Valley Of Dreams

4 Pages 929 Words

Valley of Dreams
Silicon Valley or The Valley of Dreams represents many things to different people. It’s the place were the integrated circuit, the first commercial radio broadcast, minicomputers, miniprocessors, gene-splicing, 3-D computing, and Internet commerce were all invented or created. It’s also believed that if it stood alone as an independent country, it would hold the world’s 12th largest economy. This valley could also just represent the place where a lot of the nerds we use to make fun of ran off too. Those nerds however, have become some of the wealthiest men not only in California and the United States, but some are right up there with other world economic leaders. The driving force for the creation of the Valley of Dreams has got to be: “Get it today, because it may be gone tomorrow” (Kaplan, 27). It is the slogan that most of its residents go by. There’s a hunger that fuels the valley’s residents and pushes them to go forward. Many hope to gain more wealth and others want the wealth but have aspirations of changing the future as well. It’s definitely the valley of the dollar where most people have hit it big or believe they are about to. It’s that attitude that helped the Silicon Valley get where it is today, as an “American icon” (Kaplan, 13).
However, Silicon Valley doesn’t guarantee immediate or promised success. Kaplan explains the rise of venture capitalism in and around the Valley. The story tells of the traditional missed opportunities committed by William Shockley and Fairchild Semiconductor. Shockley was a technical genius with little business sense and his rise and fall marked the beginnings of Silicon Valley as we know it today. Shockley represents only a minority of those who have lived there because he certainly did fail but there aren’t many that can relate to him.
John Doerr, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Jim Clarke, Marc Andreesen, and Jerry Yang are some of the...