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Was Silicon Valley a deliberate government led initiative (beyond partnership and funding)? I'm sceptical of these "Silicon X" top-down projects which don't se

Was Silicon Valley a deliberate government led initiative (beyond partnership and funding)? I'm sceptical of these "Silicon X" top-down projects which don't seem to have a great history (cf eg Silicon Roundabout); I would have thought that while government input and infrastructure help is useful, attempts at driving something at a high level in imitation of something else misses the point of low-level evolutionary growth, invention and originality.

johanneskanybal 5y ago
It's just a buzz word, calling something silicon valley doesn't make it so, there we agree :) At the same time the world sure is bigger than a city/university and there's tech hubs everywhere. Not having a hub for semi-conductors in Europe and Us seems foolish.
redis_mlc 5y ago
> Was Silicon Valley a deliberate government led initiative (beyond partnership and funding)? SV was the West Coast electronic warfare base for the US military after WW2, hence many early electronics pioneers started there. Stanford U. was the center. Some time after that, private investors became active, which was the start of civilian developments. I think startup parks could succeed, but not when headed by career bureaucrats. Something along the lines of how YC functions.
rowanajmarshall 5y ago
> I'm sceptical of these "Silicon X" top-down projects which don't seem to have a great history (cf eg Silicon Roundabout); I don't know how much the government helped with this, but the UK has one of the largest software industries in the world, right after the US and China. It's hard to argue it hasn't worked, even if were unclear as to what "it" is
- anamax 5y ago
  One definition of "worked" is "When you say Silicon {whatever}, people outside of {location of whatever} know where you're talking about." Another definition is "Famous for producing notable companies."

johanneskanybal 5y ago

It's just a buzz word, calling something silicon valley doesn't make it so, there we agree :) At the same time the world sure is bigger than a city/university and there's tech hubs everywhere. Not having a hub for semi-conductors in Europe and Us seems foolish.

redis_mlc 5y ago

> Was Silicon Valley a deliberate government led initiative (beyond partnership and funding)? SV was the West Coast electronic warfare base for the US military after WW2, hence many early electronics pioneers started there. Stanford U. was the center. Some time after that, private investors became active, which was the start of civilian developments. I think startup parks could succeed, but not when headed by career bureaucrats. Something along the lines of how YC functions.

rowanajmarshall 5y ago

> I'm sceptical of these "Silicon X" top-down projects which don't seem to have a great history (cf eg Silicon Roundabout); I don't know how much the government helped with this, but the UK has one of the largest software industries in the world, right after the US and China. It's hard to argue it hasn't worked, even if were unclear as to what "it" is

anamax 5y ago
One definition of "worked" is "When you say Silicon {whatever}, people outside of {location of whatever} know where you're talking about." Another definition is "Famous for producing notable companies."