Swissies are everywhere (AMZ posting of 5/19/17, “Marco, Marco, Marco”). Even in Palo Alto, Tall Tree City, where the Swiss flag flies proudly — Einer für alle, alle für einen; Un pour tous, tous pour un; Uno per tutti, tutti per uno; In per tuts, tuts per in — a mere five blocks from the Swiss Mammoth Center on Ramona Street:
(#1) The Swissies are coming, the Swissies are coming! 675 Forest Ave. in Palo Alto, the long arm of Swiss telecom in Santa Clara County
Overseen by Lukas Peter:
(#2)
From the swisscom.ch site:
Lukas Peter is the CEO of Swisscom Cloud Lab Ltd – Swisscom’s outpost. Located in Palo Alto, California [at 675 Forest Ave.], this innovation lab is a special subsidiary of Swisscom. While studying business administration at the University of St. Gallen, Lukas Peter founded a start-up within the educational sector, which he later sold to a German educational publisher, Schulbuchverlag Klett. Based on his experience as an independent entrepreneur, he is now leading Swisscom’s outpost, where his primary initiative is to work with a small team of experts to find disruptive tech startups, and bring new innovation and ideas back to Switzerland.
On the Swiss mother ship, from Wikipedia:
Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Its headquarters are located in Worblaufen near Bern. The Swiss Confederation owns 51.0 percent of Swisscom AG. According to its own published data, Swisscom holds a market share of 60% for mobile, 67% for broadband and 33% for TV telecommunication in Switzerland.
The Swisscom people in Palo Alto don’t seem to include any Zwickys, but of course the mother company does: at the very least, Kai Zwicky, who (according to LinkedIn) is head of global key account management at Swisscom in Zürich. Unfortunately, I have no further information about him, nor a picture.
The tech garages of Palo Alto. The Swisscom Palo Alto garage figures prominently in the photo in #1; as far as I know, nothing of tech significance happens in that garage, but 3 blocks south of this garage (on Addison Ave., parallel to Forest) and several blocks west (only a couple of blocks from Ramona St.) is the most famous of all Palo Alto garages. From Wikipedia:
(#3) Great Garages of the 20th Century, winner in the Tech Division competition: Look on these Works, ye Mighty, and despair!The HP Garage is a private museum where the company Hewlett-Packard (HP) was founded. It is located at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, California. It is considered to be the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley.” In the 1930s, Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in the area instead of leaving California, and develop a high-tech region. HP founders William Hewlett and David Packard are considered the first Stanford students who took Terman’s advice.
The garage has since been designated a California Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Though not open for public tours, the property can be viewed from the sidewalk and driveway.
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