Lunch with Prime Minister Tony Blair...

I had lunch with Tony Blair today. (And yes, I have been waiting all afternoon to type that.) I and a few other Silicon Valley leaders were honored to host the first visit ever for a British Prime Minister to Silicon Valley. And he fit right in (wardrobe aside, but he's a world leader after all, and asking him to dress down for Silicon Valley would be like asking Steve Jobs to skip blue jeans and a black shirt - morally objectionable to someone). The conversation ranged across a variety of topics, from education to cultural competitive advantage, to the government's engagement in delivery of social services via the network. We only really had an hour together, so I thought I'd jot down a few of the vignettes from our discussion. The Prime Minister wanted advice on advancing the United Kingdom's position in Europe for research and development. Nearly everyone in the room referenced Stanford and Berkeley's role in making the Valley attractive - as a source of graduates, to be sure, but more as a revolving door for research, partnership, education, dialog. I reminded the Prime Minister that the "SUN" in our ticker symbol, "SUNW" stands for Stanford University. John Hennessy made an interesting reference, quite serious I think, to Stanford's now looking toward the philanthropy of its graduates as a far more lucrative source of return on its intellectual property then traditional licenses or royalties. I took a q...

Date: July, 31 2006
Url: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/lunch_with_tony_blair

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