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I think you mean 'figuratively'. If it was literal there would have been no private industry at all, which is complete nonsense.

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I believe the above commenter was being hyperbolic, but plenty of government money has supported private industry. That's not just defense contractors, either. Where would Silicon Valley be without ARPANET?

That's why I said figuratively. Some support doesn't mean the whole valley is running on government money.

Where would ARPANET be without the discovery of electricity or the massive railroad expansion throughout the US that resulted in a large telegraph network? It's pretty stupid to tie the valley to one particular invention supported by the government when it depends on essentially all of history until this point.

The Silicon Valley economy were established to develop radar and comms equipment for the military -- before digital computers even became the boom industry they are today.

So when I say "literally all", I'm exaggerating -- but only slightly. Not every dollar in the fucktons of VC money sloshing around out there can be traced back to defense funding, but an awful lot of them can.

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