In 2005 when I landed in Munich on my first international trip I was looking for a BMW. On this trip, I was looking for something else.
After a long 20 hours flight to San Francisco, we were on the road and we spotted the first Tesla. Since then we were counting the number of Model 3’s and Model X’s on the roads in San Francisco. We were dotting all the T’s and crossed them in our minds with a “yes”.
After a downtown visit to San Francisco where we spotted some trendy startups like Bluebottle, Philz coffee, and Peer Coffee, it was great to see the “Golden Gate bridge” under misty conditions. The next evening I had my first encounter with a Tesla. Spending 20 minutes inside the Tesla Model 3 was one of a lifetime experience. From 0 to 60 miles in 5.5 seconds. Call it a break-neck speed experience. I had to fix my neck pain with a balm that night. Once Cars ran the software, today software runs the car. My cousin was mentioning that by downloading a software patch they can upgrade the functionality of the car. Talk about depreciating the value of a car, looks like we are in for a mobility solution that will appreciate over a period of time just like Porsche 911 with the metallic rattle. It was around this time that the Tesla truck was unveiled. I saw the video and found that it was a “glass” moment for Mr. Musk. I am sure they will “rocket fuel” their entry and as they did with rockets.
As any insane person would do, it was time to put my digital stamp. As soon as I landed in San Francisco, I told my brother in law, I don’t mind if I miss shopping but I wanted those “iconic brands behind me“.
The 17-Mile Drive is on a scenic road through Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula in California. It hugs the Pacific coastline and passes through famous golf courses, mansions, and scenic attractions, including the Lone Cypress, Bird Rock and the 5,300-acre Del Monte Forest of Monterey Cypress trees. It was a nice drive along the coast and I finally saw a crow ( Big fat Raven) and an evolved squirrel who was fearless and was playing with all the onlookers around the place near the sea. Evolved squirrel, fearless seagull, and fat crow raven- U don’t see the view you breathe them in
During one of those days, we had an opportunity to visit Fry electronics. Fry’s Electronics is an American big-box store and retailer of software, consumer electronics, household appliances, and computer hardware. Fry’s has in-store computer repair and custom computer building services. The company has a chain of superstores headquartered in Silicon Valley. It turned out to be a deserted place with not much hype and It stood as a victim of the disruption in this disruptive digital age. I was wondering did they miss to morph and pivot. Another start-up “Bluebottle” demonstrated how things are changing and why people willing to try for new coffee tasting experiences. Where Fry’s was deserted, Bluebottle was flocking with people looking for tasting a new kind of coffee with dessert. It was in stark contrast to the Apple headquarters customer lounge where we got to see AR’s/VR’s in action and kids were involved by the Apple team in doing coding for fun.
Black Friday was fast approaching, I just hoped for Fry’s, that the days ahead would get them back in black.
While we were driving through the University avenue after our quick visit to Stanford University. I remembered Steve Job’s speech as I had heard a few months back as well. I searched for some interesting quotes on Stanford and this one summarised what it stood for.
After that brief visit to Stanford, it was time to go through University Avenue. I enjoyed the drive and the spirt around that place. It was buzzing and got to know that it was in one of that cafes that Mark Zukerberg used to be spotted during his heydays. My eyes caught up with advertisements and their taglines which I really liked. In one such cafe (Phil coffee chain ) was posted instead of “we are hiring” at the door it read “start a career”. It was time to finish my search for the search engine. We tried to google “Google”, it took us through a couple of rounds and we saw a lot of things except the Google headquarters. Talk about the irony of Ironies. We had to put an apple map to locate the Google office. On their campus what amazed was the Cycle conference in Google and onsite bus hair cut salon.
I was not able to summarize my second US trip until I saw the movie Lion King and I got this phrase ” Hakuna Matata”. The phrase was popularized in the 1994 Disney movie The Lion King, where it’s translated as “no worries.” It has a connotation of not worrying about things outside a person’s control. So from the time I had my Clipper card ( which I bought for taking the train to San Francisco ) to those moments away from flying out of SFO airport lounge sitting in a Joe and the Juice cafe seat close to gate 13 I was taking stock of my last 15 days in Vegas and San Francisco. It was all about enR.I.C.Hing experiences that were etched in my memories. Every day I was hearing lines of the song “memories” on the radio as we were traveling and these are the memories I brought back home.
