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A quick Wikipedia search says the whole Bay Area accounts for about 2% of the population of the US, and Silicon Valley itself a little over 1% (7.65MM & 3.5-4MM
by lmkg 10y ago
A quick Wikipedia search says the whole Bay Area accounts for about 2% of the population of the US, and Silicon Valley itself a little over 1% (7.65MM & 3.5-4MM total, out of 324MM).
- pessimizer 10y agoSo to complete the thought, the Bay Area has about 5x the average density of programmers.
- smb06 10y agoBay Area is probably not a good metric because that would include Napa, Sonoma, etc. where you are more likely to find a farmer or a sommelier than a programmer. Silicon Valley as a measure - 1% of the country's population but 10% of its programmers. So, 10x the national average of programmers.
- addled 10y agoHey, a new definition of a "10x programmer”.
- felisml 10y agoMore are urban than non-urban, so the national average isn't a particularly useful number either. Here's a relevant page by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you scroll down a bit past the state-level charts, they start showing metropolitan areas. "San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara" has a fairly good compromise between volume and density, but it's not at the top of either chart. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151131.htm#st http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151131.htm#st
- WWLink 10y agoHehe, silicon valley people usually forget about the east/north bay and pretty much anything north of the bay bridge or hayward bridge.
- smb06 10y agoI live in San Francisco and trust me, the feeling is mutual.
- euyyn 10y agoBut then you're overestimating, as many many programmers of Silicone Valley don't live in the valley itself.
- SilasX 10y agoFor another metric, I'm getting that the Bay Area GDP is $800 billion [1] vs the overall US's $18 trillion [2], which would mean the Bay has 4.4% of the economic activity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoNot all of which stems from programming.
- kctess5 10y agoCrazy to think that Google accounts for ~10% of that [1]. [1] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/business-google.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/busine...
- acchow 10y agoGoogle also has physical plant properties (think data centers) and offices around the world that are producing a meaningful portion of their revenue. Btw, Apple had 3x Google's revenue in 2015. In any case, Revenue != GDP due to double counting.
- kctess5 10y agoVery true. Both are global companies, even though their headquarters are there. I wonder what fraction of their income can be attributed to the SV area, and how that translates to their contributions to the GDP.