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No. Those 3 points are not that important. West Europe works using ISO-Latin-1. Many European countries even had a national 7-bit version. We also had our own
by silvestrov 7y ago
No. Those 3 points are not that important. West Europe works using ISO-Latin-1. Many European countries even had a national 7-bit version. We also had our own computer companies, but they died out because they couldn't grow.
The 2 main reason are:
1) you have one Sillicon Valley in USA, so all competent people were in one location. If you wanted to start Intel/Apple/Google in Denmark you'll run out of Wozniaks even before you got going because they are spread out all over the map.
2) All of USA speaks the same language, so you can easily do complex communication with companies in other states (e.g. Intel/Gateway in Texas). Getting a French person to speak good English in the 60-70'ies was a, ahem, challenge.
There is no Sillicon Valley in Europe precisly because there is no single place, and therefore Europe miss out on the "everybody important in same place" effects.
China's government pointed to one place at the map when they wanted a SV. That's why China got Shenzhen. Europe/EU still can't do that politically.
- pklausler 7y agoFew of the pioneering computer companies in the 60's were in Sillicon (sic) Valley. And their engineers weren't all in one other single place in the US, either. (How the Twin Cities lost out to Silicon Valley in the high-performance computing race is a fascinating story, but that involves just a few of the many computer companies that were around in those times.)
- mlinksva 7y agoAgree, there are several places in the US that could've been (or remained more peer to) Silicon Valley. I was not aware of depth of Twin Cities story. http://www.cbi.umn.edu/resources/MHHC/ http://www.cbi.umn.edu/resources/MHHC/ looks interesting. If there's other reading on that you recommend I'd love a pointer.
- pklausler 7y agoA fun read is https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Supercomputer/dp/0471048852 https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
- chrchang523 7y agoRegarding point 1: even today, the two highest-market-cap tech companies are based in the Seattle area, not Silicon Valley.