Seems a little easier than that, though, because there are no supply chains involved (other than for the data centers, but those are already not in SF). Why else would the CA government be worried?
Seems a little easier than that, though, because there are no supply chains involved (other than for the data centers, but those are already not in SF). Why else would the CA government be worried?
There's books written about the Bay Area and the factors that make (or made) it uniquely suited for developing new technologies. There's even college courses about it. Some of it's surely provincial fluff, but it's undeniable that California has been an essential incubator for a whole series of world-changing, fortune-making technologies.
I don't want to downplay the network effects here, but it's in CA entirely by coincidence. SV is in CA because William Shockley's family is there, which is why he founded Shockley Semiconductor there. It could have been somewhere else. The 2nd largest tech hub is in Seattle. It's there because that's were Bill Gates is from. Is SF the best place to start a startup if you want in office talent in 2025. 100% yes, but that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history.
> that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history
I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it exists now is what gives it staying power. One of the surest bets I’ve seen in seed and Series A investing is when a market has one or two competitors in a cluster and the rest outside. The insiders win. Always. It’s the easiest bulldozing strategy that exists.
> I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant.
It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power.
> It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power
I’m literally saying it’s irrelevant due to incumbency effects. If someone is doing something AI outside the Bay Area, a decent business is to copy and outraise them.
> I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it exists now is what gives it staying power.
You said OP was wrong to say "that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history" but that it's irrelevant anyway because the area has incumbency effects. Those are 2 separate things, something that you claim to be wrong but irrelevant, and something you say is true.
I agree with the second point, incumbency is a heavy weight to dislodge. But why would OP be wrong to say there's nothing intrinsic to the place that give it power?
I think OP is completely correct, the Bay Area as a place itself isn't special, it's those historical accidental decisions that now make it a hard to dislodge incumbent. But this detail is very important because if "the place" doesn't have some intrinsic power, like some unique natural resource, geography, climate, etc. that just can't be replicated elsewhere, then it can be replicated elsewhere.
In fewer words, "the place" having something unique means immovability. Incumbency just means inertia. Inertia isn't what it use to be. Detroit was the place for building cars just a few decades ago. One accidental decision, one bad policy can send an incumbent on a slow roll down. The Bay Area itself has nothing that reasonably can't be replicated elsewhere, unlike for example an oil field which you have or you don't.
Municipalities trying to make their own Silicon... Alley, Beach, Hills, Slopes, Forest, Prairie, Bayou, Desert, Roundabout, Docks, Glen, Fen, Cape, Oasis, (and more!) with varying degrees of success, so I don't know that it is unreasonably replicatible. Despite all those efforts, OpenAI and Anthropic both are heavy hitters in the AI industry, and they are both headquartered in San Francisco.
Naturally, nothing lasts forever. Not Silicon Valley, not the USA, not the Holy Roman Empire. Some things do last quite a while though. If we look all the way back to Hewett-Packard, though now a shadow of its former self, it was established in 1939.
Exactly. No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions. The Bay Area is special because of said history/staying power - which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated. 60% of total VC funding is in the Bay Area alone. Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers. Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.
> No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions.
You're kinda missing the bigger picture - the fact that Bay Area was not always a tech hub, and became one at some point for various reason - which can happen in any other place (and has).
> which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated.
Seems like a very baseless and meaningless statement.
> Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers.
Except for the fact that the vast majority pf Bay Area tech talent does not come from Stanford or Berkeley, and is being outsourced at ever increasing rates.
> Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.
If you say so.
Yeah except for it has always been a tech hub because the term "tech hub" didn't exist before the Bay Area? I mean the first message sent over the precursor to the internet was from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute in 1969, and the SF Bay Area having some of the first infrastructure for high-speed internet was a key factor into its position as the tech hub. Mind you this is all preceded by Hewlett Packard 30 years earlier setting the stage for the semiconductor revolution, and even this is preceded by 100 years with Leland Stanford. To much to talk about here as to why there is a unique mix of private capital, industry/government collusion, university research and development, and more that are entrenched in the region.
The makeup of tech companies employees doesn't remotely tell the full story of the advantages of the UC system, Stanford, and other universities in CA through research that feed into SV as the leading tech hub that cannot be replicated (See example of the invention of the internet above). I mean hell, 4 UC alum won nobel prizes this year alone, one of which was the chief scientist at Google's quantum AI.
But yeah sure, if we're talking in the context of "anything is possible" then yeah I concede, it can happen anywhere. Kind of a boring insight. The point is that no - it hasn't happened anywhere else to the extent of the bay area despite cities trying to for the past 30 years- and it won't happen for a very long time because of the converging mechanisms that took place over the past 100 years.
Places where technological innovation and development happen have existed long before the internet and semiconductors. The industrial revolution didn't originate or center around the Bay Area.
> The makeup of tech companies employees doesn't remotely tell the full story...
What? You made the argument that Bay Area has some kind of special access to tech talent because of Stanford - I simply pointed out that the vast majority of Bay Area tech employees are not from Stanford (not to mention many Stanford alums leave California).
> UC system, Stanford, and other universities in CA through research that feed into SV as the leading tech hub that cannot be replicated
Really? MIT, Harvard, Yale, Georgia Tech, Waterloo don't exist?
> I mean hell, 4 UC alum won nobel prizes this year alone, one of which was the chief scientist at Google's quantum AI.
And several google/deepmind employees from/educated in UK won a nobel prize in 2024... what's your point?
> Kind of a boring insight.
Nah, the same old 'bay area cause bay area' insight is what's boring.
It was more true (but still very boring) 10 years ago, not anymore.
> Places where technological innovation and development happen have existed long before the internet and semiconductors. The industrial revolution didn't originate or center around the Bay Area.
You said tech hub. By all definitions of the term the Bay Area was the first. Nor did I say the industrial revolution originated around the Bay Area?
> What? You made the argument that Bay Area has some kind of special access to tech talent because of Stanford - I simply pointed out that the vast majority of Bay Area tech employees are not from Stanford (not to mention many Stanford alums leave California).
You tend to do this a lot. "Many Stanford alums leave California" and "talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Just vague generalizations that offer nothing to the overall conversation.
I made the argument that being close to these universities gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers and researchers. This is true whether or not they work for Bay Area tech companies you understand this right? Regardless, out of the reported feeder schools into tech 5 out of the top 10 are California universities.
> MIT, Harvard, Yale, Georgia Tech, Waterloo don't exist?
You just named universities from 5 different states/regions? Please keep up.
> And several google/deepmind employees from/educated in UK won a nobel prize in 2024... what's your point?
They weren't from the same school? The UC system altogether has over 150 nobel prizes and thats before including private institutions like Stanford, Caltech, USC, and others. Thus exemplifying the unique system dedicated to research and technology consolidated in one region..
> It was more true (but still very boring) 10 years ago, not anymore.
Going to be honest man from interacting with you it seems like you have a chip on your shoulder about the bay. I don't even live there I live in LA. It shouldn't bug you to point out the objective fact that the unique confluence of geographic location, surrounding education system and research institutions, compounded wealth from prior historical industrial/technological windfalls, makes SV the premiere tech hub that is consistently on the forefront of burgeoning technologies - not by accident.
Are you also confused as to why NYC is the finance capital of the world? Do you think Toronto could usurp it one day if they just try hard enough?
> You said tech hub.
No, you said tech hub. Which is short of 'technology hub', which is not just limited to mobile apps.
> You tend to do this a lot. "Many Stanford alums leave California" and "talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Just vague generalizations that offer nothing to the overall conversation.
Those aren't generalizations, those are very specific statements, which go directly against your vague generalizations ('oh but there are good universities in the area for tech talent therefore its impossible to replicate'), and which you apparently can't disagree with because they are obviously true.
> I made the argument that being close to these universities gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers and researchers.
Nope, what you said is that because these universities are located in that area - no other region could possibly compete. And I gave you very specific examples of why that's not true.
> You just named universities from 5 different states/regions? Please keep up.
Yeah.. some of the leading universities for tech talent in the world... which are not in California... (which according to you is impossible)... please keep up.
> makes SV the premiere tech hub that is consistently on the forefront of burgeoning technologies
I never said SV is not a major tech hub. I actually said the opposite. What I disagreed with is your baseless assertion that no other region could possibly compete, or that tech companies have to be in SV to succeeded (which is obviously false, and which I see you shifting the goalposts on now)
> Are you also confused as to why NYC is the finance capital of the world?
Maybe you should rewind to back when NYC wasn't a major finance hub, then apply your same reasoning - 'NYC couldn't possibly become a finance hub, because London is the finance hub'.
Your arguments are self-contradictory and not logical.
It goes back way way further than that. The special mix of government funded technology, ruthless entrepreneurship, and social engineering predates Shockley by almost 100 years.
Start by figuring out who Leland Stanford is and how he got rich. Read the book ‘Palo Alto’ if you’re looking for a good starting point.
Yeah it’s quite bold to suggest that Shockley would have done the same thing outside the environment of the Bay Area rather than that someone other than Shockley would have done what he did in California if he wasn’t there or that even if he did it outside California that people inside California still industrialize it. It’s a very individualistic view of progress which is uniquely American and unlikely to capture how stuff happens given that multiple discoveries often happen simultaneously by people working on the problem (eg calculus and Newton vs Leibniz).
The truth is the Bay Area has structural reasons why SV happened and why the same thing has failed to replicate to any significant degree outside the Bay Area.
Just borrowed thanks for the rec!
Yep, I would highly recommend reading the Secret History of Silicon Valley for those that are interested: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Shockley Semi was founded 16 years after Hewlett Packard, so you have to keep reaching backwards.
Not entirely by coincidence. Yes Shockley was from CA, but as late as the 1980, two places were competing to be the center: Boston's Route 128 ("America's Technology Highway") or Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley won out because the CA constitution explicitly prohibits non-competes (which MA allows), leading to more rapid innovation. Very likely the infamous Traitorous Eight who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild could not have done that if noncompetes could be enforced.
Non-competes are one aspect, absolutely. However that's can't be the whole story because that applies to all of California and it's a decently sized state, with a lot of other areas. Any part of the southern California basin, San Diego, and Sacramento. If we include smaller areas (because silicon valley was once just apple orchards, that list gets longer.
> There's books written
Which?