| Chapter 1: | From “The Valleyof Heart’s Delight” to “Silicon Valley” |
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The remarkable shift in the landscape, from orchards and groves to industrial parks and hi-tech firms, was simultaneously accompanied by a movement in the population away from a farming community and toward a community with a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Three factors enabled the creation of this hi-tech community—the influx of military dollars, the central role of Stanford University, and third, what is referred to as the “culture of entrepreneurship,” a term which will be elaborated upon later in this chapter.1
The Pre-World War II Era: How Green Was My Valley
The name “Silicon Valley” cannot be located on maps of Northern California. What we know today as Silicon Valley is officially called the Santa Clara Valley, a 30-by-10 mile narrow strip of land, between San Francisco to the north and the Santa Cruz mountains to the south, and winding through Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara, down to San Jose. The name “Silicon Valley” was coined in 1971 by Don Hoefler, a reporter who wrote on the history of the semicon-ductor industry in Electronic News, a weekly trade magazine.
Prior to the Second World War, and even into the late 1940s, Santa Clara Valley was primarily an agricultural region and had little experience with any industry other than agriculture. Far from being a global center for technological innovation and production, it was instead the “Valley of Heart’s Delight”—a reference to the orchards of prunes, apricots, and walnuts. However, the area was negatively affected by the Great Depression. There was no demand for the specialty crops that were the mainstay of the local agricultural economy. By the time the Second World War had come to a close, growers had already begun to uproot orchards that were proving to be an unreliable source of income.