Irish tech companies need to think bigger, says Silicon Valley expert

John Hartnett says Irish can become the next giants of Silicon Valley

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Irish tech companies can become the next Silicon Valley giants, says ITLG founder and president, John Hartnett (right).

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“They read in the papers that Steve Jobs has done this and Larry Ellison has done that – it’s a focus on the biggest game in the world. That creates kids with dreams and big visions. We need to have that.

“In Ireland we tend to be negatively oriented and we have been tough on failure yet failure is a learning in Silicon Valley. The founder of HP is famous quote was: ‘If you’re not failing you’re not trying hard enough. And that’s what it takes. Failure is a learning process.’

“For me personally I have worked with US companies my entire working life. I have lived that culture and that creates a certain level of confidence and ambition and that’s what we need. I know we can do and we need to believe we can do it and aim high.”

He added: “The Valley hasn’t been a success over the last five years, the Valley has been a success over the last 70 years. So Ireland has had 35 year history with Silicon Valley where big companies have come to Ireland; now is the time for our big companies to be created in Ireland and work internationally.”

"I point out that Finland has Nokia, Sweden has Ericsson, Germany has Siemens and venture that isn’t it high time that the Republic of Ireland had a technology company of global renown?"

“The time we are living in right now is the start of all that and creating multi-billion dollar companies from an Ireland perspective may not happen this year or next but definitely over the next five years

“If Groupon can get offered US$6.5bn by Google and be in existence for under two years, why can’t some company from Dublin or Limerick do the same thing?

“Success is going to be based on successful Irish companies on the world stage when we have a Facebook, a Yahoo or a Google. That’s success."

He concluded: “It’s not good enough just to create a company just to sell it to someone else, it should be about creating a company that will employ thousands of people in Ireland and be public companies, that’s what I would like to see.”

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