What's it like in Silicon Valley?

Of course none of that happened all at once. There was Fairchild, there were the various 'secret' projects hosted out of Stanford in the early 50's, so at some level there needs to be a seed ecosystem that can exist with a small set of customers but is applicable to a larger set.

Many of my friends here who work in IT are certainly talented and able, but are content to coast in relatively low-paid jobs in academia or some branch of government, or maybe a bank or insurance company. You are more likely to find local entrepreneurial spirit among car mechanics and taxi drivers.

The thing is they aren't even that happy with their jobs. They hate the petty bureaucracy, insane procedures and moronic policies. But they would never think of startups as an option.