Silicon Valley at Your Feet

My Godmother was Margot Patterson Doss who wrote about walking in San Francisco and the SF Bay Area. Her most famous book was called San Francisco at Your Feet: Best Walks in a Walkers City.

I was thinking of Aunt Margot on my way to lunch today in Santa Clara. Walking from my Huawei office to the Bamboo Leaf Vietnamese Restaurant is not far, but I pass by dozens of small Silicon Valley companies. They are nested together in the San Tomas Business Park, one of probably hundreds of such company parks throughout our high-tech valley.

Humanitarian organizations, medical research, telecom, technical research and support companies, and companies whose products are a mystery are all mixed in together. Each is in an office space that is maybe twenty feet from the door of the next such space. All that differentiates them is the sign on a series of identical glass doors.

This particular office park has been around long enough to boast large redwoods and other mature trees among its plantings (which make it a pleasant lunchtime walk). I wonder how many of the tightly packed companies have been around long enough to see those trees grow?