UC Berkeley Discussion: what made Silicon Valley successful at generating new technology companies?

Has this success been replicated elsewhere?

"Why don't you go on west to California? There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there?"

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

From pioneers in covered wagons, to Gold Rush miners, to early film makers, and to hungry farmers in the Depression, California has promised hope and possibility to anyone with a dream and a car full of passion (and luggage). Sitting on the edge of the new world, away from the bustle of the corporate and increasingly crowded East Coast, for the 19th through the mid 20th century California was synonymous with freedom and opportunity. In the mid 1900's Stanford bribed corporations to bring their companies out West. Its cheap land and temperate weather made the decision strikingly easy. Shockley followed suit in headhunting the best minds to begin work on his revolutionary technology. PBS's American Experience: Silicon Valley colored this movement in ways very similar to our birth as a nation. First was the settlement in new territory- young vibrant minds ready to begin fresh and shed the Old World. Then, when the incumbent, inherited leadership proved stifling and hindering of growth, these courageous dissidents wrote their own Declaration of Independence and formed their own union. Just as the American Revolution inspired the French, this breaking of tradition and emphasis on individual entrepreneurship sparked a movement within the technology field that continues to this day.

"There are always brilliant minds... it's having a brilliant mind, with a brilliant idea, at the right time and right place..." - Berlin, PBS (above, and slightly paraphrased). Noyce and his seven colleagues were of that "right stuff" in the timing of their break and use of their talents. Sputnik had sparked a fire under and deep fear within Americans, and the American government was willing to throw as much money necessary to the best bid for advanced technology. Continued with Kennedy's quest for the moon, the funding for cutting edge technology was a never ending sieve. This, in combination with the idea "innovation over loyalty" created the perfect storm in birthing what we know now as the Silicon Valley. As Noyce demonstrated when he stepped down from leading his division at Fairchild to form Intel, it was the drive of creation and designing a new reality that fueled these entrepreneurs... in addition to the available resources: lots... and lots of money.

The cheap land, the gathering of great minds in a congenial and exciting atmosphere of innovation, the friendly and sometimes not friendly drive of competition- all these combined provided a greenhouse for individualism, and in turn, the "tech boom" we know from the late 20th century. When in the past was there this perfect storm of need, innovation, and individualism? We spoke of the American Revolution and subsequent dismantling of empires, and there are the great and treacherous migrations West- be it for land, gold, or the silver screen. A similar and equally profound boom happened in the early 16th century, when a dissident monk used his confinement to translate a book, to support his thesis. More-so, his 95 theses. As Shockley's hubris with his brilliant employees sparked the technology revolution, in Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, thinking that reading the text in the vernacular one logically arrived at his same conclusions, he instead dismantled Christian dogma and theology. This, combined with the advantages of the printing press, began a new approach to religion, individualism, and in turn, changed the course of Western history. It's not hyperbole when we compare the Silicon Valley experience to the Reformation. Both were needed products of their time, rooted in passion, independence, and the belief that ones efforts were for the greater good. And, both have forever changed the course of civilization. Our immense privilege in this age is we have the freedom and opportunity to contribute to the former.

"And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about."

-ibid, East of Eden