SILICON VALLEY: A GOLD RUSH LEGACY

Silicon Valley Association CHWebster University Graduate Program in

Telecommunication ManagementGeneve-Bellevue

January 26, 2004

SPEAKER

Richard Allan HorningChair, Emerging Technologies Practice GroupTomlinson Zisko LLPPalo Alto

rhorning@tzllp.com

ELEMENTS OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ENVIRONMENT

• Perceived Opportunity• Risk Takers• Support Infrastructure• Propagation of Knowledge and Skills• First Class Educational System

Encouraging Entrepreneurship• Capital and Liquidity• Rewards and Honors

EARLY OBSERVATION OF THE OPPORTUNITY

“In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country [California] might be” -- Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast (1840)

A VAST WASTELAND

• “A village of 600 to 800 inhabitants … with thousands of ground squirrels burrowing in the plaza” – description of San Jose on 1846 when the population of all of California was 7,500

• “Not a single modern wagon to be had …, nothing but the old Mexican cart with wooden wheels, drawn by two or three pairs of oxen yoked by the horns” -- Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman, reporting on Monterey in 1847 when the population was 1,000 to 1,200

JANUARY 24, 1848

Eureka !

“Gold Mine Found”, The Californian, March 15, 1848 “California, no doubt, is rich in mineral

wealth; great chances are here for scientific capitalists”

CALIFORNIA IN 1865

• Population has soared to 365,000

• Wheat crop more valuable than gold

• Manufacturing revenue $20M greater than gold mined in foothills

THE BIG FOURCrocker, Hopkins, Stanford, Huntington

OPENING THE WEST1863 - 1869

THE FARM

PALO ALTO AS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

“It requires no prophet’s tongue to foretell that in the future Palo Alto will be a center sun, whose rays shall clasp within their bright radii greater opportunities for culture and education, more forms of grace and beauty wrought from the willing elements at hand, and a community of higher intellectual development than can be found within the same extent anywhere else in the world” – Palo Alto promotional brochure (circa 1890)

FEDERAL RADIO TELEGRAPH CO(1909)

EARLY WI-FI

THE LAND GRANT SCHOOL

BERKELEY CYCLOTRON(1932)

FEDERAL RADIO SPIN OFFS

ANOTHER STANFORD SPIN-OFF

STANFORD GRADS HIT BIG TIME

CROCKER RESEARCH LAB

THE TUBE

SHOCKLEY SEMI-CONDUCTOR

THE TRAITOROUS EIGHT

THE INVENTION OF THE VALLEY

Don Hoefler, “Silicon Valley USA”, Microelectronic News, January 11, 1971

THE ULTIMATE GOLD RUSH LEGACY

Business & Professions Code Section16600. Except as provided in this chapter, every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.