I slide into a middle lane and let him pass. He roars up to a minivan 15 feet ahead, and repeats the process. When I first came back to work in San Jose nine months ago after being away for 15 years, that kind of thing really pissed me off. Now I shrug my shoulders and take a deep breath. This is the new Silicon Valley, where fortunes are won in a matter of months.
New technologies spring up daily.
Markets are cornered or lost in teleconferences lasting all of two minutes. They design software systems that are sold over the Internet as electronic pulses. Today, more venture money is flowing into Silicon Valley from investors worldwide than into any other place on earth. Nothing close to that mark was ever reached when the valley sold personal computers in the '80s, or chips in the '70s, or aerospace products in the '60s, or apricots before that. The next generation of movers and shakers.