A couple of hundred internet adepts, startups, people who are just interested in what the future of the internet has offer have come together in the beautiful old theatre of Tuschinski in Amsterdam for the Next Web Conference. Moderator Scott Rafer welcoms us with and outlines the content of today. Where Google is all about algorithms and math, new services as Facebook, Myspace, Hyves etc are all about connecting people. The new companies and projects today share the same approach.

1. Saul Klein - Index Ventures

Venture capitalist Saul Klein shows the incredible growth and wealth accumulated by Silicon Valley companies such as Google, MS, Yahoo, Ebay etc. The top five are good for more than 500 billion dollar. Why can’t we do the same thing in Europe? We have the universities, the infrastructure, the graduates in technology, the best broadband penetration and more. So far we have a lot of hundreds million dollars exits (except Skype which was sold by Ebay for 4,1 billion), but the more than 10 billion dollar bang still has to come. Klein emphasis that it’s a great time for startups. In France some large companies are created without attracting a lot of international attention such as Iliad and Vista Print. So let’s create the first 10 billion dollar company! Since three months Europe has its own venture capital network event in 50 EU cities: www.opencoffeeclub.org