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| A STATE OF THE VALLEY RECAP: |
| STRONG ECONOMY, MOUNTING CHALLENGES, AND A TECH BACKLASH |
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More than 1,400 people filled the McEnery Convention Center February 14 for the 16th annual State of the Valley conference, a half-day event featuring music, food, exhibits, prizes, and bracing dialogue about Silicon Valley’s trends and challenges.
As always, the conference launched with an in-depth briefing on the 2020 Silicon Valley Index, a massive set of indicators tracking every measurable facet of the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Thought leaders and subject-matter experts then took turns on the stage confronting the region’s challenges—housing, transportation, and a growing national sentiment demonizing the Valley’s search and media giants for perceived harmful effects on democratic society.
News legend Dan Rather wrapped the conference with keynote remarks arguing that Silicon Valley companies had been overly hyped during earlier periods of tech euphoria, but that those same companies were being unfairly blamed today for some of the world’s biggest problems. “The truth is that Silicon Valley has contributed it’s share to the issues around us, but more importantly they will be a solution.” |
Read news coverage of the conference
Watch the conference sessions on Joint Venture’s YouTube channel |
| 2020 SILICON VALLEY INDEX: |
| CONTINUING GROWTH, WIDENING GAPS, PERSISTENT CHALLENGES |
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Russell Hancock, Joint Venture’s CEO and President of the Institute for Regional Studies, provided a detailed briefing on the indicators catalogued in the 2020 Index. “We’re living in the most prodigious economy in the history of regional economies,” he observed, pointing out that the region has logged nine continuous years of expansion since the recession of 2008. He rehearsed a litany of indicators—wealth creation, venture capital, patent generation, IPOs, the runaway growth of unicorns—showing how Silicon Valley easily outperforms the nation in every coveted category.
“So why does it feel so tenuous?” he asked pointedly. “It’s mostly because we haven’t added appreciably to our housing stock,” he explained, referencing charts showing that for every five jobs the region had created since 2008, only one housing unit had been approved. Mr. Hancock also detailed the growing income divide, observing 13 percent of Silicon Valley’s households account for 75 percent of the wealth. He finally documented persistent poverty and a precipitous rise in homelessness.
“Telling Silicon Valley’s story is complicated, and multi-faceted, and doesn’t reduce to a single story line,” he concluded. |
Watch Russell Hancock's Index briefing
Download the Index |
This presentation was generously sponsored by:
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| PETER CALTHORPE’S PRESCRIPTION: |
| EL CAMINO REAL |
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Peter Calthorpe, the founding father of New Urbanism, argued that urban arterials like El Camino Real hold the solution to the Bay Area’s traffic and housing woes. A strident advocate of transit-oriented development and smart growth long before those concepts were buzzwords, Mr. Calthorpe crunched numbers showing the 43-mile segment of El Camino between San Francisco and San Jose could accommodate 250,000 new homes, if the communities would up-zone for mixed-use development.
“We can do this without cutting into existing single-family neighborhoods,” he contended, “creating walkable, dense, sustainable, transit-rich environments.”
Mr. Calthorpe also advocated the conversion of lanes for autonomous bus rapid transit. “In-fill is the answer, and we can create a ribbon of urbanism that enhances all the communities around them.” |
| Watch Peter Calthorpe’s presentation |
This presentation was generously sponsored by:
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| REMEMBERING WHERE WE CAME FROM TO SEE WHERE WE’RE GOING: |
| MARGARET O’MARA |
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Margaret O’Mara, who mapped out Silicon Valley’s rise in her widely praised history The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, used history as a lens to peer into the future.
After recalling the region’s humble beginnings and unlikely transformation, Professor O’Mara warned that the game has changed. “Silicon Valley had distinctive characteristics that made tech grow here,” she explained. “But now we have to reckon with a different set of characteristics that will enable tech to be sustained here. The Valley has to invest in institutions, and in the built environment.”
“We’ve seen what happens elsewhere when you don’t invest,” warned O’Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who is also a distinguished fellow at Joint Venture’s Institute for Regional Studies. “Remember, Silicon Valley can be everywhere. You can be a nomad in an internet café in Bali and build your start-up.” |
| Watch Margaret O’Mara’s presentation |
This presentation was generously sponsored by:
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| TECH, MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY: |
| WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD? |
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In a session organized by the Computer History Museum, the growing backlash against tech took center stage. Linking the backlash to the upcoming election cycle and the ongoing health of America’s democracy, CHM CEO Dan’l Lewin asked whether the technologies and platforms invented in Silicon Valley were enabling the viral spread of misinformation and disinformation.
"At Google, we cannot be the ultimate deciders of what is and isn’t free expression,” said Richard Gingras, vice president of Google News. “Each institution in our society, from technology companies to government agencies to news media to our political class need to consider their roles in ensuring the availability of the fact-based knowledge that our citizens need.”
“How can we provide help to people adrift in a sea of information?” asked Sally Lehrman, CEO of The Trust Project which is developing tools to signal readers about the nature and quality of the information they consume. “We have to provide machine-readable signals to technology platforms, and we have to recapture the role for journalism as the guidepost for accurate information.” |
| Watch the discussion |
This presentation was generously sponsored by:
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This session presented with generous support and leadership from:
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| DAN RATHER TO SILICON VALLEY: |
| YOU CAN FIX THIS |
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News icon Dan Rather concluded the conference with keynote remarks insisting Silicon Valley’s tech savvy will address current criticism and lead the nation to a better future. He urged the region’s social media and search giants never to avoid responsibility by arguing their platforms are simply gateways to third-party content. "It's not enough to say, 'Well, we're just the pipelines.' These pipelines have wreaked havoc."
“There was a time very recently when what was happening in Silicon Valley was heralded as an unmitigated good,” recalled former anchor of CBS Evening News. “Now the world’s biggest problems—polarization, income inequality, the rise of authoritarianism—are being blamed on the technology and ethos of Silicon Valley. Is this justified or fair? Of course not.”
“The truth is that the world has serious problems,” he continued, “and the technology of Silicon Valley has helped to contribute to some of that, but more importantly, can help to be a solution.”
Mr. Rather concluded with broader reflections about the political climate, the California primary, and the precarious state of journalism. |
| Watch Mr. Rather’s keynote, and the following armchair conversation |
This presentation was generously sponsored by:
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