ANNALEE SAXENIAN CHRIS DARWALL

tape 162 163

on Side starts at around 176 on the counter

ct6W
ah it seems to me that especially in ilicon Valley

con ext theres tremendous irreverence or dismissal of all

existing hierarchies status differentials that dont come down

knowledge and technical capability Uh and it has uh positive

side Its liberating in the sense that kid--a poor kid from

Taiwan can go to school and if he gets the right education can

come here even if he doesnt speak English or barely can stumble

through English and can succeed in this environment So its

very liberating Uh but think its also very threate to

existing distributions of power uh and social stat--stat tJh-

15.o
Sc
think that Internet time--that phrase does capture something

about the speed-up inuh--the nature of competition and the nature

of work lives in Silicon Valley because products have to come out

so much more rapidly--product cycles are so much shorter You

know it used to be that you would introduce new car model every

tveyeas_.nn_nyearears And now you know six to nIne_months

o_new.safrjA7are pacicapes new ideas to--to be produced and come

to market Uh that
--_ plays out in everyday work life and the life

of these teams in all sorts of So think there

ways is

change in tens of the pace of work tih and then its facilitated

by the fact people can get you instantaneously If

_ent get

you on the phone they get you by e-mail You know theres

asynchronous contact People--you dont have to wait for the post

office to deliver your letters You can fax them you know So

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 ANNALEE SAXENI.AN CHRIS DARWALL 10
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guess think that Internet time does capture real--a reality

uhYo the--the new kiªTr suwork in this

environment
5O3i6

You know havent studied other uh--these other communities

think people on Wall Street work very hard think there are

different paces of work life My guess is the pace of--of work

life on farm is different than it in Silicon its

is Valley and

certainly different than the academic work life People do wo

hard in the intensity of these projects because

deadlines the intensity of projects when youre developing

new uct or new software package is think qualitatively

different because it--it--this

so_nd people is self

uh reinforcing come because want to be at the

thinffeole they

leading edge of technkgy They want to be part of that hot new

product and so push themselves work

they very hard and they

around the clock Th -they are very driven and think that

people do work very hard ot everybody and not all the time

when the crunch comes think there is an intensity that is ye

unusua Uh its interestin ave a--a friend

is srael and hes observing Israeli high tech and

he says the same thing about the kind of in-

pressure on projects

in high tech in Israel t30USb

meres high to it Theres real--I think there is high to

it To those mean you have to remember the people

PeoPle
that are here dont--if people
are self-selecting If they dont

get high on this they leave Theyre--anybody who has technical

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Tape 162 163

training can get job you know in Austin anywhere else They

can move to Portland It--its slower pace in other aces In

Silicon Valley you eople who want to be in thatd they

really- think th that the pressure of the team also creates

that think some ng about the social pressure in these team

envir ents--you want to prove yourself to your colleagues and to

the--the broader community that youre part of So think

part of this socia world where uh you are watchixn your 14

and \our friends are watching you that--that intensifies

frie
that uh--that--sort of that drive to--to prove yourself
--
----------

think thats danger in the current environment dont tkink

it has to be think that it would be danger if we really lose

perspective If people lose perspective on the broader context in

which theyre developing the technology and the broader

priorities uh within which the technology uh should be placed

think there are uh some voices of sanity and think it will be

important for those voices to speak up more and more uh in order

to make sure that this doesnt run us uh rather than letting us

run it Theres great promise in the technology for sure and

think we should exploit that Uh but this is--this is our world

This is social world and we can control the direction and the

use it

ilicon Valley was when started writing about it

as late as the late SOs you would probably say it was

mucnWhite male world but it is not anymore is

increasingly--well immigrant as said So youve got lot of

Asians Uh youve got lot of Indians Uh and the white--it may

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be that there is set of priorities that were white male Now

you get women Theres women Valley who are as

cEes.\n/tlicon
driven as any man have ever me think one of the sources

of hope I--I would like to look is that women in the Valley

win heiptsrE sane of the other priorities of fandi for

example uh within that context That remains to be seen

tOG

Uh think the changes uh in the last five that find most

years

troubling actually are because Silicon Valley has gained attention

around the world and attention of Wall Street uh in way that it

never had before the financial pressures are much greater

think there was more of technology culture in the past where

people were here because they loved the technology and they

wanted to do something fun with the technology Uh and now its-

think--Im worried about the--sort of the pressure of the

market the competitive pressure and--and the pressure of the

world watching uh thats pushing--uh its sort of reducing the

room for maneuver to think about those broader values that we were

talking about rib-- IS O.5

Yeah it has--it--again like everything were talking about it

some very sort of uh ominous sides to it mean these very

oung people in their 20s and their eicskingal7Th

oney and retiring And the sense that you can do that And

therefore people striving for that And thats part of the

speed-up They want to be--they see--there are enough role models

of people that have made it rich fast that they want to

very

become like that So everybodys striving to be the next iP

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tjh on the other hand in the early days the wealth uh wasnt--and

it continues to have positive aspect in the sense that uh people

who make mo--made money early in the technology reinvested it in

other entrepreneurs So you got this very dynamic environment

that allowed people to experiment mean one of the keys to

Silicon Valleys dynamism is that theres all these experiments

going on all the time ou could never run this many .eerimwjb
with new technologies or new products or applications inside of

big company The bureaucratic rules of big companies wont allow

that So one of the good things about Silicon Valley is that

people made lot of money and then they started to spread it

around among their friends who had the technical capabilities

tiink thats progressive In the old days you had money uh that

rested in small number of people who only gave it out to their

chosen few And so the hierarchies reproduced themselves This

is much more egalitarian in that sense But the social issues

about people getting rich young and that

every thinking they

can become Bill Gates uh are also very scary

That people will orient their lives so much around the pursuit of

instant wealth Im worried that my little boys will

will think that they can somehow when theyre 25 or 30 start

company and hit it rich and everybody cant And want them to

see that there are other things in their lives that they should

value

Its good question Let me just start by looking back bit

tih Silicon Valley in the early days was technocratic

very

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culture but one of its strengths was collaboration People had--

they were outsiders and they had to work together So you get

this team uh uh model uh that was pioneered because people were

outsiders and they had to work together And think there was

something very progressive about that It fostered collaboration

and openness and open sharing which is--was unusual in uh

American industri Whats happened in the last five or ten years

because of the sort of the attention of Wall Street and the uh uh

the pressure the financial pressures and the way that theyve

intensified is that Im concerned that that will undermine the

collaborative elements of the Silicon Valley thin

culture
there are two possible ways that it could go in e-- next uh

millennium think you could see return to those principles of

collaboration and teamwork the progressive parts of

Sort of horizontal uh uh you know equity tJh and reinforcing

of those elements of the culture Or you could see turn towards

the more competitive more uh sort of financially driven elements

of the culture which are there too in the kind of filing

lawsuits against employees that leave and just continual

litigation that could undermine think some of the progressive

parts of the Silicon Valley culture So think the--the future

remains open and its ub an important time to sort of step back

ICabout which way know want Silicon Valley

and you we to go

Economic sociologist

Yeah or anthropologist

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Im not really trained as an anthropologist So--

Maybe should say as someone sort of who--whos etbn--done lot

of ethnographic work in Silicon Valley Is that--

You want me to as a--as a-

say
eo
Yeah Im--Im worrying about the disciplinary thing Im not

really trained as sociologist As scholar of this--should

say as scholar of Silicon Valley culture or something Or is

this too Or should just as sociologist What

say

should say

\j
Well the thing thats always fascinated me about Silicon Valley

is uh he way that it has pioneered this new way of doing

business and it has transcended the old corporate hierarchies

Its defined new pattern of doing business one which uh has

aspects that are quite uh open and progressive People uh share

information much more freely between companies People are able

to take risks TJh its much tolerant to failure than other parts

of uh American industry parts of the world think Uh and it is

much more open to people of all backgrounds And that is

tremendous value that Silicon Valley has contribute

\5.VO

No think it is more think it does go deeper than just

simply trying to make money think there is uh--there--you

know the influences on Silicon Valley the early influences range

from these very smart technical people de--sort of stuff

designing

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for defense purposes to the counterculture which had very

strong influence on Silicon Valley and the egalitarian impulses

of the counterculture are still to be found in Silicon Valley

And uh the diversity of the population that contributes to Silicon

Valley uh and the ability to experiment with new industrial forms

uh is very unique to Silicon Valley In fact looking just at

best practices almost by definition doesnt allow you to see what

Silicon Valley is really about because it is about broader

community in place And its about people who have grown

together over time and have experimented with--not just with

technology but with organizational models with cultural

practices uh that are very different IJh so Silicon Valley is

much more than just individual firms or best practices in those-

those companies

Or making computers or software or making money on them

Absolutely Absolutely

c\O

laughter It is definitely distinctive new variant on

capitalism in that sense It is very different from the standard

East Coast model And the people here--you know Robert Noe

some of the early semiconductor pioneers were very conscious that

they were defining different model They rejected--well they

used to call the feudal hierarchies They didnt like the

chauffeured cars that their East Coast friends would come in on

They--they really had a--a vision that was very different of how

the firms should be organized tJh so think it is new and

As
saidoSthtSWkbs
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heavily influenced by the GOs and the counterculture ub but it

also has proven to be--I think the thing that Silicon Valley does

is it taps entrepreneurial energy It allows people to

experiment to come out to try new things with much more fluidity

than they could in more vertically integrated hierarchical

environment uh because the money flows more freely because

technology is more openly available And so you uh allow people

to experiment and to try things uh in many different ways and

think that dynamism and flexibility is going to spread back And

it has already triumphed over the--the old in the computer

industry certainly over the old vertically integrated model that

dominated uh not just- the East Coast of the U.S but

really in Europe as wel if you--if you think about the

places that have done technology industry now theyre

not uh in the traditional centers of industrial capitalism They

are new places that are able to assimilate this new way of doing

work and organizing industry .2u

Well would say Taiwan is place that has done it very well

I--I would say that youre seeing it in Israel right now Uh

would say that youre seeing it uh part--youll see more of it

in parts of Asia in China think

ts

Yeah Bahn absolutely Or yeah Absolutely

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Tone

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CHRIS DARWALL

Your heart would sink You would--you would feel incredible uh

sadness panic uh it would be horrible moment and you would-

you would be feeling so much foTho many people You would be

feeling for all those people in your company Your mind would be

racing you would immediately begin thinking Now what do

do jiext at are the hundreds of things Im going to do

next
Uh you know it--I can imagine it might be similar
to4h getting
c\tt6stal-a4t1garing ontId been
et4atJcded
injured Uh its--you know its moment beyond drama where

youre just feeling it in your gut and uh these are--these are

just terrible moments arid you--you try so hard uh--you know

people in business talk lot about planning but there are so

many things you cannot plan for Ub

mostjouttouild
vibrant organization that can respond Thats moment where

respenss..ne1 be immediate swift and you know as good as

Ab lutely And think that you know its interesting because

Internet time really is real In the old days uh if you had

they

took long time to respond uh they would have committees set up

to study the lay-offs Maybe theyd have firm come

consulting

in to recommend where--you know where should we make cuts You

cant do that any more And--if you think you want to make it

through the crisis youve just gotten yourself into Uh think

also at least here in Silicon Valley theres big understanding

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1/2w

if something like that happens if something you know radically

-----d--thErTe going to

be swift Theyre going to be fast So uh you really--you know

worrying about ilwawilluEoTmorale morale

wfflEwoYstryorident do it

organization reall7 can tech in at times like this--even

though obviously its very painful uh but that is what

happen It is defining moment You have to make again some

very quick bets some verybig bets You dont know if theyll

work but you nw If dont make them very quickly its not

going
to_work

Yes it--its--Silicon Valley is very interesting place You

know it was named after the semiconductor industry Silicon

Valley Well now uh what really fuels this economy here is th4

-the Internet anies and the software companies So whats

interesting Silicon Valley has been able to reinvent itself

where many places in the world where weve seen economic

booms that hasnt been the case So what is it about this

place Uh yes its extremely demanding to work here Its

--
extremely competitive Ub comp anies come and go Why is it

though that the Valley can reinvent itself Uh and have

people

studied this place and tried think of what is

to it but to me
lTTiiCEhThInincreielearningenviroent
What youve got is place where the--the Silicon Valle
organism

lea incredibly fast The people within it learn incredibly

fast they love that learning So youve got perfect

envi ent uh for continuing to be and

responsive continuing

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uh adapt to things that are thrown at you uh because people want

to learn Now should you come here and think that magically you

know if you start company youre going to be successful

Well not unless you really enjoy that demanding pace For some

people having demanding pace uh having to be quick all the

time thinking all the time gather those new ideas analyze those

new ideas thats exhilarating

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