page_title: Palo Alto, California
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Palo Alto, California / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Headquarters of Tesla Motors Inc., located in Palo Alto, CA, USA
context_page_description: Palo Alto is a charter city located in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Palo Alto means tall stick in Spanish; the city is named after a coastal redwood tree called El Palo Alto.
  The city was established by Leland Stanford Sr. when he founded Stanford University, following the death of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto includes portions of Stanford University and shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. As of the 2010 census, the city's total resident population is 64,403. Palo Alto is one of the five most expensive cities in the United States to live in and its residents are among the highest educated in the country.
  As one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto is headquarters to a number of high-technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Space Systems/Loral, VMware, Tesla, Ford Research and Innovation Center, PARC, IDEO, Skype, Palantir Technologies, Houzz, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center.
context_section_description: Palo Alto serves as a central economic focal point of the Silicon Valley, and is home to more than 7,000 businesses employing more than 98,000 people. Many prominent technology firms reside in the Stanford Research Park on Page Mill Road, while nearby Sand Hill Road in the adjacent city of Menlo Park is a notable hub of venture capitalists. The city's economy generally follows the economic trends of the rest of the Silicon Valley. Well-known companies and research facilities headquartered in Palo Alto include:
  Amazon.com's A9.com
  Aricent
  Better Place
  Bon Appétit Management Company
  Cooley LLP
  Cloudera
  CPI International
  Electric Power Research Institute
  HP Inc.
  Houzz
  IDEO
  Institute for the Future
  Mashable
  Mopay
  Nanosys
  Ning
  PAIX
  Palantir Technologies
  Palo Alto Medical Foundation
  Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
  Playdom
  Socialtext
  Space Systems/Loral
  Tapulous
  Tesla
  Tibco Software
  Varian Medical Systems
  VMware
  Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
  Xerox
  Other notable companies with significant presences in Palo Alto include:
   
  Accenture (Former North American HQ. The main HQ now resides in Ireland)
  AOL Inc.
  CNF Inc.
  Dailymotion
  Infosys
  Dell
  Genencor (based in Palo Alto)
  Groupon
  Lockheed Martin
  Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Headquarters
  Merrill Lynch (largest office outside New York)
  Nokia Research Center
  Onlive
  Rave Wireless (founded in Palo Alto)
  refund.me Group Inc.
  SAP SE (North American Labs)
  Skype (received a LEED Silver certification for its efficient use of resources when compared to conventional buildings)
  Talygen Business Intelligence
  The Wall Street Journal
  Wso2
  
   
  Many nearby Silicon Valley companies, no longer primarily in Palo Alto, were once headquartered and experienced major growth in Palo Alto, including Google (now in Mountain View), Facebook (now in Menlo Park), and PayPal (now in San Jose).
  Palo Alto's retail and restaurant trade includes Stanford Shopping Center, an upscale open air shopping center established in 1955, and downtown Palo Alto, centered on University Avenue.
  Palo Alto is the location of the first street-level Apple Store, the first Apple mini store, the first West Coast Whole Foods Market store, and the first Victoria's Secret.
caption: The main entrance to the Tesla Motors headquarters
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