The Le Web conference recently wrapped up their ‘08 session (in Paris, fwiw). The news coming out of it has been interesting on a number of fronts, but one piece has attracted a lot of attention: Le Web founder and host, Loic Le Meur, and TechCrunch founder, Michael Arrington, have been on friendly terms up until recently, but they’ve started trading blows in a bit of a kerfuffle that started during the closing “Gilmore Gang” session. It’s an Us. (or U.S.) vs. Them debate about how the different cultures in Silicon Valley and France/Europe affect entrepreneurship. While watching the Gilmore Gang video, I was surprised to recognize the same insecurities in European tech entrepreneurs that I share with people here in Central Oregon – an acute awareness and sensitivity to the fact that, “we’re not Silicon Valley”.
It was a surprising epiphany, that Paris and Bend have this commonality, given how profoundly different the two cities are in pretty much all other aspects. It gave me a bit of hope that the debate might turn up a nugget or two of insight into the nature of the issues we face. Unfortunately the panel was populated entirely by Silicon Valley personalities, so insights were in short supply. It didn’t help that some of the overinflated egos on stage were knocking back wine at a good clip. It was entertaining (in the train-wreck-fashion that all Ugly Americans are), but not insightful.
Let me try to nurse at least a little wisdom from the discussion and do a quick rundown of the issues as I see them. I doubt these will come as a surprise to any of you, but maybe some speculation as to how they might apply to the European startup community will turn up something useful … (more…)