TiE Silicon Valley embarks on new path of diversity, involves youth and women: Anita Manwani

Santa Clara, May 5 (PTI) Indian American-dominated non-profit organisation of entrepreneur has embarked on a new path of diversifying and inclusiveness by focusing on other communities and having women and youths’ greater involvement in its activities.

Founded in 1992 by eminent Indian Americans, TiE Silicon Valley has created and enabled entrepreneurs who have generated over USD 1T in wealth and built successful businesses in technology.

Over the past three decades, it has emerged as the pioneering and most influential tech group not only in the US but also across the world.

Anita Manwani, who is the first woman president of TiE Silicon Valley in its more than 32 years of history, believes that the time has come to give it a new direction.

“This is no longer just an Indus conference. It is an international conference with lots of women who are representing VCs, women speakers, CEOs and founders of AI companies, and many, many different folks…this year actually 39 per cent of our speakers are non-Indus,” Manwani told PTI on the sidelines of the just concluded TiECon, its annual conference, in Santa Clara, California.

Considered to be the flagship annual conference of TiE Silicon Valley, TiECon since 2008 is widely considered the world’s largest conference for entrepreneurs.

A seasoned corporate executive and entrepreneur, Manwani is one of 80 women recognised in the United States for their leadership in technology, and top 100 Women of influence in Silicon Valley.

Ahead of the annual gathering of entrepreneurs and VCs, TiE Silicon Valley partnered and collaborated with other organisations, so that “we could bring their startups and we could engage their members to come and attend TiECon,” she said.

“So, it’s not been just a flip of a switch or the act of digital marketing, which we’ve done a great job of this year. But it’s also been the road leading up to TiECon and our collaborations with other organisations in Silicon Valley and throughout the world,” Manwani said.

Responding to a question on India, Manwani said that India is becoming such a big force in the explosion and the revolution of AI; both from the semiconductor Renaissance and in terms of Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi’s focus on supporting so many startups.

In fact, at this conference, based on a relationship that TiE Silicon Valley has, TiECon had the participation of 30 Indian startups.

They had an interaction with the top VCs and also had a tour of Meta headquarters. “We have great confidence in these startups. These startups are doing some amazing work both in the area of EV batteries, in the area of education, and also in the area of agritech. So these are some amazing startups,” she said.

Noting that she is “blown away” by the Indian startup talent after her meetings with them, Manwani said: “The world is really become democratized in how they’re dealing with AI. Certainly, India is one of the leaders there along with the US and so everybody speaking the same language.”

They are really focused on making sure that their solutions are solving local problems. And once they solve that, if you can solve a problem for India, you can take that problem and solve it anywhere globally. Because these agritech solutions, the EV battery solutions, are going to be universal innovations that will help everybody in their carbon footprint,” she said.

During the same conference, the Indian American CEO of Zscaler, Jay Chaudhry, gave six lessons for startups.

“Technology changes all the time. If you build something that says it incrementally gets better, incumbents and large players are going to catch up with you pretty quickly. So, think about disruptive technologies,” Jay Chaudhry, CEO of Zscaler, said.

“Now, disruptive technologies mean big commitment and it means technology that no one is asking for. If they’re asking for, very likely it’s not disruptive. That’s what I say, don’t listen to your customers because they’re never going to ask you to build something totally disruptive,” Chaudhary said addressing several thousands of entrepreneurs gathered at the annual TiECon conference.

The second lesson is all about the team, he told the gathering.

“We all talk about it. But really making sure people are passionate, who are driven, who want to do something. Especially the founding team and the early leaders, if they aren’t passionately driven, it’s going to fail. If you are trying to do a startup to get rich quickly, you’ll be very likely disciplined. It’s a long journey and takes a long time. Look for people. I look for hungry but rising stars,” he said.

“Experience with less hunger, less desire, less fire is useless. I would go for rising stars who want to prove themselves rather than someone…I’ve done it three times and now I want to work from eight to five on weekdays. That doesn’t work,” Chaudhry said.

Observing that culture is very critical to business, he said it is really leadership that walks and talks.

“They all look for how you behave. What you do is fundamental and being able to take risks, encourages employees to be able to take risks but fail fast. Try after something and it’s important. In the early stage, being hands-on very critical and execution-focused. No politics (is) fundamental. The entire team from the start needs to be focused on getting things done right,” he said.

“Number four. Quite often entrepreneurs think that technology is so wonderful, it’s just that sales and marketing didn’t make it happen. Now sales and marketing is key to success,” he said.

The founder and CEO of the company told the entrepreneurs need to take tough decisions as bucks stop with him.

“Don’t build a company to sell it because then you’d be desperate to sell it,” he said.