Silicon Valley

Silicon Valleyname

• 1

  informalOriginally, the region of the San Francisco Bay Area in which there were a high number of industries producing silicon chips; later extended to mean the entire concentration of high-tech businesses in this area.

  • The community of radio amateurs—trespassing fiddlers on the cutting edge of technological possibilities—prefigured the geek community that was to inhabit Silicon Valley 50 years later.
  • Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.
• 2

  The tech industry, especially the American tech industry specifically.

• 3

  A tech industry cluster in another country, developed as a competitor to the original Silicon Valley.

  • The belief in the early 1980s among many European pundits that a series of European Silicon Valleys could be developed before the end of the decade flew in the face of all the United States evidence.