Yo, technology.

What is it all about?

Do you want to know how to slip into the Silicon Valley bloodstream?

To meet the right people, and perhaps most importantly to raise money, then this week's

guest on Danny in the Valley is the man for you.

I had to succeed.

I did not have a choice of a failure.

Saeed Amidi is the founder of Plug and Play, which bills itself as the world's largest

startup accelerator. Every year, thousands of companies come through his doors, and Amidi

invests in an astonishing number of them, about three a week. He's had some very big hits in the

past, including Dropbox, and in his earlier

days he gave Larry Page and Sergei Bryn their first rented office space. He invested in them too.

Plug and play is an interesting model and a very chaotic building, which is I guess is what you

would expect from a place that houses more than 450 companies.

I've been there a few times now, and there's always a lot of nervous, unhealthy-looking

engineers pacing the halls and hushed conversations and delegations of executives streaming in and

out. The ceilings are hung with flags from every country you can think of, and the walls

are plastered with poster boards of past startups that have either been bought or gone public.

Walking in is kind of like a sensory experience.

It feels like a startup flea market.

But Amidi sat down to explain the method to his madness and and how he went from rank outsider,

newly arrived from Iran,

...