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Comment by reactordev | Hacker News Reader

Fourth unpopular take: without it Silicon Valley wouldn’t exist.

SV exists thanks to CA's lack of non-competes and the Stanford and UC Berkeley innovation ecosystem.

Otherwise, Boston, NYC, DMV, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and others all could have become the next Silicon Valley.

That's interesting because it's way more complicated than that. Boston had the 128 loop and Digital. TI in dallas. Simi valley. I think it's more like the end of defense spending in the late 80s early 90s winnowed down the several "SV"s into only one.

I know, and the reason Digital and TI and Compaq weren't able to make as deep ecosystems as Xerox PARC or Fairchild did was because of the non-compete aspect back when companies were much more litigious than today.

IMO, the non-compete aspect is way overstated. People moved between the Route 128 computer companies all the time and even moved to California. If it was a slower pace than today, it probably had more to do with people not shifting jobs as often than litigation related to non-competes.

> and the Stanford and UC Berkeley innovation ecosystem

which is geographic...

and let's also not forget the vast, heavy investments from the Navy and government during WW2. the SV wasn't just a couple of fancy colleges, San Fran is a major city that got a ton of investment.

the DMV arguably is the east coast SV

What does DMV stand for in this context?

DC, Maryland, and Virginia, a term only used in the DC area because those not in DC proper take offense at being lumped in with it or something I guess.

That seems like a really niche term. Parent really should've specified what it meant instead of assuming everyone in the world would automatically know what it meant.

On that note, thanks for explaining it to me.

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