Visionaries of tech share their lessons on thinking big (videos)

Yesterday, the who’s who of Silicon Valley gathered at the 13th annual SDForum awards event at the chateau home of Kelly Porter of Woodside Capital. (See our photo gallery). Every year, SDForum, a nonprofit technology-industry association, hands out its Visionary Awards to the people who have helped make Silicon Valley one of best places on earth for tech innovation.

The speeches of the winners were instructive for entrepreneurs who want to leave a mark. This year’s event honored four visionaries: Arthur Patterson, cofounder of Accel Partners; Reid Hoffman, cofounder and executive chairman of LinkedIn; Brent Schlender, former Fortune editor and cofounder of Techonomy; and Chris Shipley, former executive producer of DEMO and CEO of Guidewire Group. (Pictured above: introducers Wendy Lea and Ram Varadarajan; winners Arthur Patterson and Reid Hoffman).

Patterson, cofounder of Accel Partners, was introduced by Ram Varadarajan, chief executive of Arcot Systems. Varadarajan joked that serving homemade chocolate chip cookies helped soothe Patterson during board meetings at Arcot over the past decade. But Varadarajan thanked Patterson for sticking with his company through five financings and noted, “When Arthur speaks, people listen. Patterson’s investments fueled companies that later held initial public offerings; among them are Actuate, MetroPCS, Portal Software, UUnet/MCI-Worldcom, and Veritas. He sits on the boards of Aptana, Arcot Systems, Centrify, Integral Development, Iron Planet, NewlineNoosh, and NextG.

Patterson said in his speech that Varadarajan “laid it on thick” in his kind introduction. He was humble and disarming. But Patterson said his success at picking winners came from having “lots of turns at bat.” Among the sweet ones was a company that Tolerant Systems, a hardware company that gobbled up hundreds of millions in funding and had no end in sight. It uses its last $1 million in cash to convert itself into a software company called Veritas, which later merged with Symantec in a $13.5 billion deal. The lesson: the patient backing of good entrepreneurs pays off.

“I’ve been lucky to seen the growth potential in many outstanding entreprenuers,” Patterson said.

Wendy Lea, chief executive of Get Satisfaction, introduced winner Chris Shipley, noting her many years of picking the best startups to appear on stage at the DEMO conference. She also noted her respect for business and the grand dreams of entrepreneurs; her counsel for entrepreneurs is “like the advice of a lifetime.”

Shipley humbly said that the award should be considered the “Lucky award.” She told how she took over the DEMO conference after she criticized it before DEMO founder Stewart Alsop, who challenged her to do it better. She also joked that she appreciated constructive criticism but would rather avoid it. After investor Roger McNamee told her that DEMO still needed a makeover, Shipley decided to turn it into the industry’s version of a debutante ball. That turned into a successful 13-year run. She is now CEO of the Guidewire Group. (Disclosure: VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall is now executive producer of DEMO).

Jeff Weiner, chief executive of LinkedIn, introduced winner Reid Hoffman as thoughtful, eager to give mentoring, having a Midas touch on investments, and caring passionately about philanthropy. Hoffman has had an extraordinary track record; he was part of the executive team at PayPal and is founder of his current company LinkedIn (he is also a partner at Greylock Partners). He has also been an angel investor in Facebook, Zynga, Six Apart, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Ironport and Digg.

He said he was honored and humbled to be in Silicon Valley at the center of the fulcrum for changing the world. Intrigued by what more could be done with the Silicon Valley model, Hoffman challenged others to make the world a better place. That’s why he has also helped start nonprofts such as Mozilla and Kiva.

Over a video link, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates introduced former Fortune magazine writer and cofounder of Techonomy Brent Schlender. Gates fondly remembered a joint interview that Schlender staged with Gates and Steve Jobs together in 1991. Schlender talked about how he felt fortunate to be a conduit for Silicon Valley’s visionaries. He noted how Jerry Yang and David Filo started Yahoo as a map for the Web. Then they had a visionary insight when they saw that Yahoo told them so much about people and that Yahoo in fact was a market-research powerhouse. Schlender said that he admired a quote from economist Brian Arthur, who said, “If you aren’t confused, you don’t understand anything.” Schlender said that if he could write another book, it would be called “Manging Confusion,” which is what the best managers teach themselves to do.

I’ve embedded the speeches from Shipley, Hoffman, and Schlender below: