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The Silicon Valley ChallengeOverlay E-Book Reader
Christoph Keese

The Silicon Valley Challenge

A Wake-Up Call for Europe

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Produktdetails

Verlag
Penguin Verlag
Knaus, München 2014
Erschienen
2016
Sprache
English
Seiten
320
Infos
320 Seiten
ISBN
978-3-641-20914-8

Kurztext / Annotation

An Insider Report from the Centre of the Digital Universe
Silicon Valley shook the European economy to its core. American technology companies are the big winners of digitization. With the capacity to reach billions of people, they are aggressively making inroads into traditional industries. Digital Disruption poses a major threat to European industries such as: automotive, retail, logistics, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, banks, insurance companies and chemicals. No sector is spared from the onslaught of Silicon Valley - with dramatic consequences for workers in Europe. Who is behind Silicon Valley's enormous success? How do the founders and investors think? Where does all the money come from? Why are their universities so successful? In short: How does Silicon Valley function? Christoph Keese, a Berlin-based author and top executive of Axel Springer, the highly digitalized publishing house, lived and worked in Silicon Valley for half a year on behalf of his company. He wrote an account of his experiences in this book. It is a gripping narrative written from the epicenter of the 21st Century: vivid, memorable and well-informed. His book has become a bestseller in Germany. It is now available in English for the first time.

Christoph Keese ist Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter der Unternehmensberatung hy und begleitet namhafte Unternehmen und Regierungsinstitutionen bei Fragen der digitalen Transformation und technologischen Innovation. Der Publizist, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, Verlagsmanager, Investor und Bestsellerautor arbeitet seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre an der Digitalisierung von Geschäftsmodellen und ist einer der führenden Beobachter von Innovation und Erneuerung. Er gehört zu den Mitgründern der »Financial Times Deutschland«, leitete als Chefredakteur die »Welt am Sonntag« und »Welt Online« und trieb, zuletzt als Executive Vice President, die Digitalisierung bei Axel Springer voran. Christoph Keese ist Autor zahlreicher Bestseller, darunter »Silicon Valley«, »Silicon Germany« und zuletzt »Disrupt Yourself«. Für »Silicon Germany« wurde er mit dem Deutschen Wirtschaftsbuchpreis 2016 ausgezeichnet.

Textauszug

The reluctant capital

Silicon Valley is a powerhouse that controls the world's knowledge, but those at the center of the Internet prefer to deny their own importance. The most powerful valley in the world looks like provincial suburbia.

We want to find out how the Valley, which could not be more inconspicuous, is changing our lives. It is February 12, 2013, and we've been sitting on the airplane from Berlin via Zurich to San Francisco for 13 hours. As the children sleep with their heads on our knees, Silicon Valley emerges into view. I am gazing out the window as we dive into the thick cumulus clouds over the Golden Gate Bridge. I have been here half a dozen times in the past decade, but the suburban character of this area never ceases to amaze me. I do not mean that the landscape is dull. In fact, it is grandiose. Spectacular even. Few places on Earth are more beautiful, but the buildings are uninspiring. Nothing has changed since my last visit. Boring. Yawn! The Valley is a world power on Valium, a power center hiding under an invisibility cloak.

There is no sign of global corporations, factories or research labs. You would think that the Valley would look totally different than it does. The home of Google should appear powerful, important and influential; but that is not the case. There are no high-rise buildings, industrial zones or villas with gigantic gardens. The tightly run Internet corporations, respected for their power to transform the rest of the world into defenseless digital colonies, are sitting in cardboard boxes made of concrete. Billions of people are being led into electronic dependence by these corporations, but why is it being done in such impersonal office parks? Don't they get bored in there? If this is supposed to be the Rome of the Internet age, why doesn't anyone build a capital? People say that building high rises in earthquake country is foolish, but San Francisco has done it, so why is the tallest building in Palo Alto only twelve stories high? That's how high the entry halls in New York are for companies that don't earn a thousandth of what Silicon Valley companies bring in. There are as many millionaires and billionaires in this tiny area of California than anywhere else in the United States, so why don't they build pools in their backyards? To be fair, some do, but most choose not to. Why can't the city planners come up with a better street grid than the ubiquitous checkerboard given the astounding spirit and genius that flows into the design of Apple's products? On the way to San Francisco, our Airbus makes a 180-degree curve over Palo Alto, just as every other airplane does. The plane veers steeply on my side, and outside the window, there is this strange flat little town. Architecture students do not need to come here, but media managers do.

Silicon Valley is not even a real valley. The name itself is misleading. The Pacific lies to the west, and there are surprisingly few beaches along the coastline, but the Valley more than makes up for this in steep cliffs and a wooded ridge that slopes upwards, which is considered the western boundary of the »valley.« Placed under protection as a nature conservancy, it is sparsely populated. Half of Silicon Valley is more or less a jungle. There is no elevation east of the Valley. The flank of the hill slopes gently downward to San Francisco Bay. The mountains reappear 20 miles behind it, far beyond the other side of the bay. »Valley« sounds better than »hill flank«, which is what it actually is. The alleged Valley is 50 miles long and 20 miles wide. Ten miles of it are forest and grasslands, and only ten miles can be considered civilization. The whole area is barely larger than Berlin.

The poet Durs Grünbein once described California as the last speck of the West before the East begins. Airplane pilots must pay attention to their steering wheel if they don't want to fly pas

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Über den AutorIn

Christoph Keese, geboren 1964, Studium der Wirtschaftswissenschaften und Absolvierung der Henri-Nannen-Journalistenschule. Tätig u. a. als Ressortleiter Wirtschaft für eine Berliner Zeitung. Er ist einer der Mitbegründer der Financial Times Deutschland, heute Leitung als Chefredakteur. Der Autor lebt in Hamburg.