakfast, and I got to chatting with the general, and he said, “If you’re ever in Russia, look me up,” so I thought, “Oh, okay.”
I went to Russia and looked him up.
The general was inconveniently – or rather conveniently, in the end, for me – in Chechnya, but they didn’t know that at the space suit company I visited. His business card really opened doors everywhere, including when we got arrested there.
Anyway, we got the space suit, and, there it is. I tried to get one from NASA. They weren’t having it, but I knew the Russians would sell me one.
Jamis also asked in Russia about acquiring Lenin’s body for display at Buck’s, but without success. (Below)
Then, many years ago, my grandfather was at a sale at the Jack London estate. This was in the late ’50s or ’60s, and he acquired a sawfish shark snout that Jack London had picked up in the South Seas in the early part of the 20th Century. It dated back to the mid-19th Century.
There’s a series of pictographs that some Guadalcanal islanders had painted on the sawfish. So it’s both historical collectable, and then made doubly historic by Jack London having it. You know, Mark, I’m a big fan of Jack London, and so that is probably my most prized possession – besides the cash register.
There’s no close second to the cash register in this business.
Please tell us about two memorable moments, or visitors, you’ve met at Buck’s.
MacNiven: Oh, we’ve had a number of notable people and – just every day people. I think the most incredible thing that ever happened was there was birthday party for a little old lady, and everyone was all dressed up as cowboys and cowgirls, and she had a little hat on, and her head barely cleared the table.
I came up and said, “It’s your birthday. Is it okay to ask how old you are?” She hoisted up her six-gun and said, “I’m 102.” [Laughs]
And on that same night, some good friends of mine came in with their two-week old twins, and I thought, “That’s a heck of a customer base,” and so that was a wonderful moment.
Later, at that same table where the birthday party was, Shimon Peres was in one morning with an entourage, and he was very cordial and said I should stop in and visit him when I’m in Israel. I haven’t done that yet.
You have these wonderful connections you’ve developed from Buck’s over the years. What are your thoughts on the restaurant being woven into the deeper fabric of Silicon Valley?
MacNiven: Well, I do hear Buck’s is woven into the fabric of the Valley. I’m always amazed when I go to a party or go out and there’s somebody who I’m just chatting with, and they find out I’m the guy from Buck’s, and their eyes pop open.
And I’m thinking – I’m just always surprised that they’ve heard of Buck’s. There’s been a lot of press over the years, but it’s all because of my customers.
It’s because in Silicon Valley, you know, history-making things are happening, and some of them have happened at Buck’s, apparently. It’s a perennial surprise to me, and a lot of fun.
What are your thoughts on the current culture in Silicon Valley today?
MacNiven: As you know, today, you’d think our time in the sun would be eclipsed at some point, and I’m sure it will, but that hasn’t happened yet.
We’ve been on a steady uptick. Our boy billionaires are younger. The valuations are higher. And things are moving at an ever-greater speed.
We [Silicon Valley] thought, in 2000, when we saw the bubble pop that that might mean there was going to be a shift back to Route 128, the old tech center around Boston, or New York City, or something for the high tech world, or maybe China.
But this hasn’t happened. Ideas are still bursting out of Silicon Valley, and the pace, if anything, is faster than it’s ever been.
What do you see happening for Silicon Valley in the future?
MacNiven: I think we’re headed for more great things, but also another correction. I think the giant evaluations are going to come back to kick us around a little bit.
It’s just my guess, but I think that when Facebook goes out, if it’s being valued at $50 billion or whatever, but the revenue never approaches that kind of valuation, I think people are going to say, “Wait a minute. This has happened before.”
But, then again, maybe there will be some new twist that we haven’t even anticipated. There were a few people that guessed the Internet was going to happen, but it didn’t have much impact on our thinking until it actually did happen.
How many times can we reinvent ourselves? I don’t know. But, if home evaluations keep going up, pretty soon it’ll just be the boy billionaires who live here.
So, there are some cracks in the ice.
Who is someone you admire and, why this person in particular?
MacNiven: Well, you know Bill Draper bubbles to the surface on most people’s lists because he’s the kind of guy in the venture world that everybody would like to be in the end.
Bill’s the grand character who is so accessible and so successful that he now is less of a venture guy and more of a philanthropist. This is a man who makes time for everybody and has this deep history in the Valley. And, of course, his son, Tim Draper with Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson, (www.dfj.com) is also a venture capitalist.
To me, Bill really typifies the successful guy. The family guy. The modern businessman. He’s a handsome devil and frequent diner at Buck’s. Bill would be No. 1 on my list for sure.
What advice would you give to startups planning to relocate to the Valley to be closer to venture funding?
MacNiven: This is where the action is, and a lot of the action is had by face-to-face. That’s what Buck’s is all about.
When Hotmail was literally founded at Buck’s, it was when Sabeer Bhatia had this idea, just an idea, and he was interviewing venture capitalists, to find out who he trusted because the idea was so simple – it was free e-mail with a little advertising tag – and he didn’t want to expose it to just anybody that might just rip it and run.
So, he met Steve Jurvetson, and they pounded it out and, boom, Hotmail.
It sold for $400 million over 10 years ago when that was a lot of money.
Being here is critical.
And then, they always talk about venue. If you don’t offshore a bunch of your coding, then you look like a dope, but that’s changing too. Actually, there’s a shortage of highly skilled talent in the Valley, so you’ve got to offshore.
And sometimes you offshore to other parts of the United States, but its also as likely to go to Ukraine or India as anywhere else.
Any other comments you want to share with readers?
MacNiven: We hope to have another 20 years. Sometimes the walls close in on me at Buck’s a little bit, so I’ve found other things to do. I’m developing other restaurants with my three sons. We’re working on our fifth place right now.
This occupies a lot of my time.
I’m also in the high-rise structural steel business as an investor in a firm called ConXtech (www.conxtech.com) which is basically a robotic factory making precision columns and beams, where we snap together mid- and high-rise structures.
We built a 10-storey building at Burning Man in two days, and that actually provoked a lot of interest, and we’re getting some business out of it, so it’s fun to be part of that because it’s high tech meets the Old World, and it’s in construction, something that I know.
I feel like keeping my hand in building. I’m always building something, whether it be art or whole structures, so I put a lot of miles on the car, drive around a lot, and I also travel with some frequency.
We have the TED Conference coming up now in February, which I attend every year, which is just a terrific mind meld of some of the most amazing people, plus me, and I look forward to that every year. And I also do some speaking gigs around in the TED format.
I went to TED Munich, last year.
Jamis discusses how Silicon Valley evolved to what it is today and more about his restaurant. Video shot in Germany (December 2011) at a TedxMunich event. (Refresh page if video does not immediately load – Video 2 of 2)
In Germany, they are crazy about the United States and Silicon Valley, and [laughs] I’m actually – I say modestly – somewhat well known in business circles in Germany because the fellow that does the evening news in Germany came to Silicon Valley and did a big show centered around Buck’s and basically said in the show, “If you’re looking for money, see this guy, Jamis, at Buck’s,” which was more or less a joke because I can’t hook people up with money.
I say that, and no one believes me.
So I got a flood of people from Germany, and have for years – business folks wanting to get hooked up in the Valley. It’s very tough to raise money in Europe for startups. It’s Old World there, and things don’t happen as fast. (See also: Strategy for tech startups: Product contract manufacturing and design outsourcing strategy)
There’s this notion that if you create a firm and you flop, you’re done. You hear this a lot. It’s changing, but it’s still the prevailing thought there.
In Silicon Valley, there’s this rumor that’s gotten around that you can fail, and everything’s fine, and you move on to your next gig. I’ve always thought that’s kind of an odd model.
I prefer the Google model, where the first thing you do is wildly successful, and you don’t fail at all.
But, the truth is people do start things that don’t work out, they learn from that thing and move forward. I’ve seen that.
I was part of restaurant group, and it ultimately wasn’t successful 25 years ago, but we learned a lot, and we moved to the next one.
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