Silicon Valley is real!
Visiting Silicon Valley, a real global tech hub originating from Stanford University and local garages, revealed massive corporate campuses driving world-changing innovations and modern digital revolutions through exceptional research and venture capital.
Visiting Silicon Valley, a real global tech hub originating from Stanford University and local garages, revealed massive corporate campuses driving world-changing innovations and modern digital revolutions through exceptional research and venture capital.
Visiting Silicon Valley, a real global tech hub originating from Stanford University and local garages, revealed massive corporate campuses driving world-changing innovations and modern digital revolutions through exceptional research and venture capital.
Frankly, I never thought Silicon Valley was real. I had imagined in a vague manner that it was a fancy term for all that was going on in the information technology world in America. Therefore, I never planned to go there – you don’t go to a place that isn’t real. It came therefore as a big surprise last week in San Francisco when my friend Tom Antony said, I’ll take you to Silicon Valley.’ ‘You mean there really is such a place?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘look to your left.’ We were starting out from the city on the way to Yosemite National Park. From the highway that ran along the shoulder of a hill, I saw in the distance a wooded valley spotted with buildings.
Tom himself works in the Valley for a famous e-commerce company. He has been working there for over two decades. His wife too is a Silicon Valley professional. They represent, in a manner of speaking, around four hundred thousand such individuals from all over the world who make Silicon Valley what it is – a hub of technological power, excellence and innovation. They have turned the Valley into a global confluence of minds that function at the edge of human knowledge, today walking the razor’s edge of the profound power of AI.
Tom took me on a drive through the Valley. It’s a sprawling habitat where stand the mysterious-looking abodes of the information technology giants of the world. They are massive, state-of-the-art buildings looking as if hewn out of blocks of steel and glass. They overwhelm you not only by their size but also by their architectural force. I felt that their architecture has been calibrated to express the colossal power of technology with an impassive, forceful simplicity. I was awed. Many of them held secrets that could alter human future – for good or bad. As Tom pointed out to me one famous corporate name after the other, I thought to myself: Finally I’m really facing the nerve centres of the technologies that control my life.’
The valley that has become famous today for its path-breaking technological leaps was, as late as the mid-20th century, a place where orchards growing fruits such as cherries, apricots and prunes flourished. So much so, the valley was called ‘Valley of Heart’s Delight.’ The seeds of the valley’s new destiny were sown much earlier when Stanford University took birth there in 1891.
Stanford became the prime mover of the technology revolution represented today by Silicon Valley. Prof Frederic Terman, who taught electrical engineering at Stanford, believed that students must be encouraged to start their own businesses rather than look around for jobs. He also believed that universities must not be content with enquiry and research but must work with industry to turn inventions into market products.
It was two of his students, William Hewlett and David Packard, who famously put his theory into practice. These young engineers started a company, Hewlett-Packard, in a garage in Palo Alto, a site in the valley, in 1939 to produce audio oscillators (‘an electronic test instrument used to generate audio frequencies for testing audio equipment’). One of the company’s earliest customers was none other than Walt Disney, who in 1940 used the instrument in the production of his movie ‘Fantasia’. That small garage in Palo Alto has become a pilgrimage destination of technology. It is often referred to as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Thus, where once the orchards sat, today sit the massive, glittering, corporate campuses, driving new revolutions. I must be a shameless romanticist because when my friend Geeta George took me into the headquarters of Hewlett-Packard (HPE), where she works, I felt I was a trespasser in a hallowed space. My first PC was an HP.
It was the Second World War that turned the tide of fortune in favour of Silicon Valley. Stanford University collaborated with the American military to create the sophisticated electronic equipment it urgently needed. Even after the war, the military continued to support electronic and defence research. Soon, in 1951, led by Prof. Terman, Stanford established an industrial park called Stanford Research Park. The first company to set itself up in the park was Varian Associates, founded by a Stanford-trained duo, the brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian. Hewlett-Packard followed. Silicon Valley had begun to take shape.
The story moves faster now. William Shockley, a brilliant physicist who helped to develop the transistor and a Nobel Prize winner, established the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Palo Alto. Apparently, his difficult management style forced eight of his best employees to leave and start their own company, the Fairchild Semiconductor. It is said that Fairchild became the stable from which talented professionals emerged to start their own business ventures in the valley, creating the hub of innovation that it is today. Perhaps the most famous of them were Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, who established Intel in 1968. Later, Andy Grove joined them.
The idea of a personal computer was the focus of a group in the valley that called itself Homebrew Computer Club, and it is here that two young engineers made their entry: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. They started Apple Computers in 1976. How Apple began in Los Altos in – yet another – garage is too familiar a story to be retold.
The rest of the Silicon Valley story is part of the technology lore of today. The adoption of the internet by Silicon Valley and its commercialisation and popularisation followed, with firms like Netscape leading the dot-com transformation. Software platforms, search engines and social networks arrived. Google, Meta, Cisco, etc became masters of this universe. As everyone knows, Netflix, another market leader, began as a DVD-rental business. Google started from yet another garage in Menlo Park in Silicon Valley.
This so-called garage entrepreneurship sparked a thousand dreams among young professionals, and many of them who followed their dreams attained a success beyond imagination. The readiness to challenge, given wisdom, became the spirit of Silicon Valley. So was the acceptance of failure. If you failed, you were deemed more experienced. And an exceptionally adventurous venture capital backed it all. Today Silicon Valley is a unique ecosystem of research, capital, professionals and the commitment to change. It attracts the best scientific talent from all over the world.
It was the journalist Don Hoefler who, in 1971, popularised the name Silicon Valley through a series of articles in ‘Electronic News’, an industry publication. Even for a layman like me who knows nothing about technology, it was a thrilling experience to drive and walk through the Valley, realising that it was the home of the most fundamental scientific revolution of our times. It was humbling to stand in the concourse of Stanford University from where it all began. I wandered around with Tom, taking photos and standing wide-eyed before corporate names that appear perhaps a few hundred times a day on my phone and computer. Let me therefore assure the intending traveller: yes, Silicon Valley is real, and a visit to it is an experience you’ll not forget.