Iterative Innovation: Why Silicon Valley Has Moved North
Posted By Rick Saletta on 09/30/2011 at 06:41AM
I've been sitting on this blog for almost 5 years, not wanting to contribute to the torrent of verbal and written clutter that web 2.0 technologies such as twitter and wordpress have enabled the average typist to endlessly spew. So I apologize in advance for the length of this first post. I never expected kids to grow up discussing the former outgoing and newly incoming Governor Jerry Brown or that the traffic caused by the World Series Champion San Francisco Giant's victory parade on Market Street would extend so far down into Silicon Valley as to prevent me from getting to the office today. Nobody called that, not the Giants victory nor the traffic jam. Bad luck as I would rather have seen the Giants parade than another blog launched. Rather than clutter the web-waves, perhaps, I'll only do this when inspiration strikes.
The premise of this editorial is that Silicon Valley has migrated North. Here's what I consider to be a major contributing factor. Back during the dot-com boom, the City of San José decided that its identity would be that of an upscale business destination, catering to the needs of tool and infrastructure companies such as Adobe, Cisco and Seagate. The NHL had arrived after San Francisco failed to find a home for their new franchise and the San José Giants were, and still are, a great, family oriented, minor league venue. Most of all, internet money seemed to flow endlessly. So, the City of San José shut down the club scene which attracted multi-lingual students, locals and police in riot gear. Instead, San José invested in Santana Row which only tourists from countries with currencies stronger than the dollar can afford.
But it wasn't an Earthquake during the World Series that caused the tectonic shift that moved Silicon Valley fifteen miles North. Eventually, the first generation of internet infrastructure was completed, sparking investment in the development of new scripting languages layered on top of the existing infrastructure to put a kinder, gentler face on the world wide web and encourage people to do more than browse, encourage people to collaborate. This period was known as Web 2.0, a period of what I will call "Iterative Invention." Fundamentally, Web 2.0 was about making the internet more usable by the masses. These new user interfaces were and are built by cutting edge design experts, frequently new graduates, rapidly innovating with the latest techniques, languages and devices.
The new challenge for San José was that the vast majority of new graduates prefer San Francisco where the action is. Many refuse to take jobs in the South Bay while others simply despise the commute and the bureaucracies that require them. For young creatives, there is little that is attractive about San José and the South Bay which yuppies rate quite low for its "usability". The opportunities and the upside were all in The City. (You can be sitting at center ice in the Shark tank discussing "The City" between periods and it is universally understood that you are referring to San Francisco.) After web 2.0, no longer was seven figures of Sand Hill Road venture capital required to start a technology company. Once again, the only question was "Are you going to San Francisco?" A dot-com bust and a semi-permanent recession later, San José still has Adobe, Santana Row and the Sharks. Google runs buses down from San Francisco and Adobe acquired Macromedia, formerly headquartered in San Francisco's warehouse district.
San Francisco has the start-ups, loaded with young creatives, intellectuals and outliers, not unlike the 2010 San Francisco Giants. How else could they have come up with the "Rally Thong?" The Giants and the City of San Francisco invested in a waterfront stadium and team that has led a boom in commercial development in an otherwise run down urban district, bringing young creatives and a championship to "The City." (You should be paying attention New Orleans) These facts should not be lost on both the 49er's and the Oakland A's who each want a South Bay stadium. (No reason to mention the Raiders who are no longer televised in the Bay Area, their home market, or, is that L.A.?)
Today in San Francisco, the outgoing Governator, one of the last remaining icons of the first steroid era, congratulated a guy with a very "un-orthodox" beard and mohawk called "The Machine" who sat alongside a 23 year old baby-faced rookie named Buster and a long haired 26 year old known as "The Freak" who's most recent background check reveals two Cy Young awards and an MLB reprimand for possession of marijuana. (Recently reduced to a citation in California, courtesy of the outgoing Governator), Only the awards and hair seem to distinguish The Freak from the incoming former Governor. With or without Proposition 19, how can the City of San José compete with that?
PS - checkout http://www.NFLWeather.com
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