Geek Silicon Valley: The Inside Guide to Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, San Francisco [Paperback]

Ashlee Vance (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2007

The Real Silicon Valley

 

Some people say that Silicon Valley is a state of mind, but the cultural trends that drive us today were actually born in a very real place—the garages and back rooms of the cities between San Francisco and San Jose, California. Geek Silicon Valley delivers Silicon Valley history, taking us from success story to failed start-up and back again as we drive the roads from Menlo Park to Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara.

 

Place by place, readers get the background info on all the addresses that count: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Stanford University, NASA Ames, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Santana Row, Genentech, and many more.

 

Journey through a circuitry of places and people—and the stories that created today’s high-tech lifestyle—with Geek Silicon Valley.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Real Silicon Valley

 

Some people say that Silicon Valley is a state of mind, but the cultural trends that drive us today were actually born in a very real place—the garages and back rooms of the cities between San Francisco and San Jose, California. Geek Silicon Valley delivers Silicon Valley history, taking us from success story to failed start-up and back again as we drive the roads from Menlo Park to Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara.

 

Place by place, readers get the background info on all the addresses that count: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Stanford University, NASA Ames, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Santana Row, Genentech, and many more.

 

Journey through a circuitry of places and people—and the stories that created today’s high-tech lifestyle—with Geek Silicon Valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Globe Pequot; 1st edition (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762742399
• ISBN-13: 978-0762742394
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #505,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed full of good stuff, November 15, 2007

By 

skywatcher (San Carlos, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geek Silicon Valley: The Inside Guide to Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, San Francisco (Paperback)

This is a great little book. Part historical overview, part travel guide, it's written in the breezy, easy-going style of Vance's columns in The Register, the best of the online IT rags (except that the book has been carefully proofread, unlike a typical Register story). In less than 250 pages Vance has covered almost all of the important historic events and personalities behind Silicon Valley, and provided a great set of tips of places for visiting, dining and drinking. There's even a good list of books and web sites for further reading.

I've lived in the Valley for nearly 15 years, and yet learned a fair amount from this book, including several places to visit that were new to me. There were only a few curious omissions: e.g., Halted gets a mention, but Fry's does not; neither does Buck's in Woodside; and surely Frank Drake should be mentioned in the section on the SETI Institute? - but otherwise the text is remarkably accurate, despite having condensed many complex histories, each worthy of a book in its own right, into paragraphs or pages. Vance clearly did his homework. My only historical quibble is with his description of the demise of SGI. I thought it was mainly done in by cheap graphics chips from Nvidia and the like; Itanic was just the icing on the cake.

The book mentions his web site and claims additional information can be found there, but so far there isn't anything new. Hopefully that will change over time. Another concern is that quite a bit of the information in the book will date fast; I hope Vance and his publisher refreshes the text (or the website, or both) regularly.

If you live in the Valley, visit the Valley, or you just want to know what the heck the place is about, this book is for you. And if you're a geek too, it's a must-read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, November 9, 2007

By 

DH (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geek Silicon Valley: The Inside Guide to Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, San Francisco (Paperback)

I'm a long-time reader of Vance's articles in the Reg and eslewhere. His articles are always well researched (except when intentionally not!), but it's his biting wit that always brings out the deeply burried tech geek in me. I was hoping for more of the same from this book, and was pleasantly surprised at how much more it offered than I'd hoped. The book is part biography- focusing on the heroes of the tech revolution, part history, and part guide-book. It may just inspire a trip to Silicon Valley. I even enjoyed it enough to recommend it to my 100% non-tech geek mom (who happens to like Silicon Valley).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Money's worth, November 6, 2007

By 

Valley Vet - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geek Silicon Valley: The Inside Guide to Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, San Francisco (Paperback)

I've lived in Palo ALto for years and still learned a ton from this book. It's the perfect blend of history, context, entertaining anecdotes and insight. Vance manages to describe many "geek" innovations in layman terms, so that the book was especially helpful for a non-geek like me--someone who knew it was past time to learn about his hometown as well as the most important revolution of the 20th century. Who would have thought something so good for me would have caused me to laugh out loud at several points? Just wait until you read about Google's party plane.