# 23 – The mythology (and reality) of Silicon Valley

In episode 23, we demystify 7 of the most common and core myths on Silicon Valley, from its laid-backness to “everyone is amazing”.  Check out episode 22, where we explain what Silicon Valley actually is, talk about its history and geography. In episode 24, we will deep dive on our Silicon Valley loves (and hates) and finally address the elephant in the room: is there an exodus going on or not? Has Silicon Valley’s downfall started or is it highly exaggerated? Navigation: Intro (01:34) Myth 1 - Laid Back (04:25) Myth 2 - Not Transactional (16:11) Myth 3 - Self-Confidence and Assertiveness (27:22) Myth 4 - Ton of Capital Available (37:29) Myth 5 - Everyone is Amazing (47:31) Myth 6 - Failure Always Rewarded (55:17) Myth 7 - “Changing the World…” (1:00:49) Conclusion (1:04:49) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news. Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand: Welcome to episode 23 of tech deciphered. This would be our second episode of our trilogy around Silicon Valley. If you remember how  previous episode, episode 22 was about what is Silicon valley, as well as what brought us there. For this episode, we're going to talk about the myth of Silicon Valley versus reality. And we are going to share with you seven myths that we have seen over these years, and we believe come a long way explaining how Silicon valley really work. Nuno: This started in some ways  with an article I wrote, I think in 2016 and I have four myths in that article. So today we're going to expand on that. Bertrand has come up with a couple more and that whole story started  with two things, one with an entrepreneur that reached out to me and I used to have a lot of requests on LinkedIn via email  semi warm intros from friends about someone from another was coming to Silicon valley or was visiting, was going to come to Silicon valley to visit and meet with potential customers or investors. But this particular entrepreneur that shall go un-named reached out to me and we had several people in common. It was a relatively cold reach out. And then he just sent me a follow-up message saying, I'm going there for a visit. Can you introduce me to Google, Facebook, all these companies. And I was like, why am I bugged by this? And as I started thinking through it I started actually taking it one step further, which was, I am bugged by it because people have this understanding of Silicon valley that is fundamentally wrong. And that's where this whole mythology came from.  In some ways we had people that we knew in common. We had acquaintances, not even really close friends, but I did not know this person. And that was one of the first things that bugged me. It's like, why is he asking me for things? I introduced him to people why? I don't know this guy.  And so again, I started going through it, and the second trigger for me to write this article, the myths of the Bay area back in 2016 which is still on Medium  if you want to take a look at it, I was about to be doing a keynote for an organization that I was a co-founder of called west to west, which was really linking  Portugal to Silicon valley, the two west coast as we call them and really helping entrepreneurs figure out how to best go to market in the U S how to best connect with talents in US, customers, potential investors, et cetera. So I came up with four  myths that really helped me frame in some ways, a little bit of my messaging back to entrepreneurs that are not classically from Silicon valley, but are coming here. And maybe we'll start with the first one, and go from there.  Myth 1 - Laid back (04:25) The first myth I really identified was that the bay area is laid back. There's this clear notion from around the world. It's like people in the Bay area  are laid back. And a lot of this mythology is around for example, the way we dress that we wear hoodies that we have t-shirts that were pretty informal in how we dress, even in front of investors that we're trying to raise money from, et cetera. Bertrand: Specially  in front of investors.  Nuno: Specially in front of investors. And that is precisely the point to what Bertrand was saying, which is the Bay Area is laid back in a very precise manner, which is it's not laid back. It's just a different dress code. If you  show up for a meeting with an investor in Sand hill road, Silicon valley, and you're wearing a blazer, a jacket, et cetera, immediately, the investor will know you're not from here. The reason by the way that we wear a whole lot of hoodies is  the bay a area is a bit of a strange  climate, depending on where you live. Like San Francisco is a bit drizzly and all of that. So hoodie makes a lot of sense in effect, right? Because there's changes of temperature that are dramatic during the day because you want to cut the wind. And sometimes it's pretty windy because it's drizzly as well. It doesn't rain heavily, but it's drizzly. And so that's one of the reasons why we do wear hoodies and  somehow people got confused, they confused what we dressed and how we apparently talked to each other with fundamentally the mindset. I would say the Bay area is very intense in some ways. If laid back, it is a laid back in a specific manner. I had a friend of mine who used to characterize it as aggressively laid back and what he meant by that is it's laid back in a very specific manner. If you behave in a different way, you're already strange, certainly in the entrepreneurial and VC space, obviously, as we've discussed in our previous episode, the bay area does have corporate world and does have the entrepreneurial world, which don't always touch. But certainly in the entrepreneur and VC world the dress code and how we behave is in some ways a bit formatted. It is cool that I can wear t-shirts almost all the time. I think the classic way for a VC to dress is kaki and shirt. I sometimes break that as well, cause I'm a cool kid, so I will go t-shirt hoodie, and go in even a more relaxed way than most of my colleagues in the venture capital world. But in some ways the dress code was what led me initially to this myth. Bertrand: Yes. And if we stay to the VC side, of course you need your north face vest or, Patagonia jacket.  Yeah, it's pretty funny. It's when you start to see that at scale, how everyone  looks the same in the same category, so you can immediately guess who is a developer, for instance, they are the one wearing shorts and having a t- shirt  or if you are a VC we talk about the vest, the jacket, jeans.  And if you are the entrepreneur yes don't wear a blazer , don't wear a jacket typically that's not what you would do.  Personally that's one side I like that you  don't need to do too much to wear too much. It's way more casual. It's probably more connected to how people naturally live and dress, but at the same time, when it's enforced in some ways, that's when it starts to feel weird. And I've seen that. I still remember 20  20 years ago, early in my career, when I showed up in France, actually in an investor meeting as an entrepreneur,  with  a jacket   one investor told me that I was not a real entrepreneur because I was wearing a jacket. And that was in 1999, maybe I forgot  but my point is when it's enforced that's when it start to be very weird and to be frank really wrong. But you have to be aware of the codes because if you are totally  out of what is typical and expected yes. You would just stand out and usually you want to stand out for the right reason. Nuno: The standing out piece is if you have a very specific way that you like to dress and a very specific way that is  different and you stick systematically to it, that might work over time, people will get used to it. Kevin Systrom was  a great example. He was well-dressed most of the time  which in Silicon valley was almost a blasphemy and others have followed suit on that, which is a bit of a double pun there.  But in some ways it has to be part of your personality. I think obviously if it is part of your personality, you should do it. It shouldn't be just a gimmick. But you need to be careful to your point Bertrand Bertrand: Yeah. And please be careful. Don't just dress up like Steve jobs  with your black pullover,  blue jeans.  Nuno:  With a turtle neck. Bertrand: Exactly the turtle neck. have seen some in China, some in Silicon Valley dress up like this and usually it didn't end up  very well for those that were just plainly copying Steve Jobs  . I would say may he rest in peace and please just let him be, and don't try to copy, try to be slightly original because when it's too much, it's too much. Nuno: Yeah, the second lateral part of the aggressively laid back, et cetera, is also attitudinal on how we behave here. That part's really important. I think a lot of people like, yeah, we're all very relaxed around how we communicate with each other,  how we show up to meetings, et cetera. Actually, not really people need to show up on time, be it a call, video call in person. Responsiveness is pretty important in keeping  momentum. So if someone sends you an email, they're a potential customer and you want to show momentum. You should reply quite quickly, right? Even somehow showing effort in doing so. Like for example, if you're European company and you get an email at 11:00 PM, you still saw the email, getting back to the person in Silicon valley, actually at 11:00 PM might be a positive thing because people are like, okay, this person is making an effort,...