[woofie11]

.... Which was the exact moment computing stopped looking like biotech. Before microcomputers, starting a computer company required an investment of perhaps a million dollars in today's currency, depending on the type of company.

After microcomputers, anyone could do it out of their home.

If my employer is making a CAD tool and makes a dumb decision, I can make my better CAD tool and put them out of business. Even hardware changed when I no longer needed to buy individual transistors. Things like the Apple could be designed out of a garage, with commercial off-the-shelf parts, perhaps borrowing a little bit of money from friends and family, but without even taking out a second mortgage. From there, things spiraled up, with quick-turn $40 PCBs, fabless IC companies, and so on.

It didn't have to happen in Silicon Valley, but it couldn't happen in Boston, and with Stanford and what not, Silicon Valley was as good a place as any.