Author Cory Doctorow is here to tell us a bit of interesting history behind one of the most well-known places in the US: Silicon Valley. Read on to see how the laws of the land played a role in his newest story, Picks & Shovels.
CORY DOCTOROW:
Why Massachusetts Isn’t California
You wouldn’t know it today, but the greater Boston area could have been Silicon Valley. It’s not just MIT/Harvard/Northeastern/etc. It’s not even the fact that BBN, the US military contractor that did the key work to invent the internet, was based there. Boston had it all: early, industry-defining software companies like VisiCalc and Lotus; a huge talent pool of the best and the brightest from around the world, deep-pocketed investors…
And yet.
And yet. 40 years later, Boston is an academic town with some biotech companies, and Silicon Valley is…Well, it’s Silicon Valley. How did California lap Massachusetts, repeatedly, for decades?
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Source: Big Idea: Cory Doctorow – Picks and Shovels
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