For a long time the area that was soon to be known as “Silicon Valley” was covered in orchards known for their apricots and citrus. But that was soon to change. Stanford University became one of the nation's top colleges and the engineering school grew as well. Many graduates of the Stanford Engineering School went on to create their own startups in the area. Two of these graduate students, William Hewlett and David Packard went on to create the company Hewlett Packard, a very successful technology company located in Palo Alto.
The Silicon Valley was named after the element Silicon, a material that acts as a semiconductor in computer chips. There are no boundaries of Silicon Valley but it is often thought of as the area between San Jose and Menlo Park. Silicon Valley played a part in the Space Race. Moffett Field in Mountain View was opened by NASA because it was close to companies that could develop technologies for the Space Capsule. Apple, a global technology company started in Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the developers of the Apple Technology Company attended Homestead High School. The first Apple computer was created in Job's garage in Los Altos. Jobs and Wozniak based their company in Cupertino and it is still there today as Apple Park.
As Silicon Valley grew through Stanford University it also became an attractive area for startups around the world. Close proximity to major sales targets drew startups from around the world. This close bound of technology companies has made it easier for companies to succeed and find sales targets.
Silicon Valley has become a very popular location for new startups. Silicon Valley is home to some of the world's most famous companies including, Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla, and many more. Technology has shaped Silicon Valley into the technological hub that it is today.
I really enjoyed how detailed and informative this post was! It's so interesting to see how the place we live in got its reputation. As you said, Stanford University and powerful startups, like Hewlett Packard and Apple, helped Silicon Valley establish itself as a center for technology and innovation. Xerox PARC also contributed to this atmosphere; it was a research center that was founded in 1970 in Palo Alto. In 1979, Steve Jobs actually visited PARC, and he was amazed by the inventions that engineers were working on.
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It is interesting to see how something as simple as silicon lay the foundation for all that we live on today. But if we look back into history, times like the industrial revolution took place because the resources were available in the land. People migrated to California because of the access to gold and open land. Throughout history, locations have become successful partly due to the natural resources that are already on the land.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you summarized the early history and foundation of the Silicon Valley, especially because we live here. I believe that the culmination of creative minds and people has allowed for this area, in particular, to become what we know it as today. Instead of raw resources and materials, innovation and creative thinking allowed for many start-ups to become popular and well-known throughout the world. Even today, many of the original corporations and companies made, such as Apple, Intel, HP, AMD, and many others still are prominent.
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I really enjoyed your informative post regarding the history of Silicon Valley. What I found really interesting was that William Hewlett and David Packard's engineering professor, Frederick Terman, who simply wanted to create new job opportunities for his students. It's pretty crazy to know that somebody who just wanted to create job opportunities ended up being largely responsible for the success of one of the biggest tech companies in the world.
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