[astrange]

If you're asking why Silicon Valley is in California at all, the answer is that the state bans all non-compete agreements and won't enforce ones made in other states. This is probably why it's not in Cambridge, though it doesn't explain anything more specific than that.

[nostrademons]

Don't forget the importance of Shockley's mom being in Palo Alto. His stated reason for moving to the west coast was to be closer to her. Given that pretty much all the "silicon" companies in Silicon Valley are descendants of Shockley Semiconductor, that chance occurrence is probably enough to explain it.

[ghaff]

I honestly think non-competes are overstated. I've worked in MA most of my life, once signed one, and it was very specific. I now work for a company that even lets me contribute to competing open source projects. Do all non-CA companies let you do that? I'm aware of one or two consulting firms that have very draconian non-compete clauses but not sure it's very common and MA, specifically, defanged them a while ago.

Personally, I think it was more of a conservative East Coast mentality vs. an anything is possible West Coast Mentality.

Stephen Levy's Hackers is probably a good start (but skip the Stallman The Last Hacker part).

[paxys]

Non-competes are absolutely not overstated. Microsoft would frequently sue employees in WA for violating non-compete agreements when they bounced to work for Google, Facebook or other tech companies who were starting to open up offices in Seattle.

Amazon recently sued an exec for moving to Google cloud (also in WA) – https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/11/aws-case-against-worker-who-...).

Here's an IBM one from New York – https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=84252db4-ccc3....

A quick search yielded a ton of results for large tech companies suing employees and each other over non-competes, and – surprise – none of them are in California.

[astrange]

I'm not sure how often it comes up, but SV started with Fairchild Semiconductor being founded by everyone leaving Shockley's company - so it would've been important right at the start.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Honestly - isn't it most likely to be random luck?

[ghaff]

Possibly.

To the degree that you believe Shockley was an important catalyst, that does seem to have been largely happenstance. There are arguments to be made that the next phase after the minicomputer would logically be somewhere other than the Northeast. On the other hand, a great deal of computer tech prior to the minicomputer was concentrated on the northern part of the East Coast, so why a shift? Finally, given Compaq, Dell, and TI, why not a more robust Silicon Prairie earlier?