Today in Silicon Valley, are highly qualified scientists and engineers, big investors and elite universities. Although hard to imagine, until the 50s, the Santa Clara area was predominantly an agricultural area, full of fruit trees. San Jose, where the famous “Bay Area” is located, was the capital of canned fruit and the Stanford University (today one of the largest universities in the world and the starting point for what SV would become) was just another higher education school.
The term Silicon Valley emerged in 1971 by Don Hoefler, American journalist, and means, among other things, determination, intelligence and passion for technology. And this name could not be more in agreement, as it was with the HP, the first technological start up in history that, by the hand of two colleagues from Stanford University, Silicon Valley was born. Hewlett-Packard became one of the main pillars of technological progress in the area and, for a long time, it was the reference company where all engineers would like to work.
From the beginning, this “Valley of Dreams” was the birthplace of great companies and HP was not the only name born and raised in the Valley. In 1959, what would change the lives of the entire world population and the electronics industry in Silicon Valley was invented: the first integrated circuit capable of being produced commercially, a complete electronic circuit inside a silicon chip. With this is born the personal computer revolution and the Intel.
In the mid-90s, with the Apple , ecosystem and IBM already in the running, the technology industry is growing at a very fast pace and Silicon Valley has become the scene of all events.
In mid-1994, with the launch of the internet for the general public, a range of new companies emerged – predominant in today’s market – such as Cisco, Yahoo!, Amazon e eBay. And, again, through two colleagues from Stanford University, comes what came to redefine the way we use the internet today – the Google.
As the Internet grew with the help of huge investments, Silicon Valley was the place where all the people with new ideas wanted to be, because that’s where all the action was happening.
The beginning of the 19st century confirmed the true power of the Internet and during these last XNUMX years, industries were reinvented and completely new ones were created. Industries that would change our lives forever.
With the appearance of social media, the revolutionary inventions of Apple and the positioning of Android, we have witnessed a fierce evolution of smartphones, tablets and personal computers. So far, the XNUMXst century has confirmed what a place with immense potential, innovative and technological spirit and highly qualified as Silicon Valley can achieve.
There is no doubt that the Valley led the technological progress of the XNUMXth century and shows ambition to continue to do so. The report of the most recent study by CB Insights, centered on the areas of the globe where the greatest technological activities take place, highlights the dominance of Silicon Valley which, since 2012, has seen more than 12 thousand deals made by 7.000 thousand companies. This hub has done more technology business than all metropolises outside the United States combined.
It is impossible to predict what the future holds, we can only look at what we have and know today and try to understand in which direction things will evolve. Still, we know that, inevitably, new industries will emerge. At this moment, it is possible to perceive that the future passes through Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, autonomous cars and quantum computers; and these are just some of the topics that show the ability to face the future and win. On the other hand, we also have technologies such as Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies that should continue to evolve and that also show a lot of potential.
But more than the impact at a business level, easily experienced/felt in Silicon Valley, it is the empowerment at a personal and individual level that is most felt, as affirmed by the testimonies of the Alumni of the Executive Immersion Program of the Global Strategic Innovation, managed by LBC.
For all these reasons, we can consider Silicon Valley as a “state of mind” of permanent challenge where aspiration and dream are the engine for generating ideas, where the acceptance of risk and trial and error are the way to grow and develop companies and , above all, where building trust networks and sharing knowledge and experiences are the true reward of this technological journey.