~ A "Letters from Silicon Valley" Series ~

In the 1970s both Route 128 near Boston and Silicon Valley were high tech centers. At the time Route 128 was at least three times larger in terms of the number of tech jobs and revenue. However, today Silicon Valley is orders of magnitude bigger than Route 128 in terms of jobs, wages, venture capital, revenue, invention rates, and tech impact. How did this happen?

One of the key reasons is the amount of cooperative competition or “co-opetition.” Silicon Valley has typically had open networks of communication and cooperation across companies compared to the more traditional closed structure of Route 128 companies. People in Silicon Valley tend to flock together by interests rather than by company and those social networks lead to cross company collaboration. But make no mistake; Silicon Valley is not some koombaya circle where everyone shares everything. It’s a hyper competitive environment where companies and individuals are looking to beat each other. Kind of like a geeky version of killer dodge ball. 

People in Silicon Valley believe in abundance, that they can grow the pie and there’s enough to go around. Of course, everyone wants their own slice of the pie to be as big as possible. There are many examples of companies competing in one instance and collaborating in another as they strive to earn their piece of the pie. Take Cisco and NetApp who decided to collaborate rather than create their own data center optimization products. Even fiercely independent Oracle is using co-opetition by teaming up with enemies Microsoft and Salesforce to accelerate its development of cloud based offerings. All of the collaboration in the Valley is as if the UO and UW football teams worked together on something like recruiting. 

So, as individuals, what can we learn from the way companies cooperatively compete? 
 

1. Network, network, network. You want to build relationships with people in different departments and companies. Actively seek out peers at other companies. Know who to go to outside of your own organization in order to get something done.
2. Practice good teamwork. Understand common goals you have with people and collaborate to achieve those goals.
3. Be smart about what you talk about with rivals, but do share ideas with people who might be able to strengthen them without stealing them. Start small in this area.
4. When you are looking to build something, consider if it would be faster and better to work with someone with whom you may be in competition.
5. Recognize your own strengths and weaknesses and the abilities of other people. Find complementary relationships.
6. Help others and they will help you. Cooperation is a two way street. Make sure there’s mutual benefit. 
    

May you keep your friends close and your competition closer. Here’s to your success. 

Go Ducks!

Contact:
Humberto Chacon
humberto@chacon.us