Archive for March, 2007
STIRR USA Mixer 2.3 in Photos
Photography by Lane Hartwell
STIRR USA Alumni in the News!
Congrats to the following STIRR USA Alumni for making some noise this month! (STIRR 1.8) has received $1 million in funding (STIRR 2.3) is profiled in a NY Times story, “Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching“ (STIRR 1.1) is profiled in a Forbes story, “The Ebay of Loans“ (STIRR 2.1) is profiled in [...]
Congrats to the following STIRR USA Alumni for making some noise this month!
(STIRR 1.8) has received $1 million in funding
(STIRR 2.3) is profiled in a NY Times story, “Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching“
(STIRR 1.1) is profiled in a Forbes story, “The Ebay of Loans“
(STIRR 2.1) is profiled in a Forbes story, “Send in the Clouds“
Scott McNealy’s Talk at STIRR USA 2.2
Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems Speaks at STIRR‘s Founder’s Mixer 2.2: Part I Part II Video Courtesy of Nandor Fejer http://bub.blicio.us http://www.future-works.com
Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems Speaks at STIRR‘s Founder’s Mixer 2.2:
Part I
Part II
Video Courtesy of Nandor Fejer
http://bub.blicio.us
http://www.future-works.com
STIRR USA Founder’s Mixer 2.2 60 second Video Spots
Founder’s Mixer 2.2 60 Second Spots from: Attendio Confabb Collaborative Drug Discovery JobCoin
Founder’s Mixer 2.2 60 Second Spots from:
STIRR USA Founder’s Mixer 2.2 Wrapup
Photos Courtesy of Ammie Wang Photography STIRR Mixer 2.2 wrapup: This month we had three firsts. Our first talk by a Silicon Valley legend, the first time the room was so silent for 10mins you really could hear a pin drop, and our first time someone gamed the Audience Choice Awards. The guest host for [...]

Photos Courtesy of Ammie Wang Photography
STIRR Mixer 2.2 wrapup: This month we had three firsts. Our first talk by a Silicon Valley legend, the first time the room was so silent for 10mins you really could hear a pin drop, and our first time someone gamed the Audience Choice Awards.
The guest host for 2.2:

Rafe Needleman, Editor at Large
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To keep STIRR events free for the entrepreneurs and the presenters, STIRR relies on generous sponsors. This month’s sponsor was Sun Microsystems and their Startup Essentials program. More about Sun and the Startup Essentials program at the end of this article.
Scott McNealy’s talk:
Valley legend Scott McNealy joined us for 2.2. When Scott took the stage, it was the first time in STIRR’s 11 month history the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Scott’s reputation proceeds him. In the valley he’s been known for being controversial, brash, loved by his employees, outspoken and not afraid to make enemies of his competitors. Besides helping bootstrap the entire workstation market from zero, in the web 1.0 timeframe Scott took on Microsoft, and unlike Netscape, Sun survived to tell about it. For STIRR Scott put on the charm and had some solid advice to share. Our only regrets were not getting a longer Q&A to talk about the early days of getting Sun off the ground. Here are some of his insights paraphrased:
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Hire smart people who get along with each other.
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Your business has “got to be controversial,” otherwise everybody will do the same thing you do.
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Don’t cheat (even if nobody’s looking). It’s the little cheats/quiet-deals that demoralize a smart team.
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Manage through slogans (aka “The Network is the Computer”)
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Your competing firms are your enemy, but not their people. “They threaten our existence as a company”
and more gems and anecdotes in the talk. We’ll get the video online shortly for all to share.
Audience Choice Award:
Starting in January, the STIRR audience has been selecting one lucky winner to win a SUN x2200 M2 Server. This month there was a surprise in store for everyone and being the social engineers at heart that we are we were impressed with some blatant social engineering. As we were gearing up to measure the audience applause, one of the contestants shouted “and we’ll buy everyone free drinks if we win!”. Well, they won by a landslide, a score 10db louder on the meter than the other 3 contestants. Right after receiving their award the winner shouted “ok, but we’ll buy drinks _after_ we get funding”. The crowd let out a resounding ‘Boo’ and we all had a chuckle watching the mock drama unfold. We’ve talked with the winning team, and they are going to live up to their original promise. First round of drinks are free for![]()
everyone at Mixer 2.3, and we’ll hit ‘em up for free drinks all night the month after they get funding, so come on down.
Thank you Confabb!
Video Coverage:
Courtesy of Bub.blicio.us


