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| State of the Valley Recap |
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The tone of the 2023 State of the Valley conference was set right from the beginning, when Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, co-chair of Joint Venture’s board, stood to make welcoming remarks. She placed the conference in historical context, set the scene for the day’s events, and issued a clarion call for the region to come together as never before.
Russell Hancock, Joint Venture CEO and president of the Institute for Regional Studies, provided a detailed briefing on the state of the economy as detailed in the 28th edition of the Silicon Valley Index. A panel of experts unpacked the data: Berkeley’s AnnaLee Saxenian, storied venture capitalist Somesh Dash, and the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Markoff.
The second half of the conference focused on Silicon Valley as a community, starting with Hancock again briefing the audience on the indicators measuring health, housing, educational attainment, and the region’s staggering income and wealth gaps (particularly when viewed with an equity lens). Moderated by Supervisor Ellenberg, a panel of sector leaders and front-line champions detailed the challenges and proposed remedies. Then the room came alive with song and dance by local artists.
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Read news coverage on the conference
Watch the conference sessions on Joint Venture’s YouTube channel |
| Index Briefing: Economy |
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“A cloak of uncertainty has descended on the region,” began Joint Venture CEO Russell Hancock as he referenced a spate of layoffs in the tech sector, a slow recovery for jobs in community infrastructure, empty downtowns, and a substantial exodus out of the region.
“But how should we contextualize these trends?” he asked, pointing out that the region is at full employment, that the layoffs represent a recalibration rather than a collapse as the tech sector adjusts to new demand curves, that most of the departing workers were still in Northern California and the Greater Bay Area and still filling Silicon Valley jobs. “Silicon Valley experiences upheavals and downturns with regularity,” he observed, showing historical data on past booms and busts. “We’re in a state of flux,” he concluded, “but reports of our demise are premature.”
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| Watch the economy briefing |
| Economy: Experts Respond |
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John Markoff, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote for The New York Times’ science and technology beat for 28 years, moderated a bracing conversation with Silicon Valley’s foremost academic interpreter, and one of the Valley’s most active and successful venture capitalists.
AnnaLee Saxenian, whose early work explaining the Valley’s dynamism launched waves of Valley scholarship, argued that the tech sector was in the throes of a “correction.” She referenced the sector’s central role in a global network including India and Taiwan, and she argued that the Valley’s talent base is unparalleled. Pressed to list her chief concerns, the professor noted the Valley’s high levels of concentration (20 percent of the tech workforce is concentrated at 3 firms). Growing inequality and the cost of housing were also danger signs.
Somesh Dash, a partner at one of the Valley’s first venture capital firms, spoke of the dynamism he observes in the start-up scene. “I have never seen a cohort of more battle-tested entrepreneurs,” he enthused. “They have survived the pandemic, PPE loans, and hyper growth followed by a downturn,” said Dash.
Markoff, an affiliate at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, wondered openly about the ethical questions emerging from the immense capabilities surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). But Dash was unabashedly bullish: “We will see less concentration with the top tech companies and greater distribution as a result of AI,” he predicted.
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| Watch the discussion |
| Index Briefing: Community |
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The second half of the conference put Silicon Valley’s community issues center stage and led off with another briefing by Russell Hancock. He began by showing the region’s jaw-dropping average annual earnings and the stunning value-added and productivity figures by worker. “But I am duty bound to tell you that gross domestic product is in no way a measure of community health, Hancock intoned. “These figures don’t tell you anything about income distribution, access to opportunity, about the region’s ongoing sustainability, or the actual wellness of our population.”
He then showed the audience how median household income hasn’t kept pace with inflation, how growing segments of the community report ongoing anxiety and depression, how there were persistent income disparities by race, how those disparities obtained even at similar levels of education, how 42 percent of Silicon Valley’s children live in families living below self-sufficiency, and how Silicon Valley exhibited the nation’s most highly pronounced wealth disparities. “The Valley’s top 10 percent hold 66 percent of the wealth,” he observed. “We live in a region where genius innovators and the fabulously wealthy live alongside 12,000 unhoused residents.”
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| Watch the community briefing |
| Community: Sector leaders respond |
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Following Hancock’s briefing, a panel of sector leaders considered the data and the challenges that are stressing the Valley. Moderated by Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, the panel included City Councilmember Alicia Aguirre (Redwood City); Veronica Goei, Executive Director of Grail Family Services; Camille Llanes-Fontanilla, Vice President at Sobrato Philanthropies; Raúl Rodríguez, Interim Chancellor of San Jose – Evergreen Community College District; and Juan M. Salazar, Director of State and Local Policy at Meta.
Even on a panel so disparate, there was vociferous agreement that affordable housing and childcare were the chief barriers to confront. “Childcare should be a human right, not a privilege”, emphasized Veronica Goei from Grail Family Services to applause. “It’s good for economy, children, and job retention.”
Chancellor Rodriguez lamented how institutions of higher education are scrambling more than ever to accommodate students and pleaded for better partnerships across the sectors. “We need to double down on our own efforts,” he asserted, “to guarantee that our students are ready for the job pipeline.”
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| Watch the Discussion |
| La Avenida, a new cultural hub for East San José |
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To highlight one living example of community building, Jessica Paz-Cedillos and Vanessa Shieh, Co-Executive Directors of the School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza, shared details about a $20 million expansion plan. Known as “La Avenida,” the plan will transform a vacant, 30,000-square-foot retail space on Alum Rock Avenue into a 200-seat theater and a community-oriented cafe, along with a wellness center run by Gardner Health Services. The Mexican Heritage Plaza’s current parking lot and a gravel-covered courtyard would be used for a 6-story parking garage topped with a park, affordable housing for 100 families and a multistory office and retail building, creating new neighborhoods and cultural hubs.
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| Watch the presentation |
| Art as Commentary |
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Joint Venture’s audiences celebrated the rich and diverse arts of Silicon Valley through performers who shared their considerable talents.
MOSAIC America provided a spectrum of music and dance as a symbolic representation of the cultures who enrich our region.
Francis Experience ignited the room with its hip hop and jazz ensemble, performing vignettes dramatizing the lived experience of local community members. Led by Jonathan Borca, the ensemble used music and dance as a tool pointed social commentary.
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Watch MOSAIC America
Watch Francis Experience |
The 2023 State of the Valley conference was made possible by generous support from Meta (formerly Facebook) as the lead sponsor, with additional support from Accenture, Bank of America, Stanford Children’s Health and PG&E, and these other sponsors. |
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March 1, 2023 - (Mercury News) - Letters to the Editor: Capitalism keeps poverty going strong - The new study by the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies shows disgraceful disparities in wealth. More
February 27, 2023 - (San Jose Spotlight) - Santa Clara County wants to put millions into child care: [childcare cost] has risen twice as quickly as regional inflation since 2010, according to a 2023 Joint Venture Silicon Valley report. More
February 26, 2023 - (San Jose Spotlight) - Podcast: Joint Venture Silicon Valley releases a report showing how the region is faring economically. More
February 22, 2023 - (News Break) - The Wealth Gap Is Widening: ...a new study by the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies has highlighted the vast disparities in wealth, income, and other economic measures. More
February 19, 2023 - (CalMatters) - Two major California economic sectors face headwinds: Last week, a local industry group, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, issued its annual report on the region’s economy. More
February 18, 2023 - (Mercury News) - Sal Pizarro: Tunefull Townhall - There were a lot of sobering statistics talked about during this year’s State of the Valley conference. More
February 18, 2023 - (World Journal) - The poor are getting poorer/The gap between the rich and the poor in Silicon Valley widens 220,000 households: According to the Silicon Valley Index, an annual report by the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies. More
This is just a tiny sampling of Joint Venture's frequent coverage in the national and local news media. Read all our news coverage.
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