Silicon Valley Saints
High-tech christian executives in California are bringing biblical values back into a mecca of Mammon.
Tony Carnes | posted 8/06/2001 12:00AM
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"It is a fact," Yang said recently in a Bible study. "It is hard to feel spiritual need" when basic physical needs are fulfilled.
Executive Bible Studies
The Protestant roots of Silicon Valley symbolically died with the passing away of Valley hero Bill Hewlett, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard, the area's first high-tech firm. On January 1, 1939, he and David Packard, classmates at Stanford University, launched an electronic measuring-device company from a one-car garage in Palo Alto. Six decades later, Hewlett-Packard led the Valley in revenues, with $47.1 billion.
A close friend remembers that Hewlett, a longtime member of the liberal Palo Alto Presbyterian Church, had an old-fashioned devotion to God and country. Hewlett's son recalls how he would sit in his father's lap and learn "how to follow the score of Handel's Messiah." Out of his traditional Protestant ethic came the famous "HP Way" of teamwork, flat hierarchy, innovation, and quality.
In the last two decades, church attendance in the Valley has been hardly the norm. It was, in fact, a curiosity. Today, however, as executives count the empty workplace parking slots as layoffs persist, parking spots at evening Bible studies are in short supply.
"I could hardly get to sleep last night; I was so excited about what is spiritually happening here," says John Brandon, a top executive at Apple Computer, in an interview with CT. Start-up churches, new Bible studies, and a growing network of prayer groups are having a subtle but significant influence on the high-tech industry by changing the hearts and minds of entrepreneurs, who in turn are changing the way they work.
Silicon Valley Fellowship has emerged as a network of Christian high-tech leaders. It has organized itself into a parachurch ministry that sponsors small groups as well as monthly lunches. At a January event, for example, former Microsoft executive John Sage traced his career from Harvard to high-tech to founding Pura Vida Coffee, which markets high-quality coffee beans to support Christian ministry in Costa Rica.
At one of the new Silicon Valley Bible studies, Christian executives (many of whom asked not to be named) face their fears. During the session, the mood is glum. "I am sitting in the midst of company turmoil," David tells his fellow Silicon Valley executives.
"We are in a recession," another says.
"No, a depression," another CEO corrects.
Greg Slayton, the CEO of ClickAction.com, functions as the elder statesman of the Bible study. Slayton remembers that when he came to Silicon Valley, he sensed how even Christian leaders were under its spell.
"I couldn't get them to return my phone calls. I wasn't an immediate IPO [initial public offering of a stock] prospect," Slayton reminiscences with a touch of bitterness.
Now in his early 40s, Slayton's habit of walking light on his feet, as if he is ready to race at any moment, makes one want to run after him wherever he goes. But this evening, he too is on the edge of exhaustion from his frantic pace. "The sense of isolation is a curse," Slayton warns. "It is the curse of 10,000 acquaintances. You find no one to talk to when things go really bad."
During the meeting, one new member recounts his challenge. "I am winding down a company," he says. "There is such ugliness and not much charity." He was ill-prepared by his business school to make ethical decisions while in catastrophe. "I could have made a lot of money for the company and myself by ripping off our customers before we go out of business." As he speaks, his cheeks redden with anxiety and pain. He might have sold software that would have been orphaned one minute after his company died.
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