Silicon Valley’s rise combined defense contracts, Stanford proximity, and stock-option business practices.
Evidence
The term “Silicon Valley” was coined by Don Hoefler in Microelectronics News in 1971 to describe the prevalence of micro-electronics companies headquartered in the South Bay, including Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. Until the 1970s, this area was primarily agricultural, with only a few scattered radio machinists and engineers. But a massive boom in the production of semiconductors and other electronic components led to an international concentration of technical resources and infrastructure in the cities of Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San Jose. This enormous expansion in microelectronics was due to an extensive history of defense contracts, the intellectual power of Palo Alto’s Stanford University, and innovative manufacturing and business processes pioneered by the radio and machinist industries, including stock options and profit-sharing. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 112
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the term ‘Silicon Valley,’ naming its 1971 coinage and the pre-agricultural baseline of the region.
- XREF: connects to: Silicon Valley’s tech dominance grew from defense contracts, Stanford, and stock options.