Silicon Valley is on the San Francisco peninsula and radiates outward from Stanford University. It is a scenic locale girdled by the San Francisco Bay on the east, the Santa Cruz Mountains on the west, and the Coast Range to the southeast. Contrary to popular understanding, Silicon Valley was born long before the microchip revolutionized personal computing. The Internet brought the area into sharp focus as California s vital economic engine of technological innovation, but Silicon Valley was already a happening place by that time. The New Economy did not create Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is a product of rather unique circumstances.
Forty years ago, Stanford University had some financial problems. University authorities tried to solve the problems by leasing part of the university land to high-tech companies for a period of 99 years. Stanford is a huge campus with more than 8,000 acres, so there was plenty of room to spare. The university needed the money to fund its rapid postwar growth. It was decided that the lease would be limited to high-technology companies that might be beneficial to Stanford.