The radio and the internet
A good article at SFGate.com yesterday made the point that interest in radio technology started Silicon Valley on its entrepreneurial path. The article is based in part on a paper by Timothy Sturgeon of MIT. Sturgeon makes the point that Silicon Valley’s culture didn’t just emerge magically from dusty agricultural fields. Rather, “industrial development takes a long time to build up momentum, is profoundly structured by place and historical context, and acquires path-dependent characteristics that continue to influence outcomes far into the future.” In the case of the Valley, the culture was formed around radio: “engineers who hung out in hobby clubs, brainstormed and borrowed equipment, spun new companies out of old ones, and established a meritocracy ruled by those who made electronic products cheaper, faster, and better.”
There are many elements to this story. The presence of venture capital, lots of inter-firm swapping (of both people and ideas), a local great university, and close relationships with government agencies (as clients, as funders) - all of these things were related to the development of Silicon Valley.
Sturgeon’s paper, which became part of a book called Understanding Silicon Valley: Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region, is well worth reading. From the conclusion:
The fact that the San Francisco Bay Area’s electronics industry began close to the turn of the Twentieth Century should lay to rest the notion that industrialization and urbanization on the scale of Silicon Valley can be quickly induced in other areas. Silicon Valley is nearly 100 years old. It grew out of a historically and geographically specific context that cannot be recreated. The lesson for planners and economic developers is to focus on long-term, not short-term developmental trajectories.
Another region, in addition to/instead of Silicon Valley, could become the place of innovation for this century. The New York tech meetup has 5000 members. I’m just saying.