LinkedIn: A cautionary tale about the need for speed in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley has a long-running obsession with speed. Ever since Intel co-founder Gordon Moore formulated what would become known as Moore's Law, the tendency has been to make things go quicker, get smaller, and cost less, reports Businessweek.

This used to apply mostly to hardware, like chips and storage devices, but it now seems to be carrying over to the software side of the world. Read more

Silicon Valley's battle for tech talent and immigration reform

Michael Solomon, agent for elite Silicon Valley programmers

"The dirth of talent is the big bottleneck in Silicon Valley and in technology," proclaims Michael Solomon, co-founder of 10X Management, a recently formed recruiting firm that represents Silicon Valley's top programmers.

"We're seeing horrible statistics about the shortage," Solomon said in a Bloomberg interview.

Two top Silicon Valley recruiters on the frontlines of battle for elite talent

Juliet de Baubigny

The competiton for top tech talent in Silicon Valley is a serious pursuit for two women who are shaping startups and high-growth companies. Fast Company sat down with Shannon Callahan, who runs the talent  network for Andreessen Horowitz, and Juliet de Baubigny, partner at Kleiner Perkins, to get their take on hiring trends and what makes a candidate standout. Read more

Who's hot and who's not in Silicon Valley

The SV150 is Silicon Valley's report card, an annual performance review, a bucketful of numbers that begins to answer the questions: Are we up? Are we down? Who's in? Who's out? Read more

'Facebook freshman class' storms the ranks of Silicon Valley's largests companies

Workday founders and company executives ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange last October in celebration of their IPO

Nearly 10 percent of the names on the latest list of top-grossing Silicon Valley tech companies weren't there a year ago because they weren't yet public. But with outfits like Workday, Yelp and Palo Alto Networks - not to mention Facebook - having scored initial public offerings in 2012, other companies from last years SV150 index compiled by the San Jose Mercury News have been shoulder asisde. Read more

Startups scout elite programmers for Silicon Valley companies

In the past few years, half a dozen recruiting startups have figured out how to entice elite software engineers with programming competitions. These firms make money by sharing the results for a fee. Fast-growing companies in Silicon Valley and San Francisco are prime customers, reports Forbes. Read more

San Francisco SoMa tech hub emerging from shadow of Silicon Valley

Skyline of San Francisco South of Market tech hub

I have been covering the tech scene in Silicon Valley for many years. What I've noticed is that recently, the most significant trends in the tech world are coming from SoMa, Silicon Valley's neighbors in the West Bay. The San Francisco neighborhood is a magnet for startups, the most prominent being Twitter.

"An astounding number of startups have launched in San Francisco since 2009," notes Kevin Kelly, the executive editor of Wired. The magazine, which is located in the South of Market neighborhood, is celebrating its 20th anniversary by putting the spotlight on the emerging SoMa tech hub. Read more

Zhongguancun in Beijing: China's Silicon Valley

Steve Blank (left) and Kai-Fu Lee

In the few days I was in China, I met with several VC's, angel investors, business press and spoke to hundreds of entrepreneurs, writes Steve Blank, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, in The Berkeley Blog. I was blown away by what I saw in Beijing. This was a modern city in a hurry to make a first impression - think of what Rome looked like in the time of the empire or New York in the 1920's - now it's Beijing announcing that China has arrived.

But what make the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. The physical heart of the Beijing startups is in Zhongguancun. Read more

High-tech sex workers thrive in Silicon Valley

The Bay Area's high wages and concentration of young guys with disposable income have made it a magnet for sex workers -- a broad term that can refer to a number of services, including sexual massage, prostitution, and escort and dominatrix work. "It seems like a lot of out-of-town providers come into town to work in the Valley," say Karen, who charges $500 an hour and caters to the area's tech executives, reports CNN. Read more

Laurene Powell Jobs joins Silicon Valley battle for immigration reform

Laurene Powell Jobs with her late husband Steve.

Laurene Powell Jobs is speaking publicly for the first time since her husband Steve Jobs' death to advocate for immigration reform, reports NBC News. Read more

Chinese search giant opens research lab in Silicon Valley

Kai Yu, head of Baidu's Silicon Valley research lab, discussing a project at the new facility.

In late January, word arrived that Baidu, the Chinese search giant, was setting up a research lab dedicated to "deep learning" - an emerging computer science field that seeks to mimic the human brain with hardware and software - and, as it turns out, this operation includes an operation in Silicon Valley, near Apple headquarters,  in addition to a facility in China. The company just hired its first researcher in Cupertino, with plans to bring in several more by the end of the year, reports Wired. Read more

Silicon Valley at forefront of immigration battle

Tech Firms Push to Hire More Workers From Abroad - NYTimes.com nyti.ms/16QshLS

— Barry Bazzell (@igriot) April 12, 2013

Top Silicon Valley programmers get agents

10x Management co-founder Altay Guvench

Altay Guvench, a coder himself, has become one the first agents for Silicon Valley software developers.

About a year ago, Guvench and two friends started 10X Management. The company represents freelance software programmers. It finds them jobs and negotiates their salaries, reports Businessweek. Read more

HBO bonds with Silicon Valley

Wall Street Journal tech columnists Walt Mossberg (left) and Kara Swisher participate in a panel discussion with writer George R. R. Martin and "Game of Thrones" producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff at a season premiere party at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. (Image: HBO).

HBO recently put on a showy "Game of Thrones" season premiere party in San Francisco, ground zero for the revolution under way in television viewing habits, reports the Los Angeles Times. Read more

Cougar Night in Silicon Valley

Cleavage is on display on Thursday nights at Rosewood Sand Hill hotel meat market.

Thursday nights have become surprisingly popular at a five-star Menlo Park hotel. Two eagle-eyed matchmakers, big tech money, and an army of stiletto-shod women mix and mingle there -- all important factors in Silicon Valley's peculiar mating algorithm, reports Vanity Fair. Read more

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