I think the thing about the Valley is that it was forged in a context where it was the rational mode of development for a high tech urban center: car-centric office parks and factories, big-box stores and malls, vast housing subdivisions with some toxic waste buried here and there. Although the players in SV were all building "next big things", everything still ultimately ran on physical presence - real venues that you could go to and make connections in, and the landscape was eminently suited to that between ~1970-2000.
It was with the opening of the commercial Internet in the 90's that it all started changing. The new companies weren't in boxed products destined for retail: they started replacing retail. You didn't go to a users' group to learn, you subscribed to Usenet or email. And so on. So even by the early 2000's, things started to feel hollowed out in SV.
It was with the opening of the commercial Internet in the 90's that it all started changing. The new companies weren't in boxed products destined for retail: they started replacing retail. You didn't go to a users' group to learn, you subscribed to Usenet or email. And so on. So even by the early 2000's, things started to feel hollowed out in SV.