Everywhere we go in the world, we can find another local Silicon Valley, or “Alley” or “Canal,” or “Docks” or “Fen”. Policy makers in many very different places remain eager to replicate the successful development of regionally concentrated but globally successful high-tech entrepreneurship. In our essay, which has been published in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights we examine the myths of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, showing how they become popular, persist, and adapt over time, even in the face of criticism and resistance, and what we can learn from such mythmaking for policy transfer and teaching entrepreneurship.
How the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth arose
Myths condense collective place memories into popular stories. The Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth is strongly rooted in the California dream; and its imagery plays directly into the “go West” and goldrush past of California: Tech firms hope to “strike gold”; engineers are depicted as “explorers” working towards “conquering new frontiers”; western-themed bars celebrate the pioneering of the computer cowboys. Moreover, the Valley thrives on individual heroes, from the “founding fathers” of the Valley to today’s big tech entrepreneurs and those starting new ventures. As a reprise of the California dream that anyone can make their own dream come true, the SVE myth perpetuates the larger-than-life individual entrepreneurial hero.
How the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth was perpetuated
Place-myths also reflect the physical environments. We therefore explored how the architecture of Silicon Valley headquarters may have influenced the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth. Today’s tech giants started from very modest beginnings: garages. This symbol plays a fundamental role for perpetuating the Valley myth, because it symbolizes the American dream, where tech giants moved from the “humble, dusty place” full of forgotten possessions, towards economic success and grandeur. Many tech giants keep this myth alive, by embracing their garage origins, although they have moved far away from such humble birthplaces. Again, the California dream is made manifest both in the glory of start-ups built in the stereotypical garage and in the global titans, with their massive campuses designed by world-famous architects.
Can the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth be replicated elsewhere?
As myths evolve over time, they turn the underlying stories into “a statement of facts”. Myths also celebrate what seems good and cast shadows upon that which does not fit the story. We explore these features regarding ever-popular attempts to replicate Silicon Valley entrepreneurship in many other places. Policymakers want and need simple recipes for rapid solutions and quick successes, and this is what the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth seems to promise. We suggest, however, that this interpretation tends to overlook the roots of the Valley’s achievements. First, the “myth of ‘instant industrialization’” of the Valley does not hold up when looking at the Valley’s history. Second, the tech giants’ economic and technological successes come at costs for many thousands of people who have laboured, sometimes under abusive conditions, in faraway factories essential to much of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship supply chain.
Where to from now?
The extreme decontextualization as reflected in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship myth has had extraordinarily broad and powerful effects, spanning nations, policymakers, founders, funders, and others. As entrepreneurship researchers and teachers, it has shaped and limited our vision of what alternatives are possible and our ability to see and engage with what already is and what isn’t possible. Inspiration for what is possible comes from other disciplines like photographers and writers: They make diversity visible instead of solely celebrating megalomania and monotony. They push us towards seeing the Valley and other entrepreneurial places differently, paying much more attention to its everydayness and toward building multiple, contextually embedded recipes for developing entrepreneurial regions.
Read the full paper here to find out more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352673424000180
Author bio
Ted Baker spent the first 20 years of his adult life helping to build a variety of technology-rich entrepreneurial ventures. He is a professor at Rutgers Business School, where he holds the George F. Farris Chair in Entrepreneurship while serving as founding director of the Rutgers Advanced Institute for the Study of Entrepreneurship and Development (RAISED).
Friederike Welter uses her research to advise policymakers on entrepreneurship policies. She holds a professorship for Entrepreneurship and SME Management at the University of Siegen and is head of an independent, policy-oriented research institute, the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung in Bonn.
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