Silicon Valley Quotes

• Silicon Valley is a mindset, not a location.

  Reid Hoffman

  Location, Valleys, Mindset

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• The real secret of Silicon Valley is that it's really all about the people

  Reid Hoffman

  Real, People, Secret

  Harvard Business Review, Michael D. Watkins, Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha (2015). “Leadership Transitions and Team Building: Leadership Collection (2 Books)”, Harvard Business Review Press

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• At the core of Silicon Valley is a passion for 'yes.'

  Steven Levy

  Passion, Valleys, Silicon

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• Silicon Valley tends to believe in the individual who creates a small group and does something big.

  Reid Hoffman

  Believe, Groups, Doe

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• There are three pillars, regardless of your work culture, whether you're in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street: how you look, how you speak, and how you behave. It's all three things, and nailing them makes you a contender.

  Sylvia Ann Hewlett

  Wall, Three Things, Pillars

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

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• In Silicon Valley, when you're a private company, the entrepreneur can do no wrong.

  Ben Horowitz

  Entrepreneur, Valleys, Company

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• Silicon Valley benefits, as all of industry, from highly protectionist policy - patent policies and things like that - which come out of the government.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Valleys, Benefits

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

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• If you want to build a great company, get the hell out of Silicon Valley.

  Bill Gates

  Valleys, Want, Hell

  Source: www.strategy-business.com

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• I think governments will increasingly be tempted to rely on Silicon Valley to solve problems like obesity or climate change because Silicon Valley runs the information infrastructure through which we consume information.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Running, Thinking, Government

  "Op-Ed: There's An App For Everything, And That's A Problem". Interview with Ari Shapiro, www.npr.org. March 4, 2013.

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• Hollywood is in the perception business where you create layers to create mystery. In Silicon Valley it's about taking away the layers to get to the substance.

  MC Hammer

  Perception, Layers, Hollywood

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• The pressure to perform is relentless in today's workplace - regardless of where you work. We are all being asked to do more with less. I think what we could borrow from the culture of Silicon Valley is "eat your own dog food ." That is an expression used by tech types to mean using what you make or sell.

  Willow Bay

  Dog, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.glamour.com

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• The dissonance that I felt daily flew in the face of what Silicon Valley says about itself: that it is a meritocracy, that it values intelligence and creativity, that everyone has a fair shot if they just work hard enough. This was true only if you were technical, and even that may not always be enough: in the age of the social network, who you know and who your friends were was becoming increasingly important.

  Katherine Losse

  Hard Work, Creativity, Important

  Katherine Losse (2012). “The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

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• Look at what Silicon Valley has done - the advance of computers.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Valleys, Looks, Done

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• In physics, one of the most exciting areas is in nanotech. With computers exhausting the power of silicon, Silicon Valley could become a Rust Belt, unless we can find replacements, such as quantum computers and molecular computers. To be a leader in any field, one has to have a great imagination. Sure, we have to know the basics and fundamentals. But beyond that, we have to let our imagination soar.

  Michio Kaku

  Imagination, Leader, Valleys

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• He’s totally different from the typical jock. He has no ego. That’s unique for someone with such accolades. His strength comes from a higher power. You can’t explain Steve Largent by computer – he doesn’t belong on an NFL field. You put his size and speed in an IBM computer up in Silicon Valley, it would chew up his data card and laugh.

  Lester Hayes

  Unique, Data, Nfl

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• Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.

  Daniel Yergin

  Technology, Energy, Valleys

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• It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry, you had Hewlett-Packard. But you also had the counter-culture, the Bay Area. That entire brew came together in Steve Jobs.

  Erik Qualman

  Jobs, Counter Culture, Together

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• The global triumph of American technology has been predicated on the implicit separation between the business interests of Silicon Valley and the political interests of Washington.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Technology, Political, Triumph

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• The director of the FBI has been visiting Silicon Valley companies asking them to build back doors so that it can spy on what is being said online. The Department of Commerce is going after piracy. At home, the American government wants anything but Internet freedom.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Home, Government, Doors

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• Seasteaders bring a Silicon Valley sensibility to the problem of governments not innovating sufficiently. Innovators are held back and stymied by existing regulations, and we want to give them 21st century regulations on start-up governments.

  Joe Quirk

  Government, Giving, Valleys

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.

  Temple Grandin

  Motivation, Inspiration, Thinking

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• Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high

  Marc Andreessen

  Jobs, Sky, Unemployment

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• When it’s too easy to get money, then you get a lot of noise mixed in with the real innovation and entrepreneurship. Tough times bring out the best parts of Silicon Valley.

  Sergey Brin

  Real, Tough Times, Innovation

  "Google's Schmidt, Page and Brin Hold Court at Zeitgeist". Interview with Jessica Guynn, latimesblogs.latimes.com. September 17, 2008.

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• Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.

  Marc Andreessen

  Years, Valleys, World

  "Barefoot Networks' New Chips Will Transform The Tech Industry" by Cade Metz, www.wired.com. June 14, 2016.

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• More and more major industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.

  Marc Andreessen

  Running, Technology, Agriculture

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