Silicon Valley doesn´t exist. If you live in Europe as I do and you dream of going to Silicon Valley as I used to, let me warn you now, there is no such place as Silicon Valley. Before starting Fon, and having so many friends and partners in Silicon Valley including famous Silicon Valley VCs Sequoia and famous Silicon Valley tech companies eBay and Google, I thought there was actually a place that Silicon Valley as much as there is a place as New York City. But if you go to Google Maps and you input Silicon Valley you will see that no concrete location comes up. So how can so many people refer to a place that not only does not exist but that nobody really knows where it begins and ends, and frequently confuse it with a more generic “Bay Area”, which also people disagree as to where it begins and ends but it seems to encompass Silicon Valley plus other undefined places.  After spending a week in Silicon Valley visiting companies in Cupertino, Mountain View, friends in Los Altos Hills, and different neighborhoods of San Francisco I think that it is time somebody tells the  the rest of the world what Silicon Valley is  an imaginary concept and not a geography.  Silicon Valley is a dream,  it is a trait as in “silicon valley creativity”, or a personality “silicon valley attitude”, or a career “silicon valley entrepreneur”. In short, Silicon Valley is a lot of things and yet none of them are an actual geography.

Follow Martin Varsavsky on Twitter: twitter.com/martinvars

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Anil on October 22, 2007  · 

Hey Martin! Silicon Valley, CA exists on Facebook 😉 http://www.facebook.com/networks/?nk=67108896

3.0 rating

justin on October 22, 2007  · 

so better, let´s create e.g. the new “silicon road of madrid”, a phonetic approach from old “silk road” and when we say this, lets think perhaps about “avenue de las bruselas, madrid….

3.0 rating

JPistrui on October 22, 2007  · 

Martin,
A few years back Gary Hamel wrote in a HBR article suggesting that silicon valley was “a market for ideas, people, and capital” and used it as a metaphor for what organizations needed to create to be more innovative.
Joseph

3.0 rating

Antoin O Lachtnain on October 22, 2007  · 

It’s a state of mind, a direction, rather than just a place. Like uptown and downtown on the New York subway. You could say that Canal St and below is downtown, but some people mean only the financial district when they refer to downtown.

3.0 rating

nicoguyon on October 23, 2007  · 

And Silicon Valley isn’t just about Silicon…

3.0 rating

Joe H. on October 24, 2007  · 

hmmmm Martin … should we mention this to Málaga …

Google “El ‘Silicon Valley’ español convertirá a Málaga en la capital de la tecnología”

http://www.eleconomista.es

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