My meeting with Henry Wong, Founder and Principal of Diamond Ventures, today had an unexpected outcome, but it was extremely insightful as well. Just a quick background, Henry Wong has resided in China & Silicon Valley for the last 25 years. He started as an entrepreneur and became a Venture Capitalist is currently an Advisor to 6 non-profit organizations and is active with community events.

I had an email exchange with him, and strongly believed that he could be one of the speakers to represent an Argonaut from China.

His enthusiasm was wildly infectious.

Today, he came clean and rejected the offer to represent China.

“I cannot do it. I came from Hong Kong.”

I did not know that. But we moved on.

In the later parts of the conversation he made this comment which struck me.

“California is not USA. Silicon Valley is not USA.”

He looked into my eyes, and said it slowly, and clearly, and with much conviction.

I paused, and I asked him in return. What makes Silicon Valley so unique?

“There’re a few important characteristics about the people here. The people here look forward. They are interested in moving forward and making progress. We are extremely forgiving as well, this is linked to the casual interactions between people. We probably will not mind ill manners. People here are very integrated. There is no racism. We see children from different races and nationalities mixing with one another. The various consulting professions like lawyers and accountants, they do not charge you by the hour, they are more than willing to listen to your idea and help you out. We do not spend time looking to our left and right to compare who is richer, we just want to move forward.”

“You talk about a cultural obstacle in Singapore. Look to South Korea to see how the culture evolved over time. At first, they were just like any country. The wireless industry came, and ten thousands of private enterprises are formed. Opportunities have the power to change the status quo.”

And this, is extremely parallel to one of the statements Bernard Leong, a blogger from sgentrepreneurs, made in a post back in March.

“Singapore was like the US in its early days as a British colony. Our forefathers came to the shores of the country and search for a better place to live. The multi-cultural background contributed to its success as a trading port. The fire in the belly was in the blood of our forefathers and not in the younger generation.”

Singapore used to be a land of opportunities, and our forefathers had the passion to create businesses. They were all entrepreneurs. They were all helping one another. This leads me to think, and believe, that the Silicon Valley culture that Henry and other observers of Silicon Valley mentioned, was present in Singapore in the early days as well. I’m not talking about being sophisticated about unfair advantages or knowledgeable about technology and finances. I’m talking about the spirit of cooperation, and the fire in the belly to address the pain points of consumers and businesses.

Where did it go? And what can we do to revive it?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 12:41 am and is filed under Entreprenomics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.