"Thar's GOLD in them thar hills !" - This was the singularly most heard cry on the lips of the floods of immigrants who came from all over the world in a fevered, mad race to find untold and undiscovered wealth amidst the barren, sun-bleached Californian hills surrounding San Francisco Bay.
History had nicknamed these fortune hunters the "49ers", for 1849 was the year of the "Gold Rush" when 100,000 prospectors descended into San Francisco after gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Today, the spirit of these pioneers lives on in San Francisco's football team, who are called the "49ers".
The Technology Gold Rush of the 1990s and today is no different - Prospectors are still lured from distant corners of the world, but today, modern technology enables them to be transported there at supersonic speed, with in-flight service while watching the latest Pixar movie in air-conditioned comfort.
Like their counterparts of more than a hundred and fifty years before, these high tech prospectors have packed their hopes and dreams and have come well-equipped - not with picks, shovels, or lanterns, but with armfuls of post-graduate degrees in computer science, electronics, engineering, and business. Hungry for success, these 21st century entrepreneurs are the brightest brains and talents this planet produces and revel in nothing less that taking on the entire world.
Way back in 1849, prospecting for gold in the San Franciscan foothills was a pure numbers game - The more claims a prospector staked out, the greater the odds he had to "Strike it rich!" The trick was, of course, not to run out of money before finding the gold. Today, thousands of entrepreneurs and their financial backers, the venture capitalists, engage in the same gambit, but the game is coached in Silicon Valley-Venture Cap jargon.
The mythology of it all holds an irresistible and almost mystical allure for thousands of dreamers all across America and the world.
The mere mention of the word "start-up" in Silicon Valley conjures visions of huge global market potential, paving the fabled road to what could be untold fortunes for its founders.
For a Valley start-up, discovering gold is equivalent to getting listed on the stock exchange or being bought by Google or Yahoo for a gazillion dollars.
If your company goef for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), you have to write a document for your potential public investors explaining your business and its risks - this document is called a "prospectus". The past casts long shadows into the present indeed.
Every year the US Immigration Department issues around 100,000 work visas. Curiously this is the same number of immigrant gold prospectors who came here exactly a century and a half ago. As they say, "History repeats itself".
Perhaps, history will refer to the high tech dream-seekers of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries as "the 99ers" and perhaps, they will also be remembered for their hopeful cry, "Thar's Internet Gold in them thar hills!"
David Lim
Hi David,
As in all gold rush, bull runs and herd mentality, humans will find out that all that glitter is not gold. We know about the US$1.6 bil purchase of YouTube. And we thought nobody pays smart money for eyeballs anymore post dot.com. Read the latest Fortune magazine on Google. All the fuzzy-wuzzy terms like "Chaos is Good" is back and practically nobody has any idea how to make profit. I would short Google if it was possible.
Another lesson in the Gold rush is that the guy selling the gold axes and mining equipment made the most money. (if memory serves me right, such a man contributed a lot in building the Stamford University?, Correct me there dave.)
Harold
Posted by: Harold Fock | October 17, 2006 at 09:47 AM