page_title: Silicon Valley
section_title: History (pre-1970s)
hierarchical_section_title: Silicon Valley / History (pre-1970s)
caption_attribution_description: English: This picture shows a garage, which is now recognized as the birthplace of the Silicon Valley, photographed on September 5, 2016 by Zinaida Good. William R. Hewlett and David Packard started developing their audio oscillator in this garage in 1938.
context_page_description: Silicon Valley is a region in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology, innovation, venture capital, and social media. It corresponds roughly to the geographical Santa Clara Valley. San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States; other major Silicon Valley cities include Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution.
  The word "silicon" in the name originally referred to the large number of innovators and manufacturers in the region specializing in silicon-based MOS transistors and integrated circuit chips. The area is now home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of more than 30 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies.
context_section_description: Silicon Valley was born through the intersection of several contributing factors including a skilled science research base housed in area universities, plentiful venture capital, and steady U.S. Department of Defense spending. Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valley's early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success.
caption: The "Birthplace of Silicon Valley" garage in Palo Alto, where Bill Hewlett and David Packard started developing their audio oscillator in 1938 (photographed 2016)
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