Back
in the early 1950s, when the United States was rising optimistically from
the economic consequences of World War II, a fertile stretch of land in
Northern California joined in the steady recovery. It was called "The
Valley of The Heart's Delight" and it ran from Palo Alto to San Jose and
beyond. Prunes, apricots, and cherries were part of a bounty which brought
in $65 million annually. The weather was temperate; the setting bucolic.
In the last 40 years the region—now commonly known as Silicon Valley—has
undergone an unparalleled transformation. The prunes, apricots, and cherries
that were the original fruits of the Valley have been replaced by microprocessors,
personal computers, and the Internet.
A recent report by a non-profit organization that monitors the economic
vitality of the region estimates that Silicon Valley is now home to more
than 7,000 technology-based companies and that it stretches across 30
cities, including San Jose, the third-largest city in California, and
parts of four counties: Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Cruz.
The organization also estimates that the economic region includes more
than 1.2 million jobs and 2.3 million residents. It is now the most prosperous
location in the most prosperous country in the world.
I first went to Silicon Valley in 1995, several days after moving to San
Francisco. I had a meeting with a bank in Santa Clara, and borrowed a
friend's car for the 45-minute drive. For the first time, I drove south
of the San Francisco airport on Interstate 101 (or "the 101" as Californians
like to say) and towards the heart of Silicon Valley.
Netscape had staged its initial public offering only days before I arrived
in San Francisco and it seemed that Silicon Valley was back in the news
after a long and fallow period of recessions. The startling stories of
instant wealth were filtering back to the East coast and the press was
cautiously trying to determine if the Internet was as significant as companies
like Netscape claimed it was. Other new companies, like Yahoo and Excite,
were lining up behind Netscape, hoping to reap the same rewards from the
public markets.
I expected to encounter opulence as I drove down Route 101, like the kind
of wealth one might find in Beverly Hills (my only other association with
California's riches). I expected to see the spoils of the first two great
innovations of the high tech revolution—the semiconductor and the
personal computer. I expected lavish homes, manicured lawns, lush palm
trees, and oddly shaped swimming pools. I thought I would see displays
of conspicuous consumption—of young, harried technophiles driving
obscure Italian sports cars. Of beautiful people in a beautiful setting.
If all of this money is here, surely it must manifest itself boldly and
without apprehension..
Roads
to Nowhere
The writer returns to his ancestral
home and finds it is disappearing.
Fish
Stories
Louisiana's fishermen won’t
bite on technology unless they know the nets are going to bulge.
KillTheDot.com:
An
Update
San Francisco’s dot-com dissidents go global
and send the media into a frenzy.
The
Virtual Revolution
When anarchists flock to the Web to organize,
chaos reigns.
Dateline
Shanghai's Internet entrepreneurs
expose us to the elegant seediness of the Long Bar.
Through
a lens
People
use cameras to answer a question. CEOs ponder what life is really like
at a start-up.
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andrew@thealarmclock.com
