After two full weeks on the road it's finally time to head home to Israel again. It has been two great weeks starting out in San Francisco and the Web 2.0 Expo, followed by five days in Palo Alto and finally the CRV Leadership summit at Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Phoenix.
I think I summed up my views on Web 2.0 Expo before so I won't comment on that here. It is always so great to be in California, I get so much stuff done and have time to meet and hang-out with interesting entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and other great people. Although I try to spend a week a month in California, I must say that this time has been the best so far.
One of the highlights was hanging out with the Plymedia gang on Shabbath (for whom I am an Advisor) and especially hiking at Tiburun with Ben Enosh. It was a great day and I felt that I really made a new great friend. I also had time to meet new interesting entrepreneurs like Nik from Omnidrive, Yahya from Freewebs and others.
The best event was however the Charles River Ventures Leadership Summit at the Royal Palms Spa & Resorts in Phoenix, Arizona. What a great place! I wish I had brought my wife..This was the first time in five years that CRV had invited all their CEO's and founders from their portfolio companies and top speakers from various industries.
Against the backdrop of the Camelback mountains the event was very well planned and with a great lineup. I am really glad I decided to stay another week just to participate here. Besides all the portfolio companies people like Chris Sacca (Google), Evan Williams (Twitter), Andrew Baron (Rocketboom), Scoble, Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Ted Leonsis, Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures & frmr Microsoft CTO), Prof. Yared Diamond (Pulitzer winner and author of "Collapse"), Larry Summers (frmr US Treasury Secretary), Matt Jacobson (Facebook), David Eckoff (VP Turner) and many more.
I particularly enjoyed chatting with Evan Williams (Twitter rocks!), Chris Sacca, Om Malik, Matt Jacobson, David Eckoff, Andrew Baron and David Sachs (Geni). Man! Geni is so good. Its going to become so big. David is a fantastic entrepreneur.
The event was really top quality in terms of speakers and participants but best of all - intimate enough for having quality time with each other. There was also time for desert hiking (see photo above with me & Bill Tai making the "m" Maxthon sign) lots of cactuses and a feeling of being beamed to Indian and cowboy land. Will post a separate CactusCast that I shot on the hike later.
I definitely learned a lot, met new friends and was inspired. Lot's of stuff on my mind now, new potential partnerships and new business ideas. Time to head home to wife and kids - I really miss them!
Technorati Tags: CRV, Freewebs, Geni, Larry Summers, Maxthon, Nathan Myhrvold, Plymedia, Rockeboom, Royal Palms Spa & Resort, Ted Leonsis, Twitter, Web2expo, Yared Diamond
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