How did Silicon Valley become a $3 trillion area? 

It all starts with a story – and this narrative starts with Mr and Mrs Leland Stanford 

Early 19th century was farmland 

1885 – Mr and Mrs Leiland Stanford set up Stanford University in memory of their son who died at Harvard. There is a great narrative how they arrived at the Harvard Presidents office in threadbare clothes- and was ignored by the secretary – eventually after a few hours – was “granted an audience” – and offered to erect a memorial in the form of a building . The president , looking at their clothes said – “it’s very expensive you know …. Harvard’s buildings cost $7m – at which Mrs Stanford whispered to her husband “is that all that is needed to set up a University? – and they moved to Palo Alto and set up Stanford!

1930s navy built an aerospace hub – scientists and smart people moved to area 

1939 HP founded there – got government contract making radar and artillery 

1940s – at Bell labs – William Shockley co-invented the transistor. Transistor became computer processor

1956 – Shockley set up silicon labs – employed grads from Stanford 

1958 – 8 employees left to create Fairchild semiconductors – became known as the “traitorous 8” -made computer components for Apollo programme 

1960s – Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce 2 of the 8 founded intel on a one page business plan 

Late 60s – 2 other of the 8 founded Kleiner Perkins 

1969 – government research project with Vint Cerf – that went on to become the internet 

1970 – Xerox set up in Palo Alto

1971 – Don Hoefler set up Silicon Valley Times – and the name Stuck!

Lots of stuff around Stanford research

1980s – Atari, Apple and Oracle founded

1990s – Ebay, yahoo ., Paypal and google

2000 – 2002 – dot com crash – I remember seeing empty building after enoty building!

2003 – 2018  – Facebook , Uber , Twitter and Tesla 

2018 – 2030 – ????

2030 – 2050 – ????