Steve Job believed Silicon Valley is so successful at attracting and building prominent technology startups for several key reasons. These reasons are as true today as ever.
1. Entrepreneurial Risk Culture
The culture in Silicon Valley is rare in not penalizing business failures. In fact, the Silicon Valley culture understands that success requires risk taking, so the appropriate failures can even be viewed as positive learning experiences.
2. Academic Institutions
Globally renowned schools like Stanford University and UC Berkeley attract some of the best talent from all over the world.
3. Nice Place To Live
The Bay Area is a wonderful place to live: great weather, easy access to outdoors, diverse wonderful nearby destinations (e.g., Sierra mountains, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, northern and southern coasts), and San Francisco is a world-class city (e.g., with more Michelin Star restaurants than New York City). So great talent attracted here by top universities are further attracted to stay.
4. Financial Infrastructure
Successful startups often need capital for growth. Silicon Valley has arguably the most mature venture capital ecosystem in the world.
5. Beehive Effect
Startups eventually need experienced talent. It’s much easier to attract an experienced professional to a startup when s/he does not have to move and uproot their family. They can leave a big company, join a startup, and return to a big company job if the startup fails, all without moving their home or uprooting their family. Steve Jobs called this the “Beehive Effect.”
6. Paying It Forward
It’s rare to find someone in Silicon Valley who does not want to help if you ask them for help. When Steve Jobs was 12, he phoned Bill Hewlett (of Hewlett-Packard), whose number was in the phone book, and he gave Steve a job at HP!