Geek Silicon Valley: The Inside Guide to Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, San Francisco
It’s Saturday! Today’s book recommendation is…
Let’s face it, with the millions of people who are planning to visit, move, buy Real Estate in the Bay Area in the next few months/years, guides will be needed.
Here’s a local’s review:
I’ve lived in Palo ALto for years and still learned a ton from this book. It’s the perfect blend of history, context, entertaining anecdotes and insight. Vance manages to describe many “geek” innovations in layman terms, so that the book was especially helpful for a non-geek like me–someone who knew it was past time to learn about his hometown as well as the most important revolution of the 20th century. Who would have thought something so good for me would have caused me to laugh out loud at several points? Just wait until you read about Google’s party plane.
Neato!
The real question is: when will this be available in Russian and Chinese? Can you say market opportunity? You owe me if you become a millionaire with this idea!
April 25th, 2009 at 9:09 am
The tech history of this area is deep and fascinating. However we’re probably going back to growing fruit before we ever grow tech again.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
A last ditch attempt at partying like it’s 1999.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Silicon is more than just a geographical location, it’s a state of mind.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Actually most of the amazon reviews sound forced, they all read the same (“I’ve been there a long time, still learned a lot from reading this”). Could it be that *gasp* there is somehow collusion between the author and these reviewers?
I did find this particularly funny from the cover:
get the background info on all the addresses that count: (…) Santana Row (…)
Did I miss something? How did a glorified strip mall end up listed alongside Google and Stanford? Maybe I should read the book instead of trying to figure it out.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:15 am
The author probably got all of his (her?) friends to write a review. Helps with the Amazon rankings.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Actually most of the amazon reviews sound forced, they all read the same (”I’ve been there a long time, still learned a lot from reading this”). Could it be that *gasp* there is somehow collusion between the author and these reviewers?
——
Hey, at least one guys is from Australia who looks forward to every author’s next book he ever reads.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
And the streets are paved with gold. The end.