Study Questions for the Required Films
E-Dreams
1.) Like GovWorks, Kozmo.com is not exactly a Silicon Valley company, Does this matter? How might the story be different if Kozmo.com had been an actual Silicon Valley start-up? Comparing this film with Startup.com, how would you characterize the similarities and differences between New York and California (or East and West)? Should Silicon Valley be understand as a uniquely “West Coast” phenomena? Defend your answer.
2.) Compare the relationship between Joseph Park and Yong Kang, the founders
of Kosmo.com, with that between Tom and Kaleil, the founders of GovWorks, and
those of others you have encountered (Hewlett and Packard, Shockley and Noyce,
Terman and Stanford, Wozinak and Jobs, Gates and Allen and Ballmer). In what
ways are they a good team? In what ways is their relationship strained? What
lessons do you draw about the personal and collaborative nature of business
from these comparisons?
3.) Consider the ethnic and racial dynamics illustrated by the E-Dreams and
Startup.com. Does it matter that the founders of these companies are people
of color? Why or why not exactly? How does Tom’s presence at the center
of Gov.works complicate or reinforce your answer. How would you describe the
ethnic and racial character of these companies as a whole? What is the significance
of these factors in their histories?
4.) Consider the gender dynamics illustrated by the E-Dreams and Startup.com.
Why are so few women present in these films? And when they do appear, why are
the women so often marginal to the dynamics at the center of these companies?
How would you describe the overall gender character of these companies and what
is the significance of these factors in their histories? Thinking bigger, and
comparing these films with Code Rush and others, why is “Silicon Valley”
such a boys club?
5.) What external factors helped Kozmo.com? What external factors hurt Kozmo.com?
Which was more important to the success and their eventual failure of the enterprise:
the individual ingenuity and work of the founders or the outside forces outside
their control? Defend your answer.
6.) Compared to GovWorks, Kozmo.com was a more straight forward dot.com in that
it was a commercial enterprise trying to make a profit by providing people with
a useful product. Make a list of the similarities and differences between these
companies. Do the differences matter? Is one more authentically representative
of Silicon Valley? Defend your answer.
7.) Compare Kozmo.com with GovWorks in terms of the boundary between the personal
and the professional in modern, high tech capitalism. In thinking about your
answer, consider the non-work lives of the founders, their relationships with
other people, their family life, and other factors not related to the live of
the company. What does this comparison teach you? Comparing your answers with
others you have given in response to other films, reconsider the following thesis:
Silicon Valley involves the collapse of the boundary between work-life and private
life, and the total consumption of the latter by the former.