Xprize

I had the great fortune of being invited by my good friend S to go to Larry Page's X-Prize fundraiser event on Saturday.

What they are doing is INCREDIBLE. Following on the footsteps of their first success, the Ansari X-prize to develop competition to promote space travel development, they are now launching a ton of xprizes in all sorts of fields..starting with one in the automotive and genomic sectors.

Unlike most silicon valley events, there were actually a bunch of "real" celebrities there including Richard Branson and Robin Williams.. and even someone from Metallica?!?!



It was a good night, they raised over $2MM from dinner seats and auctioning off stuff like this car, made by some company called Fisker, for $330k, if i recall correctly!! I've never been to a charity auction where stuff went for so much, it's great to see people opening up their wallets at such high amounts for a good cause.



The Xprize concept is a great one, and I am sure it will lead to some pretty major advances in technology in the future that will change the world and make things better for all people. I'm super excited that I got to go to this event, it was easily the most "mainstream cool" event i've ever been to in the Valley. (that's not saying much though ;) )