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Don Valentine : The Legendary Venture Capitalist of the Silicon Valley

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

A start-up always is an unpredictable and a doubtful move for any of the founders as well as its investors. But taking risks is the key to innovations. To attract the investors the founders must have a convincing idea and a self-belief so that the investors can also trust them. Donald T. Valentine is one of the biggest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and the founder of Sequoia Capital, who has been the investor for various new ideas, resulting in the foundation of many famous multi-billion companies. According to Don, the start-ups are compelling, as the survival is the prime motivation for the people who are behind it.

Early Life

Donald T. Valentine spent his childhood in the suburbs of New York. He was born on 26 June 1932, in Yonkers, New York. His father was a minor official in labour unions in the Teamsters and worked all his life to earn his living. Donald joined a nearby Catholic school at the Fordham University, and himself is a Catholic. After completing the school, he entered the same university to pursue an undergraduate degree in Arts.

Founding Sequoia

In the early 50’s, Don got a chance to work for the military and was moved to California for some time. There he came to know the very first time that there are also some places in the world, where it did not snow. He liked the fact so much that he decided to move to such a place. After he was back in New York, he joined the Sylvania Electric, where he worked at various different projects. The company was the manufacturer of the cathode-ray tubes, semiconductor, and the vacuum tubes. Just after some time of working in the company, he was promoted to the sales engineering department and was transferred to California, the place, where he always intended to be.

Don Valentine
Image Source: alchetron.com

In California, Valentine was introduced to a bigger industry and was convinced that there is much more than vacuum tubes, and the future is all about the semiconductor. In 1959, he joined the start-up company, Fairchild Semiconductor, in Los Angeles, as one of the first West Coast salesmen of the company. After working in Fairchild for seven years, he left the company and subsequently, switched between almost ten other companies, before joining the National Semiconductor, as the senior sales and marketing executive, in 1967.

Valentine founded a venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, in 1972. The company was focussed on the investments to small, risky tech companies. The firm’s first investment was to the startup company Atari (1975). Sequoia has financed probably six hundred different companies, including LSI Logic, Oracle Corporation, Cisco, Electronic Arts, Google, YouTube, etc.

Don has served as a member of the boards of dozens of those companies, for a long time. Also, Sequoia was one of the original investors of Apple Computer. Valentine met Steve Jobs when he was a line engineer at Atari and financed Apple Inc., with $150,000 as its capital investment, in 1978. He is the former Chairman of NetApp and Traiana. He was featured in the 2011’s documentary film Something Ventured. He has also been called the “grandfather of Silicon Valley venture capital”.

Google’s G Suite & Target Joins the List of the Victims of Ongoing Bitcoin Scam

Google, News, Tech News / By

After the breach into the twitter accounts of the US and Israeli politicians, as well as the official account of the Indian Consulate in Frankfurt, on Monday, a group of hackers hacked the official Twitter account of the retail giant Target on the very next day.

In the brief time of half an hour, the hackers posted a fake tweet on the account to promote a malicious cryptocurrency giveaway. The fake giveaway’s worth was 5000 BTC (approx. $31 million), that was put on to the tweet with a QR code, Bitcoin address, and line of text that claims it will return deposits tenfold, to lure the naive investors. The tweet addressed the 1.92 million followers of Target’s twitter account and had asked them to send BTC on the given address, to become a part of the giveaway.

google-twitter
Image source: hot97svg.com

The hackers were smart enough, to put some replies on the tweet from some high-profile accounts, to make the tweet look more legit and convincing. The hacking lasted for a small time, and according to the Bitcoin insiders, the hackers were able to arrange not more than a handful of BTC from the followers.

In such a small time, the media and other parties got notice of the incident, and Target took control over its account back, just after thirty minutes of hacking and posted another tweet, that confirmed the hack. The tweet read, “Early this morning, Target’s Twitter account was inappropriately accessed. The access lasted for approximately half an hour and one fake tweet was posted during that time about a Bitcoin scam.”

After taking the control over its Twitter account, Target is still in active discussions with the social media platform, regarding the matter. Not more than a few hours passed for the Target’s twitter hack, another hack came into light when another major account i.e., the official Twitter account for Google’s G Suite, a group of software/products that includes Drive, Docs, Gmail, Hangouts, and others, was hacked by the hackers. The hackers posted a similar fake tweet on the account that mentioned a giveaway of 10000 BTC to the winners of the giveaway. The tweet included a similar link along with an image of a QR code and Bitcoin address. Google was quick to take down the tweet, and it still has to confirm the breach.

Other breaches like the hacking of the official account of Elon Musk and the major European film company, Pathé, which took place earlier this month, and TV Chef, Tyler Florence had also occurred around last month, and now Target as well as Google has also joined the list. For now, there has been no other news of any other hacking of any account, and we can expect that Twitter will now be more focused on the security of the accounts of its users.

Google to Reward $25 Million to the Winners of AI Impact Challenge 2019

Google, News, Tech News / By

Artificial Intelligence holds a great contribution to the world of technology. But like the sci-fi movies, the AI has got various hazardous impacts to the world, too. Maybe thinking of that, Google is inspired to obtain something better from the AI, and at an event called AI for Social Good, held at the company’s Sunnyvale, California office, it announced a competition for the AI developers, called the AI Impact Challenge.

Google
Image Source: express.co.uk

According to the announcement, the competition will include non-profit organizations, like universities and colleges, and the other organizations that are not related to the corporate world. The teams will participate in the competition with ideas that will focus on solving social problems with the help of AI.

Google will provide the participants with cloud resources for their projects, and the winners will be rewarded with an amount of $25 million. The initiative is a part of Google’s charitable unit Google.org. The company has said that the participants can be professional AI experts or maybe with no AI skills, as the company will provide the competitors with guides who will help them with their projects. During the event, Google said, “An international panel of experts, who work in computer science and the social sector will assess the proposals to select top winners in the spring of 2019.”

The initiative taken by Google is a part of the ‘AI for Social Good’ and will address the issues like data security, environmental conservation, human trafficking, health care, and other serious issues like controversial military works. In the competition, the participants will be finding the best solution for those issues, using the AI.

Google’s artificial intelligence chief, Jeff Dean, said, “Artificial intelligence is not just helping people create more useful products, we use it in a lot of ways throughout many Google products but is also emerging as a really powerful tool for improving the society that we live in.”

Google is accepting the applications for the competition from today, and the names of the accepted grantees will be announced at the Google I/O developer conference next year. Also, after the competition, the participants may receive some job offers from the Google AI research centres, established earlier this year, in places like France and Ghana, etc.

India Gets its Google One Cloud Storage; Monthly Subscription Starts at Rs. 130

Google, News, Product, Product Management, Tech News / By
Google Cloud
Image Source: entrackr.com

Google offers a 15 GB free storage to all of its users, but, on 15 August 2018, it launched its paid cloud storage Google One. Google One is a monthly storage plan for the users that is available for on the usage of all of its products such as Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. At the time of its launch, it was only accessible for the US citizens, but Google had planned to make it available for the users worldwide, India being its priority.

Last week, Google, finally, launched its monthly subscription plans, for its Indian users. The basic plan for the cloud storage starts from Rs 130/month and is expendable to Rs 19550/month. In Rs 130, the user will get 100GB of cloud storage, for a month. It was assumed that the Indian audience will get those subscription plans at a cheaper price. But, the price is almost the same as the plans offered to the US citizens.

The Google One, cloud storage subscription plan, for India, includes 200GB storage at Rs 210/month, the 2TB plan at Rs 650/month, 10TB plan for Rs 6500/month and the 30TB plan at Rs 19,500/month. In the US, the 100GB storage plan costs $1.99/month, 200GB plan costs $2.99/month, 2TB plan is for $9.99/month, 10TB storage plan for $99.99/month, a $199.99/month for the 20TB storage plan, and 30TB storage is for $299.99/month.

Google’s cloud storage also offers two months free storage on some selected subscription plans. According to the offer, a 12-months plan subscriber will get a two months free storage. The user has to make the payment through the Google Play app. The ones who will take the 12-months subscription plan will have to pay only for ten months of the subscription. Also, the users can share the storage with five other members of their families. Google has also provided its cloud storage subscribers with one-tap access to experts help and perks like Google Play credits and offers on hotel deals when the user searches and books hotel on Google apps.

Google Unveils the Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL & a New Chrome OS Tablet

Google, News, Product, Product Management, Tech News / By

After much of the leaks of Google’s Pixel 3 phones, finally, Google has launched the new smartphones in an event, held in New York City, yesterday. The new Google collection unveiled at the event includes two new Pixel phones, a new Chromebook and a new Google Home Hub, along with a few accessories.

The new, third generation Google Pixel smartphones, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, have bigger screens than the last year’s Google Pixel phones. The smartphones have a front and back glass finish, giving them more premium look. Both of the phones possess a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, and the storage will range from 64 GB to 128 GB, with a RAM size of 4GB. The two phones are water resistant and have no micro SD slot or a headphone jack.

New-Google-Pixel-3-Xl
Image Source: gadgetstouse.com

The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, both support wireless Qi charging with a 2915mAh battery and 3430mAh, respectively. The two are also having a similar camera set, a 12.2-megapixel rear camera and a dual 8-megapixel front camera. Having all the similarities the two phones differ in the screen size. The Pixel 3 has a 5.5-inch OLED screen, whereas the Pixel 3 XL has a 6.3-inch OLED display. The starting price for the Pixel 3 is $799, and the Pixel 3XL starts at $899, for its basic model. The Pixel 3 and Pixel XL will be the first phones to receive the latest Android updates, possessing no bloatware.

At the event, Google also launched its first Chrome OS tablet, named as Slate. The 12.3-inch display Google Slate is a laptop that can be converted into a tablet. The detachable keyboard is connected to the tablet through the magnet connectors and is empowered with the internal battery of the tablet, itself. The device has come with a better wide-angle front-facing camera, and has the highest pixel density, as compared to the other devices in the same category.

The tablet will be available in a variant of 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB of RAM, built on an Intel Core m3, i5, or Celeron processors, and the available storage will be up to 256GB. The tablet alone will cost approximately $599, and the keyboard will cost $199. Also, you can get a styler pen worth $99.

Along with the Google smartphones and the tablet, Google also announced the Google Home Hub enabled with the Google Assistant. The Google Home Hub does not support video calling as it does not have any camera, and also, it has a smaller screen. The cost of this gadget will be $149. With all these new gadgets, Google also released the Chrome set, but there was no mention of it in the event. The Chrome set costs $35 and still supports 1080p streaming, but with faster 5GHz Wi-Fi network support.

The pre-orders for all Google’s new gizmos will start from October 11 and will go on sale starting November 1 in India.

Susan Wojcicki : The Second Chief Executive Officer of YouTube

Google, Inspiration, Story, Tech Story / By

From being a mother of five children to making a name in the list of the Most Powerful Women of biggest forums like Forbes and Fortune, Susan Wojcicki has become an inspirational example of women empowerment. A part-time painter, doodler, and a scholar from the University of California, Wojcicki is responsible for Google’s most beneficial deal- YouTube. The current CEO of YouTube oversaw the potential of the user-uploaded content, and convinced Google’s board members, to give her idea the green light, and steal the deal.

Early Life

Susan Wojcicki was born on 5 July 1968, to a physics professor, Stanley Wojcicki, and Esther Wojcicki, an educator, in Santa Clara, California. Her father served at the Stanford University, so she along with her two sisters, Janet Wojcicki and Anne Wojcicki, spent most of their childhood in the university campus.

Susan Wojcicki
Image Source: flickr.com

Wojcicki completed her high school from Gunn High School, Palo Alto, California. In 1990, she graduated from the Harvard University with primary subjects, history and literature. Later, she attended the University of California, to pursue a master’s degree in economics, followed by an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

During her graduation, Wojcicki took Computers as a subject and grew an interest in it. Her interest led her to drop the long-term plan of pursuing a career as an educator and choose a career in the technical field.

Early Career & Joining Google

After her MBA, Wojcicki started working in the marketing team at Intel in Santa Clara, California, in 1999. Later, she became the management consultant at Bain & Company and R.B. Webber & Company. In the year 1998, the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, used Susan’s garage in Menlo Park, as their first Google office. In 1999, she joined Google as the first marketing manager and the 16th employee of Google. She was also among the first Google Doodle team and has been a part of Google’s most important projects, like Google Images, AdWords, DoubleClick, and Google Books.

Wojcicki continued working in the marketing department of Google, becoming the senior vice president of Advertising & Commerce department of Google. In 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick by paying $3.1 billion, on the suggestion of Wojcicki.

CEO of YouTube

During the rise of YouTube, Wojcicki foresaw the scope of it and advised Google to take over it, merging the Google Video into it. Hence in 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. Within less than a decade of the acquisition of YouTube, YouTube valued at $160 billion, 100 times more than the initial investment of Google.

In February 2014, Wojcicki was appointed as the second CEO of YouTube. After she became the CEO, the number of logged in users per month raised to 1.9 billion, watching videos on it one billion hours a day. Her leadership rose, up to 30% female employees in the YouTube office. She also imposed some policies on the content of YouTube to prevent hate speech and violent extremism.

Personal life

On August 23, 1998, in Belmont, California, Wojcicki got married to Dennis Troper. The two are parents of five children. Wojcicki and Dennis Troper move philanthropy through the Troper Wojcicki Foundation. She has been a supporter of Women’s computer education. She even advocated for the paid maternity leaves for women and gender discrimination. In 2017, Wojcicki was ranked at number 6 in the list of Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.