Silicon Valley’s Bubble Gets Skewered? The Cambridge Union Society Debate!
by Kara Swisher
Posted on November 14, 2007 at 1:10 AM PT
BoomTown has arrived in England from its travels on the Continent to participate in a series of discussions with a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors, who are visiting Cambridge University and other places here to talk tech with students, as well as European investors and entrepreneurs.
It kicks off tomorrow night with a debate at the Cambridge Union Society (see fancy seal above) with the premise:
“This house maintains that Europe, not Silicon Valley, will become the best place to build the future billion-dollar companies.”
Them’s fighting words!
The proposition, as they call it here, will be defended in the Harry Potter-sounding Chamber by Hermann Hauser of Amadeus Capital Partners; Index Ventures’ Neil Rimer; Simon Cook of DFJ Esprit; and Warburg Pincus’s Bill Janeway.
The opposition: Entrepreneur Reid Hoffman; Allen Morgan of the Mayfield Fund; Stanford professor Ramesh Johari; and Bandel Carano of Oak Investment Partners.
BoomTown will moderate and we are not the least bit biased. Except to note that Silicon Valley is totally outclassed, by the venue alone.
Also, we can’t wait to see the Valley folks pretzel themselves into unnatural shapes to explain Facebook’s $15 billion valuation (and I am guessing, “Because we said so!” is not going to cut it here).
Video report, of course, to come.
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