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One small perk i get for running SIGs & volunteering for SDForum is that i get to go to the SDForum Visionary Awards every year.
It's always an incredible event, and award winners are often some of the most famous folks in technology, entrepreneurship, & finance. This year was no exception, with recipients Terry Semel from Yahoo, Vint Cerf from Google, Lou Gerstner from IBM, and John Hennessy from Stanford University... all giants in their own right. Here are some pictures from the evening, but they hardly do justice to the real thing.
The event was held at Heidi Roizen's place in Atherton, which is an experience unto itself, especially for fans of Moroccan aesthetic. (note: beyond being a very fun & generous host, Heidi is also a well-known VC in the valley, and was a rather prolific software entrepreneur in her day).
Even more cool: Michael Milken was at the event to help introduce Terry Semel. Milken is a personal hero of mine, both for financial innovation and the great work he does through his foundation, the Milken Institute. If you've never been to the Milken Global Conference, you're missing out.
(other small note -- highlight of the evening was John Gage describing Vint Cerf's self-quote on his work making TCP/IP an Internet standard, and a foundation for other Internet-based services: "IP on everything" ;)
More Startups. More Jobs.
you're entitled to your opinion of course, however proceeds from the Visionary Awards (from attendees & sponsors) do generate a notable portion of the SDForum annual budget.
and while not everyone there is an SDForum regular, i'd say most of them have some familiarity with the organization... or if they don't, then we hope they leave with greater awareness after.
you do raise a point worth discussion tho -- it might be a good idea to open up the event further to all SDF members willing to pay the ticket price. however, there's also no guarantee we'd get the same group of geek rockstars if we expanded to a larger event.
'open sourcing' it might make for a more inclusive event, but i have a feeling it would be a different kind of celebration.
still, i hear your point.
Posted by: Dave McClure | Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 10:55 PM
Dave - Not to complain, but the Visionary Awards are an elitist event. The VAST majority of attendees have nothing to do with SDF (was Tim Draper there *again*?)
This event needs to get real and be open to the public, not closed off to actual members of SDF
Posted by: Anonymous Troll | Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 09:34 PM