Silicon Valley is a region in
Northern California that serves as a global center for
high technology
High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
and
innovation. Located in the southern part of the
San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas
San Mateo County and
Santa Clara County.
San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in
California, and the tenth-largest in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
; other major Silicon Valley cities include
Sunnyvale,
Santa Clara,
Redwood City
Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a po ...
,
Mountain View,
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
,
Menlo Park, and
Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world (after
Zurich, Switzerland and
Oslo, Norway
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of i ...
), according to the
Brookings Institution, and, as of June 2021, has the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more in the United States.
Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's largest
high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of more than 30 businesses in the
Fortune 1000, and thousands of
startup companies
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
. Silicon Valley also accounts for one-third of all of the
venture capital investment in the United States, which has helped it to become a leading hub and
startup ecosystem
A startup ecosystem is formed by people, Startup company, startups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create and scale new Startup company, startup companies. ...
for high-tech innovation. It was in Silicon Valley that the silicon-based
integrated circuit, the
microprocessor, and the
microcomputer, among other technologies, were developed. , the region employed about a half million
information technology workers.
As more high-tech companies were established across San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area's two other major cities,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
and
Oakland, the term "Silicon Valley" came to have two definitions: a narrower geographic one, referring to
Santa Clara County and southeastern
San Mateo County, and a
metonymical definition referring to high-tech businesses in the entire Bay Area. The term Silicon Valley is often used as a
synecdoche for the American high-technology
economic sector. The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired
similarly named locations, as well as
research parks and
technology centers with comparable structures all around the world. Many headquarters of tech companies in Silicon Valley have become hotspots for
tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...
. More recently, intensifying
droughts in California
The historical and ongoing droughts in California result from various complex meteorological phenomena, some of which are not fully understood by scientists.
Drought is generally defined as “a deficiency of precipitation over an extended peri ...
have further strained the Silicon Valley region’s
water security
Water security is the focused goal of water policy and water management. A society with a high level of water security makes the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems and limits the risk of destructive impacts associated with water. T ...
.
Etymology
The word "silicon" in the name originally referred to the large number of innovators and manufacturers in the region specializing in
silicon-based
transistors and
integrated circuit chips.
The popularization of the name is credited to
Don Hoefler.
He first used it in the article "Silicon Valley USA", which appeared in the January 11, 1971, issue of the weekly trade newspaper ''
Electronic News''.
However, the term did not gain widespread use until the early 1980s,
at the time of the introduction of the
IBM PC and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market.
History
Silicon Valley was born through the intersection of several contributing factors including a skilled science research base housed in area universities, plentiful
venture capital, and steady
U.S. Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
spending.
Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valley's early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success.
Early military origins
The Bay Area had long been a major site of
United States Navy research and technology. In 1909,
Charles Herrold
Charles David "Doc" Herrold (November 16, 1875 – July 1, 1948) was an American inventor and pioneer radio broadcaster, who began experimenting with audio radio transmissions in 1909. Beginning in 1912 he apparently became the first person to mak ...
started the first
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in
San Jose. Later that year, Stanford University graduate
Cyril Elwell purchased the U.S. patents for
Poulsen arc radio transmission technology and founded the Federal Telegraph Corporation (FTC) in
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
. Over the next decade, the FTC created the world's first global radio communication system, and signed a contract with the Navy in 1912.
In 1933,
Air Base Sunnyvale, California, was commissioned by the
United States Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
for use as a Naval Air Station (NAS) to house the airship ''
USS Macon'' in
Hangar One. The station was renamed NAS
Moffett Field
Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10 ...
, and between 1933 and 1947, U.S. Navy blimps were based there.
A number of technology firms had set up shop in the area around Moffett Field to serve the Navy. When the Navy gave up its airship ambitions and moved most of its west coast operations to
San Diego, the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...
(NACA, forerunner of
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
) took over portions of Moffett Field for
aeronautics research. Many of the original companies stayed, while new ones moved in. The immediate area was soon filled with
aerospace firms, such as
Lockheed, which was Silicon Valley's largest employer from the 1950s into 1980s.
Role of Stanford University
Stanford University, its affiliates, and graduates have played a major role in the development of this area.
A very powerful sense of regional solidarity accompanied the rise of Silicon Valley. From the 1890s, Stanford University's
leaders saw its mission as service to the (American)
West and shaped the school accordingly. At the same time, the perceived exploitation of the West at the hands of eastern interests fueled
booster-like attempts to build self-sufficient local industry. Thus regionalism helped align Stanford's interests with those of the area's high-tech firms for the first fifty years of Silicon Valley's development.
Frederick Terman, as Stanford University's dean of the school of engineering from 1946,
encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies. In 1951 Terman spearheaded the formation of Stanford Industrial Park (now
Stanford Research Park, an area surrounding
Page Mill Road
There are 21 routes assigned to the "G" zone of the California Route Marker Program, which designates county routes in California. The "G" zone includes county highways in Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz co ...
, south west of
El Camino Real and extending beyond
Foothill Expressway
There are 21 routes assigned to the "G" zone of the California Route Marker Program, which designates county routes in California. The "G" zone includes county highways in Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz ...
to Arastradero Road), where the university leased portions of its land to high-tech firms. Terman is credited with nurturing companies like
Hewlett-Packard,
Varian Associates
Varian Associates was one of the first high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1948 by Russell H. and Sigurd F. Varian, William Webster Hansen, and Edward Ginzton to sell the klystron, the first vacuum tube which could amplif ...
,
Eastman Kodak,
General Electric,
Lockheed Corporation, and other high-tech firms, until what would become Silicon Valley grew up around the Stanford University campus.
After World War II, universities experienced enormous demand due to returning students. In 1951, to address the financial demands of Stanford's growth requirements, and to provide local employment-opportunities for graduating students,
Frederick Terman proposed leasing Stanford's lands for use as an
office park named the
Stanford Industrial Park (later
Stanford Research Park). Leases were limited to high-technology companies. The first tenant was
Varian Associates
Varian Associates was one of the first high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1948 by Russell H. and Sigurd F. Varian, William Webster Hansen, and Edward Ginzton to sell the klystron, the first vacuum tube which could amplif ...
, founded by Stanford alumni in the 1930s to build military-radar components. Terman also found
venture capital for civilian-technology start-ups.
Hewlett-Packard became one of the major success-stories. Founded in 1939 in
Packard's garage by Stanford graduates
Bill Hewlett
William Redington Hewlett ( ; May 20, 1913 – January 12, 2001) was an American engineer and the co-founder, with David Packard, of the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP).
Early life and education
Hewlett was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his ...
and
David Packard
David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–68 ...
, Hewlett-Packard moved its offices into the Stanford Research Park shortly after 1953. In 1954 Stanford originated the Honors Cooperative Program to allow full-time employees of the companies to pursue graduate degrees from the university on a part-time basis. The initial companies signed five-year agreements in which they would pay double the tuition for each student in order to cover the costs. Hewlett-Packard has become the largest personal-computer manufacturer in the world, and transformed the home-printing market when it released the first thermal drop-on-demand
ink-jet printer in 1984. Other early tenants included
Eastman Kodak,
General Electric, and
Lockheed.
Rise of Silicon
In 1956,
William Shockley, the co-inventor of the first working
transistor (with
John Bardeen and
Walter Houser Brattain), moved from
New Jersey to
Mountain View, California, to start
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology company in what came to be known as Silicon Valley to w ...
to live closer to his ailing mother in
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
. Shockley's work served as the basis for many electronic developments for decades. Both Frederick Terman and
William Shockley are often called "the father of Silicon Valley". In 1953, William Shockley left
Bell Labs in a disagreement over the handling of the invention of the
bipolar transistor
A bipolar junction transistor (BJT) is a type of transistor that uses both electrons and electron holes as charge carriers. In contrast, a unipolar transistor, such as a field-effect transistor, uses only one kind of charge carrier. A bipolar t ...
. After returning to
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
for a short while, Shockley moved to
Mountain View, California, in 1956, and founded
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology company in what came to be known as Silicon Valley to w ...
. Unlike many other researchers who used germanium as the semiconductor material, Shockley believed that silicon was the better material for making transistors. Shockley intended to replace the current transistor with a new three-element design (today known as the
Shockley diode
The Shockley diode (named after physicist William Shockley) is a four-layer semiconductor diode, which were one of the first semiconductor devices invented. It is a PNPN diode, with alternating layers of P-type and N-type material. It is equ ...
), but the design was considerably more difficult to build than the "simple" transistor. In 1957, Shockley decided to end research on the silicon transistor. As a result of Shockley's abusive management style, eight engineers left the company to form
Fairchild Semiconductor; Shockley referred to them as the "
traitorous eight". Two of the original employees of Fairchild Semiconductor,
Robert Noyce and
Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law.
As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
, would go on to found
Intel.
In 1957,
Mohamed Atalla at Bell Labs developed the process of silicon
surface passivation
A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is ...
by
thermal oxidation
In microfabrication, thermal oxidation is a way to produce a thin layer of oxide (usually silicon dioxide) on the surface of a wafer. The technique forces an oxidizing agent to diffuse into the wafer at high temperature and react with it. The ra ...
,
which electrically stabilized silicon surfaces
and reduced the concentration of
electronic state
A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound—that is, confined spatially—can only take on certain discrete values of energy, called energy levels. This contrasts with classical particles, which can have any amount of energy. The t ...
s at the surface.
This enabled silicon to surpass the conductivity and performance of germanium, leading to silicon replacing germanium as the dominant semiconductor material,
and paving the way for the mass-production of silicon semiconductor devices.
This led to Atalla inventing the
MOSFET (metal-oxide-silicon field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor, with his colleague
Dawon Kahng
Dawon Kahng ( ko, 강대원; May 4, 1931 – May 13, 1992) was a Korean-American electrical engineer and inventor, known for his work in solid-state electronics. He is best known for inventing the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effe ...
in 1959.
It was the first truly compact transistor that could be
miniaturised and
mass-produced
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...
for a wide range of uses,
and is credited with starting the
silicon revolution.
The MOSFET was initially overlooked and ignored by Bell Labs in favour of bipolar transistors, which led to Atalla resigning from Bell Labs and joining
Hewlett-Packard in 1961.
However, the MOSFET generated significant interest at
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
and
Fairchild Semiconductor. In late 1960, Karl Zaininger and Charles Meuller fabricated a MOSFET at RCA, and
Chih-Tang Sah built an MOS-controlled
tetrode
A tetrode is a vacuum tube (called ''valve'' in British English) having four active electrodes. The four electrodes in order from the centre are: a thermionic cathode, first and second grids and a plate (called ''anode'' in British English). ...
at Fairchild. MOS devices were later commercialized by
General Microelectronics and Fairchild in 1964.
The development of MOS technology became the focus of startup companies in California, such as Fairchild and Intel, fuelling the technological and economic growth of what would later be called Silicon Valley.
Following the 1959 inventions of the monolithic
integrated circuit (IC) chip by
Robert Noyce at Fairchild, and the
MOSFET (MOS transistor) by
Mohamed Atalla and
Dawon Kahng
Dawon Kahng ( ko, 강대원; May 4, 1931 – May 13, 1992) was a Korean-American electrical engineer and inventor, known for his work in solid-state electronics. He is best known for inventing the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effe ...
at Bell Labs,
Atalla first proposed the concept of the
MOS integrated circuit
upright=1.6, gate (G), body (B), source (S), and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an gate oxide">insulating layer (pink).
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), also ...
(MOS IC) chip in 1960,
and then the first commercial MOS IC was introduced by
General Microelectronics in 1964. The development of the MOS IC led to the invention of the
microprocessor,
incorporating the functions of a
computer's
central processing unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just Processor (computing), processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes Instruction (computing), instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU per ...
(CPU) on a single integrated circuit.
The first single-chip microprocessor was the
Intel 4004
The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs.
The 4004 was the first significa ...
, designed and realized by
Federico Faggin
Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group d ...
along with
Ted Hoff
Marcian Edward "Ted" Hoff Jr. (born October 28, 1937 in Rochester, New York) is one of the inventors of the microprocessor.
Education and work history
Hoff received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst ...
,
Masatoshi Shima and
Stanley Mazor at Intel in 1971.
Federico Faggin
Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group d ...
The Making of the First Microprocessor
, ''IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine'', Winter 2009, IEEE Xplore
IEEE Xplore digital library is a research database for discovery and access to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical standards, and related materials on computer science, electrical engineering and electronics, and allied fields. It ...
In April 1974,
Intel released the
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...
,
['' Electronic News'' was a weekly trade newspaper. The same advertisement appeared in the May 2, 1974, issue of ''Electronics'' magazine.] a "computer on a chip", "the first truly usable microprocessor".
Origins of the Internet
On April 23, 1963,
J. C. R. Licklider, the first director of the
Information Processing Techniques Office
The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), originally "Command and Control Research",Lyon, Matthew; Hafner, Katie (1999-08-19). ''Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet'' (p. 39). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. was par ...
(IPTO) at
The Pentagon's
ARPA issued an office memorandum addressed to
Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network. It rescheduled a meeting in Palo Alto regarding his vision of a computer network, which he imagined as an electronic commons open to all, the main and essential medium of informational interaction for governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals.
As head of IPTO from 1962 to 1964, "Licklider initiated three of the most important developments in information technology: the creation of computer science departments at several major universities, time-sharing, and networking."
In 1969, the
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
(now SRI International), operated one of the four original nodes that comprised
ARPANET, predecessor to the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
.
Emergence of venture capital
By the early 1970s, there were many
semiconductor companies in the area,
computer firms using their devices, and programming and service companies serving both. Industrial space was plentiful and housing was still inexpensive. Growth during this era was fueled by the emergence of
venture capital on
Sand Hill Road, beginning with
Kleiner Perkins and
Sequoia Capital in 1972; the availability of venture capital exploded after the successful $1.3 billion
IPO of
Apple Computer in December 1980. Since the 1980s, Silicon Valley has been home to the largest concentration of venture capital firms in the world.
In 1971,
Don Hoefler traced the origins of Silicon Valley firms, including via investments from
Fairchild's eight co-founders.
[A Legal Bridge Spanning 100 Years: From the Gold Mines of El Dorado to the "Golden" Startups of Silicon Valley](_blank)
by Gregory Gromov The key investors in Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital were from the same group, directly leading to ''
Tech Crunch
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...
'' 2014 estimate of 92 public firms of 130 related listed firms then worth over US$2.1 trillion with over 2,000 firms traced back to them.
Rise of computer culture
The
Homebrew Computer Club
The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group in Menlo Park, California, which met from March 1975 to December 1986. The club had an influential role in the development of the microcomputer revolution and the rise of that asp ...
was an informal group of electronic enthusiasts and technically minded hobbyists who gathered to trade parts,
circuits, and information pertaining to
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...
construction of computing devices. It was started by
Gordon French and
Fred Moore who met at the Community Computer Center in
Menlo Park. They both were interested in maintaining a regular, open forum for people to get together to work on making computers more accessible to everyone.
The first meeting was held as of March 1975 at French's garage in
Menlo Park,
San Mateo County, California; which was on occasion of the arrival of the
MITS Altair microcomputer, the first unit sent to the area for review by
People's Computer Company
People's Computer Company (PCC) was an organization, a newsletter (the ''People's Computer Company Newsletter'') and, later, a quasiperiodical called the ''Dragonsmoke''. PCC was founded and produced by Dennis Allison, Bob Albrecht and George Fir ...
.
Steve Wozniak and
Steve Jobs credit that first meeting with inspiring them to design the original
Apple I and (successor)
Apple II computers. As a result, the first preview of the
Apple I was given at the Homebrew Computer Club. Subsequent meetings were held at an auditorium at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Advent of software
Although semiconductors are still a major component of the area's economy, Silicon Valley has been most famous in recent years for innovations in software and
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
services. Silicon Valley has significantly influenced computer operating systems,
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
, and user interfaces.
Using money from
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
, the
US Air Force, and
ARPA,
Douglas Engelbart invented the
mouse and hypertext-based collaboration tools in the mid-1960s and 1970s while at
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
(now SRI International), first publicly demonstrated in 1968 in what is now known as
The Mother of All Demos. Engelbart's
Augmentation Research Center at SRI was also involved in launching the
ARPANET (precursor to the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
) and starting the
Network Information Center
The Network Information Center (NIC), also known as InterNIC from 1993 until 1998, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until Oc ...
(now
InterNIC).
Xerox hired some of Engelbart's best researchers beginning in the early 1970s. In turn, in the 1970s and 1980s, Xerox's
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) played a pivotal role in
object-oriented programming,
graphical user interfaces (GUIs),
Ethernet,
PostScript, and
laser printer
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to ...
s.
While Xerox marketed equipment using its technologies, for the most part its technologies flourished elsewhere. The diaspora of Xerox inventions led directly to
3Com and
Adobe Systems, and indirectly to
Cisco,
Apple Computer, and
Microsoft. Apple's
Macintosh GUI was largely a result of
Steve Jobs' visit to PARC and the subsequent hiring of key personnel. Cisco's impetus stemmed from the need to route a variety of protocols over
Stanford University's
Ethernet campus network
A campus network, campus area network, corporate area network or CAN is a computer network made up of an interconnection of local area networks (LANs) within a limited geographical area. The networking equipments (switches, routers) and transm ...
.
Internet age
Commercial use of the Internet became practical and grew slowly throughout the early 1990s. In 1995, commercial use of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
grew substantially and the initial wave of internet startups,
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
,
eBay, and the predecessor to
Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark began the ...
began operations.
Silicon Valley is generally considered to have been the center of the
dot-com bubble, which started in the mid-1990s and collapsed after the
NASDAQ stock market
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
began to decline dramatically in April 2000. During the bubble era, real estate prices reached unprecedented levels. For a brief time,
Sand Hill Road was home to the most expensive commercial real estate in the world, and the booming economy resulted in severe
traffic congestion.
The
PayPal Mafia
The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and/or developed additional technology companies such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, an ...
is sometimes credited with inspiring the re-emergence of consumer-focused Internet companies after the
dot-com bust of 2001. After the dot-com crash, Silicon Valley continues to maintain its status as one of the top research and development centers in the world. A 2006 ''
The Wall Street Journal'' story found that 12 of the 20 most inventive towns in America were in California, and 10 of those were in Silicon Valley. San Jose led the list with 3,867 utility patents filed in 2005, and number two was Sunnyvale, at 1,881 utility patents. Silicon Valley is also home to a significant number of "
Unicorn" ventures, referring to
startup companies
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
whose
valuation has exceeded $1 billion
dollars
Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, U ...
.
Economy
The
San Francisco Bay Area has the largest concentration of
high-tech companies in the United States, at 387,000 high-tech jobs, of which Silicon Valley accounts for 225,300 high-tech jobs. Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of high-tech workers of any metropolitan area, with 285.9 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers. Silicon Valley has the highest average high-tech salary in the United States at $144,800. Largely a result of the high technology sector, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area has the most millionaires and the most billionaires in the United States per capita.
The region is the biggest high-tech manufacturing center in the United States. The
unemployment rate
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...
of the region was 9.4% in January 2009 and has decreased to a record low of 2.7% as of August 2019. Silicon Valley received 41% of all U.S. venture investment in 2011, and 46% in 2012. More traditional industries also recognize the potential of high-tech development, and several car manufacturers have opened offices in Silicon Valley to capitalize on its
entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Manufacture of
transistors is, or was, the core industry in Silicon Valley. The production workforce
was for the most part composed of Asian and Latino immigrants who were paid low wages and worked in hazardous conditions due to the chemicals used in the manufacture of
integrated circuits. Technical, engineering, design, and administrative staffs were in large part
well compensated.
File:Google Campus, Mountain View, CA.jpg, Googleplex in Mountain View
File:Facebook Campus, Menlo Park, CA.jpg, Meta Platforms in Menlo Park
File:N 1st St & Tasman Dr (32614813640).jpg, Samsung in San Jose
File:Intel HQ.jpg, Intel in Santa Clara
File:101 Albright Way.jpg, Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
in Los Gatos
Los Gatos (, ; ) is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population is 33,529 according to the 2020 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area just southwest of San Jose in the foothills of th ...
File:TeslaMotors HQ PaloAlto (cropped).jpg, Tesla in Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
Housing
Silicon Valley has a
severe housing shortage, caused by the market imbalance between jobs created and housing units built: from 2010 to 2015, many more jobs have been created than housing units built. (400,000 jobs, 60,000 housing units)
This shortage has driven home prices extremely high, far out of the range of production workers.
As of 2016 a two-bedroom apartment rented for about $2,500 while the median home price was about $1 million.
The ''
Financial Post
The ''Financial Post'' was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new ''National Post'',"Black says Post to merge with new paper". ''The Globe and Mail'', July 23, ...
'' called Silicon Valley the most expensive U.S. housing region.
Homelessness is a problem with housing beyond the reach of middle-income residents; there is little
shelter space other than in San Jose which, as of 2015, was making an effort to develop shelters by renovating old hotels.
''
The Economist'' also attributes the high cost of living to the success of the industries in this region. Although, this rift between high and low salaries is driving many residents out who can no longer afford to live there. In the
Bay Area, the number of residents planning to leave within the next several years has had an increase of 35% since 2016, from 34% to 46%.
Notable companies
Thousands of
high technology
High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley. Among those, the following are in the
Fortune 1000:
Additional notable companies headquartered in Silicon Valley (some of which are defunct, subsumed, or relocated) include:
Demographics
Depending on what geographic regions are included in the meaning of the term, the population of Silicon Valley is between 3.5 and 4 million. A 1999 study by
AnnaLee Saxenian for the
Public Policy Institute of California
The Public Policy Institute of California is an independent, non-profit research institution. Based in San Francisco, California, the institute was established in 1994 by Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard, Roger Heyns, and Arjay Miller, with a $7 ...
reported that a third of Silicon Valley scientists and engineers were immigrants and that nearly a quarter of Silicon Valley's high-technology firms since 1980 were run by
Chinese (17 percent) or
Indian descent CEOs (7 percent). There is a stratum of well-compensated technical employees and managers, including 10s of thousands of "single-digit millionaires". This income and range of assets will support a middle-class lifestyle in Silicon Valley.
Diversity
Gender
In November 2006, the
University of California, Davis released a report analyzing business leadership by women within the state.
The report showed that although 103 of the 400 largest public companies headquartered in California were located in Santa Clara County (the most of all counties), only 8.8% of Silicon Valley companies had women CEOs.
This was the lowest percentage in the state.
(San Francisco County had 19.2% and Marin County had 18.5%.)
Silicon Valley tech leadership positions are occupied almost exclusively by men.
This is also represented in the number of new companies founded by women as well as the number of women-lead startups that receive venture capital funding. Wadhwa said he believes that a contributing factor is a lack of parental encouragement to study science and engineering.
He also cited a lack of women role models and noted that most famous tech leaders—like
Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs, and
Mark Zuckerberg—are men.
As of October 2014, some high-profile Silicon Valley firms were working actively to prepare and recruit women. ''
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
'' reported that Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft attended the 20th annual
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. The celebra ...
conference to actively recruit and potentially hire female engineers and technology experts.
The same month, the second annual Platform Summit was held to discuss increasing racial and gender diversity in tech.
As of April 2015 experienced women were engaged in creation of venture capital firms which leveraged women's perspectives in funding of startups.
After UC Davis published its ''Study of California Women Business Leaders'' in November 2006,
some ''
San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'' readers dismissed the possibility that sexism contributed in making Silicon Valley's leadership gender gap the highest in the state. A January 2015 issue of ''
Newsweek'' magazine featured an article detailing reports of sexism and misogyny in Silicon Valley.
The article's author,
Nina Burleigh
Nina D. Burleigh is an American writer and investigative journalist, the daughter of author Robert Burleigh. She writes books, articles, essays and reviews. Burleigh is a supporter of secular liberalism, and is known for her interest in issues of ...
, asked, "Where were all these offended people when women like
Heidi Roizen published accounts of having a venture capitalist stick her hand in his pants under a table while a deal was being discussed?"
Silicon Valley firms' board of directors are composed of 15.7% women compared with 20.9% in the S&P 100.
The 2012 lawsuit ''
Pao v. Kleiner Perkins'' was filed in
San Francisco County Superior Court by executive
Ellen Pao
Ellen Kangourou Pao (born 1970) is an American investor and former CEO of social media company Reddit.
Pao first became known in 2012 for filing a failed gender discrimination suit against her employer, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, a ...
for
gender discrimination against her employer,
Kleiner Perkins.
The case went to trial in February 2015. On March 27, 2015, the jury found in favor of Kleiner Perkins on all counts.
Nevertheless, the case, which had wide press coverage, resulted in major advances in consciousness of gender discrimination on the part of venture capital and technology firms and their women employees.
Two other cases have been filed against Facebook and Twitter.
Statistics
In 2014, tech companies Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Apple, and others, released corporate transparency reports that offered detailed employee breakdowns. In May,
Google said 17% of its tech employees worldwide were women, and, in the U.S., 1% of its tech workers were
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
and 2% were
Hispanic.
June 2014 brought reports from Yahoo! and Facebook.
Yahoo! said that 15% of its tech jobs were held by women, 2% of its tech employees were black and 4% Hispanic.
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
reported that 15% of its tech workforce was female, and 3% was Hispanic and 1% was black.
In August,
Apple reported that 80% of its global tech staff was male and that, in the U.S., 54% of its tech jobs were staffed by Caucasians and 23% by Asians. Soon after, ''
USA Today'' published an article about Silicon Valley's lack of tech-industry diversity, pointing out that it is largely white or Asian, and male. "Blacks and Hispanics are largely absent," it reported, "and women are underrepresented in Silicon Valley—from giant companies to start-ups to venture capital firms."
Civil rights activist
Jesse Jackson said of improving diversity in the tech industry, "This is the next step in the civil rights movement"
while
T. J. Rodgers has argued against Jackson's assertions.
Municipalities
The following
Santa Clara County cities are traditionally considered to be in Silicon Valley (in alphabetical order):
The geographical boundaries of Silicon Valley have changed over the years. Historically, the term Silicon Valley was treated as synonymous with Santa Clara Valley,
and then its meaning later evolved to refer to Santa Clara County plus adjacent regions in southern San Mateo County and southern Alameda County.
However, over the years this geographical area has been expanded to include San Francisco County, Contra Costa County, and the northern parts of Alameda County and San Mateo County, this shift has occurred due to the expansion in the local economy and the development of new technologies.
The
United States Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemploy ...
's
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (fka ES-202) is the name of the QCEW program. QCEW is a program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the pr ...
program defined Silicon Valley as the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz.
In 2015, MIT researchers developed a novel method for measuring which towns are home to startups with higher growth potential and this defines Silicon Valley to center on the municipalities of Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale.
Education
Funding for public schools in upscale Silicon Valley communities such as
Woodside is often supplemented by grants from private foundations set up for that purpose and funded by local residents. Schools in less affluent areas such as
East Palo Alto
East Palo Alto (abbreviated E.P.A.) is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of East Palo Alto was 30,034. It is situated on the San Francisco Peninsula, roughly halfway between the cities of ...
must depend on state funding.
Colleges and universities
Culture
Events
*
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, San Jose
*
Facebook F8, San Jose
*
BayCon, Santa Clara
*
Christmas in the Park, San Jose
*
Cinequest Film Festival
The Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival is an annual independent film festival held each March in San Jose, California and Redwood City, California. The international festival combines the cinematic arts with Silicon Valley’s innovation. It is ...
, multiple venues
*
FanimeCon
FanimeCon is an annual four-day anime convention held during May at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California over Memorial Day weekend.
Programming
The convention typically offers an AMV contest, artist's alley, contest ...
, San Jose
*
LiveStrong Challenge bike race, San Jose
*Los Altos Art and Wine Festival, Los Altos
*Mountain View Art and Wine Festival, Mountain View
*Palo Alto Festival of the Arts, Palo Alto
*
San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, San Jose
*
San Jose Jazz Festival
The San José Jazz Summer Fest (originally known as the San Jose Jazz Festival) is an annual music festival organized by non-profit San Jose Jazz and held in downtown San Jose, California. The festival was established in 1990. The festival beg ...
, San Jose
*
San Jose Holiday Parade, San Jose
*
Silicon Valley Comic Con, San Jose
*
Silicon Valley Pride, San Jose
*
Stanford Jazz Festival, Stanford
Graphic arts
*
Allied Arts Guild, Menlo Park
*
Pace Gallery, Palo Alto.
*
Pacific Art League
*
Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, San Jose
Museums
*
Computer History Museum
*
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) is a cultural institution serving children, families, and schools in the Silicon Valley/ San Francisco Bay Area. A member of the Association of Children's Museums and the Association of Science-Tec ...
*
CuriOdyssey
*
De Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University
*
Hiller Aviation Museum
*
History Park by History San José
*
The HP Garage
*
Intel Museum
*
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University
*
Japanese American Museum of San Jose
*
Los Altos History Museum
*
Moffett Field
Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10 ...
Historical Society Museum,
*
Museum of American Heritage
*
Palo Alto Art Center
*
Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo
*
Portuguese Historical Museum
*
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum
*
San Mateo County History Museum
*
San Jose Museum of Art
*
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles
*
Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum
*
The Tech Museum of Innovation
*
Viet Museum
*
Winchester Mystery House
Performing arts
*
American Beethoven Society
*
American Musical Theatre of San Jose
The American Musical Theatre of San Jose (AMTSJ), previously known as the San Jose Civic Light Opera (SJCLO), was a major professional nonprofit musical theatre company in San Jose, California. Founded in 1934 as the San Jose Light Opera Associatio ...
*
Ballet San Jose
*
Bing Concert Hall
*
California Youth Symphony
*
Opera San José
*
Symphony Silicon Valley
*
San Jose Center for the Performing Arts
The San Jose Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts venue located in Downtown San Jose, California. It opened in 1972 and is now home to San Jose Dance Theatre and Broadway San Jose.
History
The theater opened in 1972 the architect w ...
*
Broadway San Jose
*
San Jose Repertory Theatre
The San Jose Repertory Theatre (a.k.a. San Jose Rep) was the first resident professional theatre company in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1980 by James P. Reber. In 2008, after the demise of the American Musical Theatre of San Jose, th ...
*
San Jose Youth Symphony
*
San Jose Improv
*
SjDANCEco
*
Broadway by the Bay
*
TheatreWorks Theatre Company
Media
In 1980, ''Intelligent Machines Journal'' changed its name to ''
InfoWorld'', and, with offices in
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
, began covering the emergence of the microcomputer industry in the valley.
Local and national media cover Silicon Valley and its companies. CNN, ''
The Wall Street Journal'', and Bloomberg News operate Silicon Valley bureaus out of Palo Alto. Public broadcaster
KQED (TV) and
KQED-FM
KQED-FM (88.5 MHz) is a NPR-member radio station in San Francisco, California. Its parent organization is KQED Inc., which also owns its television partners, both of which are PBS member outlets: KQED (channel 9) and KQEH (channel 54). Stu ...
, as well as the Bay Area's local
ABC station
KGO-TV
KGO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's ABC network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, KGO-TV ma ...
, operate bureaus in San Jose.
KNTV,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
's local Bay Area affiliate "NBC Bay Area", is located in San Jose. Produced from this location is the nationally distributed TV Show "Tech Now" as well as the CNBC Silicon Valley bureau. San Jose-based media serving Silicon Valley include the ''
San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'' daily and the ''
Metro Silicon Valley'' weekly.
Specialty media include ''
El Observador'' and the ''San Jose / Silicon Valley Business Journal''. Most of the Bay Area's other major TV stations, newspapers, and media operate in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
or
Oakland.
Patch.com operates various web portals, providing local news, discussion and events for residents of Silicon Valley. Mountain View has a public nonprofit station, KMVT-15. KMVT-15's shows include Silicon Valley Education News (EdNews)-Edward Tico Producer.
Cultural references
Some appearances in media, in order by release date:
*''
A View to a Kill
''A View to a Kill'' is a 1985 spy film and the fourteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and is the seventh and final appearance of Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted ...
''—1985 film from the
James Bond series.
Bond thwarts an elaborate ploy by the film's antagonist, Max Zorin, to destroy Silicon Valley.
*''
Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires'' – 1996 documentary
*''
Pirates of Silicon Valley
''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberge ...
''—1999 film about the early days of
Apple Computer and
Microsoft (though the latter has never been based in Silicon Valley)
*''
Code Monkeys
''Code Monkeys'' is an American adult animated television program by Adam de la Peña. Set in the early 1980s, it follows the adventures of fictional video game company GameaVision. The show ran for two seasons, from 2007 to 2008, on G4 and G4 ...
''—2007 comedy series
*''
The Social Network
''The Social Network'' is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book ''The Accidental Billionaires'' by Ben Mezrich. It portrays the founding of social networking websi ...
''—2010 film
*''
Startups Silicon Valley''—reality TV series, debuted 2012 on
Bravo
*''
Betas''—TV series, debuted 2013 on
Amazon Video
Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service pr ...
*''
Jobs''—2013 film
*''
The Internship''—2013 comedy film about working at
Google
*''
Silicon Valley''—2014 American
sitcom from
HBO
*
''Halt and Catch Fire''—2014 TV series, the last two seasons are primarily set in Silicon Valley
*
''Steve Jobs''—2015 film
*''
Watch Dogs 2
''Watch Dogs 2'' (stylized as ''WATCH_DOGS 2'') is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to 2014's ''Watch Dogs'' and the second installment in the ''Watch Dogs'' series. It was ...
''—2016 video game developed by
Ubisoft
*''
Valley of the Boom''—2019 docudrama about the
1990s tech boom in Silicon Valley
*''
Devs
''Devs'' is an American science fiction thriller television miniseries created, written, and directed by Alex Garland. It premiered on March 5, 2020, on FX on Hulu.
Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) is a software engineer for Amaya, a quantum computing ...
''—2020 TV miniseries
*''
Start-Up''—2020 South Korean television series, when three artificial intelligence (A.I.) developers from South Korea are offered positions as engineers for the fictional company, 2STO which is located in Silicon Valley.
*''
The Dropout
''The Dropout'' is an American biographical crime drama miniseries created by Elizabeth Meriwether, based on the podcast of the same name hosted by Rebecca Jarvis and produced by ABC News. The series documents the disgraced biotechnology comp ...
''—2022 TV miniseries about the rise and fall of
Theranos
Theranos Inc. () was an American privately held corporation that was touted as a breakthrough health technology company. Founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised more than US$700 million from venture capitalists a ...
*''
Super Pumped''—2022 TV series about
Travis Kalanick's time at
Uber
See also
*
List of attractions in Silicon Valley
*
List of places with "Silicon" names around the world
*
List of technology centers around the world
*
Semiconductor industry
References
Further reading
Books
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Journals and newspapers
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* (Subscription required for full text.)
Audiovisual
*
*
External links
Santa Clara County: California's Historic Silicon Valley��A
National Park Service website
Silicon Valley��An
American Experience
''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...
documentary broadcast in 2013
* from
San Jose State UniversitySilicon Valley Historical AssociationThe Birth of Silicon ValleySilicon Valley Central Chamber of Commerce website
{{Authority control
Economic regions of California
Geography of Santa Clara County, California
High-technology business districts in the United States
Information technology places
Santa Clara County, California
Science and technology in the San Francisco Bay Area
Subregions of the San Francisco Bay Area