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I think the OP was focusing on Santa Clara the city/county not the university. Either way my understanding is that the aerospace industry was the root of the te
by entee 7y ago
I think the OP was focusing on Santa Clara the city/county not the university. Either way my understanding is that the aerospace industry was the root of the tech industry and was based out of the South Bay, notably Moffett field. I wonder if land was also not just insanely cheap in the South Bay in the 60’s when all this got going.
Also Fairchild semiconductor was in Sunnyvale and was a hub for a lot of the following Silicon Valley development. Finally William Shockley moved to Mountain View to be closer to his ailing mother and founded Shockley semiconductor.
These are all why peninsula and not Oakland, but SF vs SJ I am less clear on. When I moved to the bay about 13y ago the center of tech was on the peninsula but people were starting to look to SF. I think the refocus north is relatively more recent.
- dredmorbius 7y agoLand was vastly cheaper on the Penninsula & south bay generally, yes. Most especially than San Francisco. It was both denser and had more opportunities for expansion at the same time than Marin. Why the South Bay won out over the East Bay (Mare Island Naval Base, Concord Naval Weapons Station, Alameda Air Base), I'm not entirely sure, though Stanford and Terman and electronics and that whole history (see Steve Bank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/) likely had something to do with that. Then Shockley, and Intel, and we're off to the races. The move to SF is definitely more recent. South Park, Reddit, and Twitter led much of that.
- masonic 7y agoFinally William Shockley moved to Mountain View to be closer to his ailing mother and founded Shockley semiconductor. No, Shockley preceded Fairchild Semi. The latter was founded by the "traitorous eight" who fled Shockley.