The sheer scale of the numbers associated with the 2014 Web Summit can almost distract from what happened at the event: billion-dollar businesses, million-euro deals, 22,000 visitors, hundreds of speakers, thousands of exhibitors.
"Real business is discussed there and real business is done there, says KPMG partner Anna Scally. "There's an incredible amount of serendipity, with chance meetings leading to new business connections and new opportunities."
Scally’s chief impression of this fourth Web Summit was one of amazing energy.
“When I look back at the end of the first business day of this year’s summit, it was chaos by any standard”, she says. “But not bad chaos – it was good chaos. ‘Mayhem’ would be a better word. The buzz and energy was extraordinary; the whole place – the Simmonscourt side and the Main Hall – was absolutely heaving. Every place I went was thronged. It was just phenomenal.”
For Scally, the first day began with a KPMG-hosted breakfast for 200 start-ups from around the world. "These companies have been identified as the next wave of firms which will lead technology in the future, and there were about 20 from Ireland, 60 from the US and the rest from countries across the world."
The gathering was addressed by Jeff Hagins, founder of Internet of Things company SmartThings. "He spoke about what has happened to his company over the past two years", says Scally. "It was six months old when it won the Spark of Genius competition at the Web Summit in 2012. He spoke of how he realised then that the company was doing something very good and they had to go for it. The company only produced its first product in mid-2013, but it was bought for €200 million by Samsung in July.
“The message to everyone was that this guy was one of you two years ago and look what happened to him.”
Do what matters
Hagins had a particular message for start-ups and indeed all companies. “He told them to do what matters and to focus on the things that matter and not to worry about anything else that might get in the way. I really believe SmartThings is destined for great things.”
This message resonated later when Scally emceed one of the enterprise stages, where Lew Cirne, founder of software analytics company New Relic, was one of the speakers.
“He is one of the few technology company CEOs who still codes,” she says, “and that makes him very unusual and interesting. One of his key insights came when he asked people to identify their most scarce resource; it’s time. Time matters. His talk was focused on the things that matters, and if time matters you better make sure your technology is good. Nobody should be wasting time looking at bad technology.”
This advice is not confined to the technology sector, Scally says. “Technology is not a sector. It is pervasive and goes across all sectors. It was a very thought-provoking talk and again showed that moments really do matter. It’s just a pity that there weren’t enough moments to keep up with everything that was happening.
"There were nine stages running concurrently and the diversity was amazing. On one you could have someone like Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives speaking about angel investing, and on another you had the CEO of a cloud computing company discussing privacy issues with a former chief legal counsel of the US National Security Agency. The range was just phenomenal."
Still, it wasn't all about the big beasts of the tech world – Scally and the KPMG team also had time to welcome a specially guest. Thirteen-year-old Caolan Fleming hit the headlines at Web Summit 2012 when he was confirmed as the youngest android app developer in Europe, having created games for the platform since he was nine.
"We came across him in 2012 purely through serendipity," Scally says. "A number of big companies were looking to sign him up and he just wanted €200 to help him get a licence and a second-hand tablet to develop apps for the iOS platform. He told us that if he didn't get the €200 at the summit he would ask Santa for it.
“The KPMG stand just happened to be near where Caolan and his mother were talking to some people and they came to us to see if we could give them a bit of advice. We were delighted, not just to give the advice but the €200 as well. He’s back this year and he told us that he has been selected for the Young Scientist Exhibition, where he will be showing a new piece of software which allows parents to see what their children are doing on PCs and other devices.
“The summit is a lot about business and about meeting the next generation of tech stars and Caolan is definitely one of them.”
It’s also about creating real investment opportunities for Ireland.
"There are the naysayers who claim the event is over-hyped and so on but there are real benefits to Ireland from it," Scally says. "Twitter was bound for London until Jack Dorsey attended the summit four years ago and decided to bring the company to Dublin instead.
"The same happened with Qualtrics. Its founder, Ryan Smith, attended the summit in 2012 and that persuaded him to set up in Dublin. The company now employs 55 people here. When I was on stage last Tuesday I met another guy from a US firm and when he heard I was tax partner with KPMG who also heads up the technology practice, he arranged to meet me to discuss the possibility of his company establishing in Ireland. That's the sort of thing that happens all the time at the web summit. It really is amazing."
