Alain Calefas, Serenity Valley founder, with Michel Serres at DBF, a networking organization for French entrepreneurs, on November 2, 2009. That day, Alain Calefas was interviewed by Jean-Louis Gassée (who co-founded DBF in 1994).

Alain Calefas graduated from the French Ecole Polytechnique, arguably one of the most elitist schools in Europe. To get in, you have to excel academically – period. But when you combine intellectual acumen and a desire to live life to the hilt, you have Alain Calefas. His first passion was Marine Engineering, so from Paris, he went to Berkeley – and fell so much in love with Northern California that he stayed… To accommodate this passion as quickly as possible, he decided to manage two “boulangeries,” a fairly novel idea at the time (in the mid-eighties, the Valley was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today in the food department). But granted, the enterprise wasn’t really scalable. So, reason winning over passion, Alain went back to Europe where he headed innovation and strategic investments at Rhône-Poulenc for four years. “A great experience,” he says, yet frustrating at times. No matter how hard large corporations may try, the truth of the matter is that you can’t generate inventors by simply asking people to become ones.” But you can always reinvent yourself and that’s what Alain did at a time he was on track for prestigious corporate positions. 

So Alain went back to the sea and, finally, ended up on the firm land, discovering as many did in the early nineties the complex rubble of the ex-Soviet Union as well as the places of his ancestors, realizing through rich personal experiences that whatever you do, what matters is the quality of the relationship that you build with people. In fact, “I really understood that despite my natural bent towards science and high-tech, people are what mattered the most to me.” So when he came back to Paris, he created a variety of businesses that went well, bars, restaurants, and even a clothing store. Living in Paris again, though, made him miss his favorite place: Northern California – and he moved back in 1997. High tech was booming, but this time, what he wanted most was a place to settle and he bought 65 acres in Pescadero, which he transformed into a spectacular botanical garden and one of the most remarkable places you can imagine to host events (from business retreats to weddings) just on Silicon Valley’s doorstep:  Serenity Valley.

Business retreats often take us to great resorts, yet sometimes so far away from home that they often feel like just another business trip. Worse, these places are sometimes so abstractly international, with the same types of lithographs on the walls, the same style of furniture, the same manicured patches of garden that nobody looks at, that nothing stimulates the brain. So business retreats are just business as usual, or the nicest entertaining events a “unique” experience that clones the previous one and foreshadows the next. Oppositely, Serenity Valley is a phenomenal expanse of nature where ecological balance means what it is, an ever-changing dynamics that fosters the ability for people to rebuild and reinvent themselves, without straining themselves. The ability to breathe is sometimes the first step to be able to think!

Incidentally also, when your host has traveled the world, is an amazing connoisseur in food, wines and art, it’s an out-of-this-world experience to just be next door.

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

In the very early 1990’s, whenever the Apple guys wanted to showcase great software to showcase themselves, they would invite the two women who had probably first founded companies focusing on software for desktop computers in the Silicon Valley, Heidi Roizen in the US (who started T/Maker with her brother Peter Roizen in 1983), and me (I had started ACI/4D in France in 1984 and in 1987 in the US). We had to be hyper-professional to command attention (and we knew our thing in and out), because as women we were de facto the glaring oddballs – all the more so as neither of us wore the “professional look” uniform: grey, beige faded pink, or dirty-pale-blue suits. The male formal trend that had hit the Apple world in the early nineties had not deterred us from wearing colorful clothes (this may have been one of the main advantages of the female scarcity in our world). These gatherings were great fun because of and thanks to Heidi – and if she wasn’t there because of a specific focus on data management, I was bored stiff.

I remember marveling at her ability to schmooze, to network, to make people smile and sometimes laugh, and altogether at her relaxed demeanor that looked like black magic to me, a French woman molded within a wholly different educational framework and vastly different set of social conventions. Yet, something truly transcended all transatlantic difference – her genuine kindness and spontaneity, and her ability to create an all-out party feel in each and every environment. So it’s no wonder we always kept  in contact as both of us moved on. After she sold T/Maker in 1996, she became the VP of World Wide Developer Relations at Apple, and then, from 1999 to 2007, a VC with Softbank Venture Capital (later called Mobius). Over the years, she was just the same to me. Bright and quick. Lively and funny. The same “joie de vivre.”  Only one thing really changed in her … her weight. Frankly, I had not realized how much this had bothered her until she started her new company, Skinny Songs. Quite a turn indeed!

Starting a company to lose weight: People start companies for all sorts of reasons. Because there has to be “a better way.” Because their old company wouldn’t develop something they feel is critical. Because they feel that they have come up with the unique idea that will revolutionize the planet. Or because they need something that they can’t find… Lots of inventions started this ways. Some of them are big. Some are small. Some are downright different. Even at a time, two years ago, when an Amazon search was already offering hundreds of “products tagged diet by customers,” Heidi couldn’t find a way to get back to her weight comfort zone, around 160 pounds. So, to be able to lose about 40 pounds, she created a company that would help her lose weight – and many other people too.

Needless to say, most of the time, when you start a company, you also take the risk gaining weight, whether you are funded or not, because the least of your worries is usually what you look like. As health conscious as the Silicon Valley may be, when you work like hell, you end up eating anything that comes your way because you are always in a hurry to get back to your computer. You have a hard time resisting late night coke and pizza parties at the office, etc. The more broke you are, the more likely you are to gain a pound at a time. Nutrition and exercise are the last thing on your mind.

Navigate inside and through this zoomorama (you can zoom-in/out the pictures and videos as well as see them in full screen).

Now, when you start a company to lose weight yourself, it’s a whole different story. You can’t simply hire skinny and sun-tanned professional models. You have to talk the talk and walk the walk. You have to be the living example that what you offer does work – all the more so as the field of weight loss and diet program is encumbered. Type “weight loss” on Google and you get 90M occurrences! When you type “weight loss motivation,” you get down to more manageable number (around 266,000), but it’s still a lot. However, I looked at a few of them: they are as deterring as the weight loss and diet programs that most people dread in the first place. Neither the techniques nor the verbiage had  worked for Heidi – who had tried everything, including the expensive torture of upscale spas and health retreats. As convinced as she was that she had to have a healthier lifestyle, she came to the conclusion that she needed music to stay motivated as she was progressively losing weight – and couldn’t find what she wanted. So, she started to write the songs she wanted to hear – not a trivial effort for a non-musician – and teamed up with George Daly, a veteran music industry executive, also founder and CEO of About Records, as well as David Malloy, country music songwriter and record producer and A&R executive, along with additional artists.

SkinnySongs is more than a company, it’s a platform for Heidi to help people understand that losing weight is not a goal by itself and that the purpose is not to suddenly go from size 14 to size 4. “Most of the books or programs that women consider do not allow them to exist in the real world,” Heidi says. “They are about perfection and lack reality. How much is enough, that’s the point I try to make. I address the people who don’t care for diets, but want to take care of themselves.” What I like about Heidi’s approach is that she is never prescriptive, and that she will never fall into any form of weight loss bigotry. She loves life too much and nothing will deter her from making a really good cocktail (but she has ways to make it less calorie-rich). Watch out for the book she is currently writing, Can’t Buy Thin.

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

More about:

Heidi Roizen: http://www.roizen.com/heidi/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Roizen

SkinnySongs: http://www.skinnysongs.com/

Heidi’s first company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T/Maker

David Malloy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Malloy

George Daly: http://www.aboutrecords.com/managementteam.fsp

I recently finished translating Guy’s new book, Reality Check, into French. It will be sold as La réalité de l’entrepreneuriat at the end of March, and is published by the Editions Diateino.

It is when you translate a book that you best realize that there is a lot to it. It is also a significant task as you can very well imagine, but I look at it as my “community service” for French entrepreneurs. Even if most of them read English, it is often easier to remember key messages in one’s native tongue. And it’s so pleasurable to see Guy, himself, in every single page! Let’s call this the charm of infinite recursion.

Many people write books to promote themselves and end up projecting a public persona that significantly differs from who they actually are. But Guy is Guy ☺ and this book the scintillating mirror of the person he is, a DICEE person, almost in the same fashion as he speaks of DICEE product.

Deep: Because of his exceptional observation skills (and memory), Guy has amassed an amazing experience – and is a jim-dandy (should I say, a guy-dandy?) of a correspondent and commentator of the Silicon Valley’s habits and fauna. Yet, this experience always converges towards one single goal: making meaning. Each of his books tells you of great people and great products.

Intelligent. Who had the idea of providing an easy-to-use vade-mecum to entrepreneurs before Guy? Nobody really. There are lots of great books on specific business aspects, but Guy had the charisma to stage all the do’s and don’ts in start-ups so clearly that entrepreneurs immediately understand that they have to go back to the drawing board (and to their PowerPoint), learn how to tell their story, and get to the bottom of things: does what I want to do “make meaning”? Guy’s personal mantra is to help entrepreneurs.

Complete. Guy is more than a great writer. A great speaker. A great blogger. A great twitterer. Are there so many Siliconites able to claim that if he twittered that he is flying to Istanbul, he would have a group of twenty people to talk to immediately? And in all circumstances, he is truthful. As famous as he is for being the Macintosh evangelist, he is also proud to remind people that Mike Boich was the first one and Alain Rossmann the third. He is immensely dedicated to assisting his friends as they go through terrible ordeals. And have you noticed his dedication to his four children and his wife?

Elegant. Guy’s interface is truly elegant. He is accessible. You don’t need multiple introductions to meet with him. It’s extremely easy to speak to him, because he likes to listen to people and sincerely cares about them. He is even too polite with the people who make a living… but would like him to speak for free. Incidentally, he is also quite elegant sartorially, as elegance is not simply the narcissist act of dressing well, but of dressing appropriately and in a way that does not distort interaction with people. 

Emotive (Emotional?). No matter how often Guy has repeated this 10/20/30 rule, he remains equally passionate about his message. Same thing when he speaks of evangelism, about customers, about MBAs, about VCS, about polarizing products. Listen, when he says: “Stupid”… “Boy, I tell you…,” “I can’t tell you how good it feels…,” “It’s a huge mistake…,” “Never ever let the bozos drag you down…,” or “I want to be in first class Singapore Airlines for eternity.”

Navigate inside and through this zoomorama (you can zoom-in/out the pictures and videos as well as see them in full screen). Note on 4/6/9: Temporary problem with the videos due to an unexpected change in YouTube policies. Zoomorama is addressing the issue.

But maybe he is more than a DICEE person: He has a lot of humor, he is humble, he has no problem speaking about his mistakes, he is open to innovation, etc., and he has an incredible smile. Anyway, I like Guy. I was lucky enough to meet him for the first time in 1985. I did not know that he was so venerated in the Macintosh because I was coming from France – and I am glad because his “importance” did not distort my perception of him. I simply liked him because of what I saw of him (so much so that I hired him for the start-up I founded in 1987).  So don’t ask me to tell you what his negatives are. I don’t know and I don’t think of the people I like in terms of pluses in one column and minuses in another – to make a good balance. Sure great people may have (what could be labeled as) “flaws,” but these alleged flaws are often just another plus. If they are bright, yes, they can be sarcastic when they speak of bozos. What’s wrong with that? If they were always too kind, would they still be bright?

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

More information:

Guy Kawasaki: http://www.guykawasaki.com; http://twitter.com/guykawasaki.

Read Guy’s blog: ”How to Change the World: “Audi–Like My Belly Button?” Life with Four Kids and an Audi R8″ http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/02/audi–like-my-b.html#ixzz09IK6uCPT (”Audi–Like My Belly Button?” Life with Four Kids and an Audi R8″)

Alltop, the first real online magazine rack – owned by Nononina, a company that he co-founded with two remarkable persons (and very dear friends of both of us): Will Mayall and Kathryn Henkens: http://alltop.com/

All the books written by Guy in English:

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services

How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit

Hindsights: The Wisdom and Breakthroughs of Remarkable People

The Computer Curmudgeon

Selling the Dream

Database 101

The MacIntosh Way

Books in French: 

Editions Diateino:

La réalité de l’entrepreneuriat: 

http://diateino.com/imglivre/205_GLa_r_alit__de_l_entrepreneuriat.jpg;

L’art de se lancer: http://diateino.com/livres.php?livre=42

Edition First:

Affolez vos concurrents: http://www.efirst.com/XXXsearch.asp?recherche=Affolez+vos+concurrents&Image2.x=0&Image2.y=0