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SILICON VALLEY: A GOLD RUSH LEGACY
Silicon Valley Association CHWebster University Graduate Program in
Telecommunication ManagementGeneve-Bellevue
January 26, 2004
SPEAKER
Richard Allan HorningChair, Emerging Technologies Practice GroupTomlinson Zisko LLPPalo Alto
ELEMENTS OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ENVIRONMENT
• Perceived Opportunity• Risk Takers• Support Infrastructure• Propagation of Knowledge and Skills• First Class Educational System
Encouraging Entrepreneurship• Capital and Liquidity• Rewards and Honors
EARLY OBSERVATION OF THE OPPORTUNITY
“In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country [California] might be” -- Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast (1840)
A VAST WASTELAND
• “A village of 600 to 800 inhabitants … with thousands of ground squirrels burrowing in the plaza” – description of San Jose on 1846 when the population of all of California was 7,500
• “Not a single modern wagon to be had …, nothing but the old Mexican cart with wooden wheels, drawn by two or three pairs of oxen yoked by the horns” -- Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman, reporting on Monterey in 1847 when the population was 1,000 to 1,200
JANUARY 24, 1848
Eureka !
“Gold Mine Found”, The Californian, March 15, 1848 “California, no doubt, is rich in mineral
wealth; great chances are here for scientific capitalists”
CALIFORNIA IN 1865
• Population has soared to 365,000
• Wheat crop more valuable than gold
• Manufacturing revenue $20M greater than gold mined in foothills
THE BIG FOURCrocker, Hopkins, Stanford, Huntington
OPENING THE WEST1863 - 1869
THE FARM
PALO ALTO AS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
“It requires no prophet’s tongue to foretell that in the future Palo Alto will be a center sun, whose rays shall clasp within their bright radii greater opportunities for culture and education, more forms of grace and beauty wrought from the willing elements at hand, and a community of higher intellectual development than can be found within the same extent anywhere else in the world” – Palo Alto promotional brochure (circa 1890)
FEDERAL RADIO TELEGRAPH CO(1909)
EARLY WI-FI
THE LAND GRANT SCHOOL
BERKELEY CYCLOTRON(1932)
FEDERAL RADIO SPIN OFFS
ANOTHER STANFORD SPIN-OFF
STANFORD GRADS HIT BIG TIME
CROCKER RESEARCH LAB
THE TUBE
SHOCKLEY SEMI-CONDUCTOR
THE TRAITOROUS EIGHT
THE INVENTION OF THE VALLEY
Don Hoefler, “Silicon Valley USA”, Microelectronic News, January 11, 1971
THE ULTIMATE GOLD RUSH LEGACY
Business & Professions Code Section16600. Except as provided in this chapter, every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.