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I think it could have something to do with the openness of silicon valley. For example, california banned non-compete agreements. Boston was used to the corpor

by js7745 9y ago

I think it could have something to do with the openness of silicon valley. For example, california banned non-compete agreements. Boston was used to the corporate mindset where information is an asset that can't be shared. That free flow of information in silicon valley made innovation progress much faster. This is a great explanation: https://psmag.com/social-justice/innovation-thrives-richard-florida-ethnicity-place-migration-talent-95973 https://psmag.com/social-justice/innovation-thrives-richard-... "The boston area was organized around these big, vertically integrated minicomputer companies — dec, data general. They were classic postwar american companies, with vertical hierarchies and career ladders. Planning and research happened at the top of the organization and then funneled down. Whereas in silicon valley you had, really by chance not design, a series of flat companies, with project-based teams that moved around. People moved between companies much more fluidly. At a time that technology and know-how were sort of trapped within the vertically integrated companies of route 128, they were being continually recombined in silicon valley. That gave them a real edge in innovation."

eesmith 9y ago
I heard a lecture by Richard Florida once. I felt like he viewed things through a quite different lens than I, such that I didn't believe his views on things. I see now that others are more concrete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Florida#Criticism_and_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Florida#Criticism_and_... How much of that is "Silicon Valley" and how much is "California"? To start with, why did California prohibit non-compete clauses .. back in 1872(!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Civil_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Civil_Code says the code was "revolutionary for its time". If that helped cause openness, did that openness extend to other fields? Including the studio system during the Golden Age of Hollywood? Given all of the companies working on secret government contracts, how open could they be? The Pacific Standard article describes Florida's spin on a dissertation by AnnaLee Saxenian. Blank recommends Saxenian's book highly. For example, in https://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-part-v-happy-100th-birthday-silicon-valley/ https://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-sili... . Blank wrote: > I read all the popular books about the valley and they all told a variant of the same story; entrepreneurs as heroes building the Semiconductor and Personal Computer companies: Bill Hewlett and David Packard at HP, Bob Taylor and the team at Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs and Wozniak at Apple, Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce at Intel, etc. These were inspiring stories, but I realized that, no surprise, the popular press were writing books that had mass appeal. > But no one was writing about where the entrepreneurial culture had come from. Where were the books explaining why were all these chip and computer companies started here? Why not elsewhere in the country or the world? With the exception of one great book, no one was writing about our regional advantage. That "one great book" is Saxenian's "Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128". Which, ummm..., answers my own question. :) Re-reading that page by Blank reminds me of how much an eye-opener it was to hear Blank's talk the first time. His work really is the reason I am now wary when I read (yet again) the standard stories about SV.
eesmith 9y ago
As another regional difference, which wasn't emphasized in your first essay, I'll quote from Arthur Rock at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1821.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1821.html : > We were doing a lot of deals in California, and it occurred to me that all of the energetic scientists were forming around Stanford. The reason for that, in my opinion -- although some people will differ -- is because of Fred Terman. He was head of the engineering school at Stanford, and he encouraged his students, especially the doctoral and postdoctoral students, to form companies and continue to teach at Stanford. That was an unknown concept at any other school in those days -- it certainly wasn't happening at MIT, Harvard, or Princeton, or any of the good engineering schools. People got fired from MIT in those days if they started companies. All these people were entrepreneurial, and yet there wasn't any money in California. The money was in the East, and Eastern companies weren't exciting. So I decided to try to get some Eastern money and move to California to set up a company to invest in these entrepreneurs. That's more specific than the "no non-compete" argument for the whole state. (I wrote "emphasized" because the first essay says only "This focus on pushing colleagues and students to commercialize their ideas helped jumpstart engineering at Stanford." It doesn't point out that other schools actively resisted commercialization.)

by js7745 9y ago

eesmith 9y ago

I heard a lecture by Richard Florida once. I felt like he viewed things through a quite different lens than I, such that I didn't believe his views on things. I see now that others are more concrete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Florida#Criticism_and_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Florida#Criticism_and_... How much of that is "Silicon Valley" and how much is "California"? To start with, why did California prohibit non-compete clauses .. back in 1872(!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Civil_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Civil_Code says the code was "revolutionary for its time". If that helped cause openness, did that openness extend to other fields? Including the studio system during the Golden Age of Hollywood? Given all of the companies working on secret government contracts, how open could they be? The Pacific Standard article describes Florida's spin on a dissertation by AnnaLee Saxenian. Blank recommends Saxenian's book highly. For example, in https://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-part-v-happy-100th-birthday-silicon-valley/ https://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-sili... . Blank wrote: > I read all the popular books about the valley and they all told a variant of the same story; entrepreneurs as heroes building the Semiconductor and Personal Computer companies: Bill Hewlett and David Packard at HP, Bob Taylor and the team at Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs and Wozniak at Apple, Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce at Intel, etc. These were inspiring stories, but I realized that, no surprise, the popular press were writing books that had mass appeal. > But no one was writing about where the entrepreneurial culture had come from. Where were the books explaining why were all these chip and computer companies started here? Why not elsewhere in the country or the world? With the exception of one great book, no one was writing about our regional advantage. That "one great book" is Saxenian's "Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128". Which, ummm..., answers my own question. :) Re-reading that page by Blank reminds me of how much an eye-opener it was to hear Blank's talk the first time. His work really is the reason I am now wary when I read (yet again) the standard stories about SV.

eesmith 9y ago

As another regional difference, which wasn't emphasized in your first essay, I'll quote from Arthur Rock at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1821.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1821.html : > We were doing a lot of deals in California, and it occurred to me that all of the energetic scientists were forming around Stanford. The reason for that, in my opinion -- although some people will differ -- is because of Fred Terman. He was head of the engineering school at Stanford, and he encouraged his students, especially the doctoral and postdoctoral students, to form companies and continue to teach at Stanford. That was an unknown concept at any other school in those days -- it certainly wasn't happening at MIT, Harvard, or Princeton, or any of the good engineering schools. People got fired from MIT in those days if they started companies. All these people were entrepreneurial, and yet there wasn't any money in California. The money was in the East, and Eastern companies weren't exciting. So I decided to try to get some Eastern money and move to California to set up a company to invest in these entrepreneurs. That's more specific than the "no non-compete" argument for the whole state. (I wrote "emphasized" because the first essay says only "This focus on pushing colleagues and students to commercialize their ideas helped jumpstart engineering at Stanford." It doesn't point out that other schools actively resisted commercialization.)