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It seems everyone is writing up about their experience at the jumbo Techcrunch7 party on friday night (hey, I was on a plane back from SFO to CDG... couldn't write up :).
The party was absolutely great, at least from a European's perspective:
- thanks to Aymeril Hoang (his video coming up), I decided to drive south trough the I280 instead of the 101; always too crowded at that time of day. Beautiful drive through the trees and hills although maybe longer - I recommend it
- exit at Sandhill Road,*THE* mecca of Venture Capital in the world, so nicely close to Stanford and all those other magice names: Cupertino, San Mateo, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San José... The party was at August Capital's offices, who shares them with Benchmark Capital. In another part of the world, that would be a nice villa. Here it's where empires are created or not. 2480 Sandhill Road is easy to miss, but turn right at the intersection for 2500 Sandhill road and you'll be there.
- the party was attended by over 700 people. Check the pictures on Flickr, Zoomr and what people are writing on TechMeme. It was great to meet again so many friends (I've been to the US 4 times already this year, and 3 more times coming up... you quickly build a belonging feeling to the community ), and meet new friends. Somehow Friedman is right: the world is really flat: last time I met Felix Petersen from Plazes was in Amsterdam; Freddy Mini of Netvibes, in Paris; all the Valley folks...
- food was good (mini burgers, ice sandwiches); I didn't touch much of the beer although it was freely available.
- I completely missed the companies presenting there: hey by Friday night I think I'm done pitching my stuff and reviewing corporations, but in true Techcrunch style, they were all there with lots of schwag: I brought back a new Pandora Cap and a couple of T-hsirts + a litho signed and numbered by Hugh McLeod.
So although a bit big and large, this reminded me of the Internet 1.0 years where everyone went. But in my world here in Europe, Kevin Rose, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, etc. don't show up just like that.
Felt like being in a family somehow. Thanks Mike for putting it all together.
I shot only a few videos, coming up.
PS: would you imagine throwing such as party in Europe in the middle of August ? I had meetings packed almost all week + a conference + an event. My team here in Paris was on holidays, so are my partners, even my family... In the meantime, the rest of the world keeps competing and networking and doing business!
