That BSD code is of course not only the foundation of the Internet, but of your iPhones and iPads as well. Actually I believe it is fundamental to Windows as well, since my understanding is that the TCP/IP implementation in Windows is BSD code.
Silicon Valley doesn't have the foresight for the technical foundations of society (and I say that having worked here for over a decade). The web wasn't invented by Silicon Valley either. Neither was e-mail. Neither was Perl, PHP, Python, or Ruby. Python was actually government funded too.
Also don't forget that Bill Clinton and the government made all your location-based apps possible, by opening GPS satellites to the public in the 90s.