Post by Shannon Brown
Apply for this season’s Winternz program here.
While most university students from New Zealand have spent their four-month break under the summer sun, three students from Auckland and Victoria University have spent their holidays interning with Pertino Networks during the US winter.
Pertino is based in Los Gatos, California and builds cloud networks to connect, secure and manage people. Pertino was founded in September 2011 by Craig Elliott.
Gen Li (Software engineering, University of Auckland), Micah Cinco (Network Engineering, Victoria University) and Michael Shafer (Software engineering, University of Auckland) said they were lucky to be exposed to so many aspects of the business besides tech, they are all eager to come back to Silicon Valley at the next opportunity they can grab.
Micah, whose interest lies in security described that one of the surprising things was the workday culture. “We soon noticed that no one was coming in before 10am and they were all leaving well after 6.30pm, we all soon adapted to this and started to do the same!”
Jen described that the most valued part of the internship was networking and learning from great people. “We have made many relationships that we are taking home and hopefully can draw on in the future,” Michael added.
“Our first thoughts of Silicon Valley was that it was going to be all flash and lights, we soon learnt that it wasn’t like that at all, but it was the people that made the Valley so influential” Micah said.
We came here not knowing any marketing aspects of the business or what a venture capitalist and angel investor was. Craig was a great mentor and was able to show us how each part of the business interacts. We have not only learnt about the tech industry but have also taken away the notion of owning a startup one day, which was a scary thought before this venture, Micah explained.
For now the interns are heading back to New Zealand to finish their studies, but now they have a taste for Silicon Valley we are sure they will be back, watch this space!