Bringing Silicon Valley Minds to San Diego
Inside San Diego's powerful big tech conference and the mastermind behind it.
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In February, I drove down to 4S Ranch in the heart of Rancho Bernardo to have a coffee meeting with Faisal Mushtaq, a long-time tech executive who relocated from the San Francisco to San Diego more than a decade ago.
“I am a technologist at heart, angel investor, and CXO at multiple technology companies,” Mushtaq told me at Mostra Coffee.
More importantly, he is also the mastermind behind TechCon, one of the San Diego’s most well-attended tech conferences among Bay Area VCs and big tech executives
TechCon Southern California, the non-profit he founded four years ago, aims to bring together the brightest minds in technology to convene, network, and inspire.
“Having spent significant time in the Bay Area, I have seen the magic that happens when smartest entrepreneurs, c-suite executives and investors come together,” he said.
It resembles much of what you’d expect to take place in Silicon Valley — serving as a platform that unites tech experts and investors from across Southern California to network, but in San Diego.
Mushtaq started his career working nine years at Cisco before joining the world of startups. In particular, he moved to San Diego roughly sixteen years ago to help lead the engineering team at Ortiva Wireless, a La Jolla-based startup that was acquired by Allot Communications in 2012.
He also served as the president of TIE Global’s local chapter. He angel invests with NuFund Ventures Group, Interlock Capital and worked the last five years as a senior executive at publicly-traded global retail company.
We chatted with Faisal Mushtaq briefly to discuss his ambitious goal to “bring Silicon Valley to San Diego'' next month, after a three-year hiatus and the venture capital firms involved this year.
TechCon SoCal 2020
At most tech conferences, there can be a strong divide between the conference that exists on stage and off. From my experience, the real conference takes place when the panelist, event moderators, and VCs mingle in the hallways making new connections.
Notable guests in attendance last year included Comma AI’s founder George Hotz, Lux Capital general partner Bilal Zuberi, Sway Ventures general partner Ken Denman, Classy’s founder Scot Chisholm, among other tech and VC luminaries.
There were also a slew of executives from big technology companies who work at Sony to Qualcomm to Intuit to mid-stage companies. People involved with the non-profit would describe the conference as an opportunity to brush shoulders with leaders in the tech and venture capital industry.
The goal is to create a platform where the smartest minds, visionaries, and pioneers discuss trends in technology that are shaping the future, said Mushtaq. “The goal is also to help in bringing more investments and innovation in Southern California, especially San Diego,” he said.
Thoughts on San Francisco vs. San Diego
There's a select number of successful San Diego companies born out of the Silicon Valley-style startup ethos.
That list includes Seismic, Tealium, Drata, ClickUp, Flock Freight. Companies like Qualcomm and ServiceNow have also been foundational to the San Diego tech startup ecosystem, by tens if not “hundreds of thousands” of high-performing tech talent who eventually go off to join the next big thing at the time.
While the pandemic has definitely made it easier for U.S. investors to invest in companies based here without requiring them to move to San Francisco, Mushtaq noted San Diego will never become the next Silicon Valley.
“There is only one Bay Area in the world, it’s just not the right comparison,” said Mushtaq. “The volume of talent, the money, it’s a unique ecosystem that a lot of cities will never be able to replicate.”
“San Diego has seen a lot of improvement from where it was 10 years ago,” he said. “In terms of quality of founders, the money flowing in, and the overall fundraising happening today — and a lot more can be done within the next decade.”
TechCon SoCal 2024 Returns
TechCon’s speaker line up has already landed big named speakers in the tech and venture capital industry including VC firms such as Mucker Capital, Ankona Capital, and Ridge Ventures, as actively recruiting founders of fast-growing startups, who are seeking to build billion-dollar products, who reside on the West Coast.
The conference will be held at the Legacy Resort and Spa on Friday May 24th.
It is actively seeking sponsorships and speaker nominations, while the deadline officially closed on March 29th, the conference committee will evaluate new submissions on a rolling basis leading up to the conference.
“This is an opportunity to learn from founders who have successfully raised money and enables new founders to learn from them. We also want to engage CEOs of large companies to share their perspective and leadership knowledge,” said Mushtaq.
“This is about helping bring high-class technology events to San Diego and we believe we can achieve that,” he said.
As an SF native and recent transplant to San Diego (via NYC & LA), I hold the strong belief that La Jolla is going to look a lot like Palo Alto in 5-8 years.