UC Berkeley 2018
My second week here in California has come to an end and this city never ceases to amaze me.
Classes officially began on Wednesday 22nd, so we took advantage of the "free" days we had left to do some sightseeing in San Francisco.
The program organized a visit to Stanford University, UC Berkeley's eternal rival, and to Criteo, one of the most important companies on Internet marketing nowadays.
In addition to being able to see the campus of Stanford University, I was able to see in all its splendor the entrepreneurial culture of which so much is spoken. I met three guys between the ages of 16-18 who during the summer were working for a start-up creating its mobile application that they would later release to the market. The most striking thing about this is not that at such an early age they were already working for another company during the summer - and that this company actually trusted them - but that each one of them had their own startup. This made me realize the reason why the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the us is so advanced...
After this brief visit to Standford we went to Criteo, one of the best marketing platforms, where we had a very enriching session with several of its managers where they told us about their business model and answered all our questions.
We could also see first-hand how one of the largest companies in the US works. The director in Engineering told us that "as long as they did their job, they could work where ever and whenever they wanted". Something that really strook me as it was completely different from what I experience in other european contries.
Furthermore, most of the employees -if not all of them- had a personal project. Some had a business idea that they would work on during their free time, others would try and solve or improve something in the work environment. This is where the American culture and its entrepreneurial culture stands out... people are not satisfied and they always want to improve, they always want more and strive for excellence. If they believe that something can be created or improved they will do it. And if they fail the next question is..."What is next?".
