What opened my eyes to where the true innovative roots of SV were planted was a lecture from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View (CA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

TL;DW: It all harks back to WWII and unlimited government spending on electronics (and related) R&D - financed based mostly on never before seen amounts of government debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_p...).