The first thing that strikes most outsiders visiting Silicon Valley is how unremarkable it is. Synonymous in global parlance with technological innovation and profit, this swath of suburbs between the cities of San Francisco and San Jose presents few visible differences from the California norm. Most of the tract houses here are not much bigger, certainly not more beautiful: but they do cost more – the average home value in Palo Alto, the unofficial capital of the Valley, is nearly $3m.
Quiet, oak-lined streets, strip malls, office parks half-hidden behind redwoods: there are few outward signs that this is, as the journalist Malcolm Harris puts it, “one of the highest concentrations of capital of any kind in world history” – the region responsible for the semiconductor, the personal computer, the smartphone, and many of the world’s largest companies.
Content from our partners
