Ｔｈｅ Ｆｕｔｕｒｅ ｏｆ Ｓｉｌｉｃｏｎ Ｖａｌｌｅｙ

By the end of 1984， Silicon Valley was going through the down cycle following the PC boom. A hundred PC companies wanted just 10 percent of the market， wanting to strike it rich， as rich as the Apple IPO (Initial Public Offering) —the Google celebrity IPO of its day.

Hundreds of Apple staff became millionaires， including secretaries and the guy that ran the parking lot. The media coverage was massive. Venture capitals rushed in like a herd andfunded a huge number of PC companies and when the bubble popped， the down cycle was harsh. Stories about Silicon Valley's death were constant and grinding for several years. What future does Silicon Valley have?

While businessmen think whenSilicon Valley comes back， it will be bigger than before.

Silicon Valley is very much like a fairground drink—big chunks of ice with most of the juice at the bottom. And there is a lot of juice accumulating， the laptops are discretely reappearing in bars， and there are many signs ofbubbly behavior.

Silicon Valley is going to have a larger impact than before. Businessmen have been through severalbusiness cycles and each time Silicon Valley has come back stronger.

The most recent comeback， the dot-com boom， was the first time Silicon Valley was able to have animmediate worldwide economic impact. It was the first time it became hooked up to world stock markets through thetech IPO flood.

This provided a mechanism for trading in Silicon Valley's ideas.Remember， many dot-com companies were stories—stories about business concepts—revenue models were not necessary.

This time， Silicon Valley's ideas will have a larger impact and things generally will be done differently. The way Silicon Valley innovates will be different， media will be different， PR will be different. And this time around， dot-coms will eat the lunch of the established companies. Then they will eat the companies， or at least suck out the soft fatty stuff such as the brand image and leave behind the crunchy legacy infrastructure stuff.

The four new initiatives are designed to help the region emerge successfully from the cycle by:

Promoting a strong， long-term fiscal foundation for government to invest in people， infrastructure， and quality of life (Fiscal Foundation Initiative); Accelerating the convergence of biotechnology， nanotechnology， and information technology (Technology Convergence Initiative); Expanding the use of these technologies to improve health， education， and transportation (Smart Valley II Initiative); Building relationships among technology leaders in Silicon Valley and other regions of the world for mutual economic benefit (Global Knowledge Networks Initiative).

The initiatives and actions are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Silicon Valley's new future will require specific actions by business， government， education， labor， and civic leaers working together to implement four initiatives.