PERSPECTIVES : The Birthing of Silicon Valley (21 pages Free Download)

There was a time in history when students graduating from Stanford University were relocating to the east coast and settling into dead end jobs. Legend has it that Professor Fred Terman began urging his students to stop migrating, and instead, set up research oriented business enterprises in the Santa Clara region. As the fundamental idea of entrepreneurship endorsed by Fred Terman caught on fashionably, a string of business ventures engaged in electronics research sprung up in the immediate vicinity of Stanford University. Meanwhile, the industrial belt located between San Francisco and San Jose came to be known as Silicon Valley. Thereafter, Fred Terman came to be known as the Father of Silicon Valley. In the current campus culture, a student preoccupied with the possibility of financial gain from an invention or a business idea would be motivated to a far greater extent than a student desiring to demonstrate scholastic excellence. For those seeking financial rewards for excellence, startup ventures could offer the fastest route from the college laboratory to the Lamborghini.