Friday 3 April 2009

Expo-sing myself

This week saw the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.  It was a kind of technology conference, the 2.0 representing the (supposed) next stage in the Internet.

What it meant for Haas students was a chance to network, see where the industry's going, and find job and internship opportunities.  What it meant for me was playing with some nice toys and getting a lot of free pens and t-shirts.  And luckily I'm a friend of Amir, who with his business connections managed to get everyone free entry!

The place was certainly impressive, and walking into the hall I was immediately greeted with big signs proclaiming Microsoft's, ebay's, IBM's, etc. next big things.  There were also several stands of smaller, start-up companies.  Some of them even seemed to have good ideas!

But I was left wondering what these businesses actually do.  No one makes anything, no one even sells anything, but everyone seemed happily confident that they'd turn a profit before the venture capital money runs out.  I'll check the names on the t-shirts I got in 12 months and see how many are still in business...



The swish looking conference centre.



Everyone's here!



Well, I am, sort of.



Dana and Amir feign interest, while I take the free pen and run.