George Ryan Jones

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1101-103
Oct. 18 2014 Draft 1
Silicon Valley portrayed in 4 genres
The Silicon Valley is much more than an area of land on the southern coast of California.
Otherwise known as Santa Clara valley or SV, this 30 miles long by 15 miles wide area is home
to most of the top technology companies around, as well as thousands of start-up companies
that have seemed to avoid the recession, because they produce almost every piece of
technology youll see on a day-to-day basis. Inside the hub of technology, the home-town
college is Stanford University, known widely as the best science school around. Stanford
produces the majority of highly-qualified employees for this area, for instance the founders of
Google, Yahoo, Cisco, etc. all received their degrees from this close-by university. Now that the
technology world is booming, many intelligent people are congregating to make a change, and
the world is beginning to notice. In this paper Im analyzing how 4 different genres of pieces
represent the concept of the Silicon Valley. Ill be comparing a slideshow, pictures of the valley
from 1990-current, a web-article from an SV magazine discussing the exponential growth, and
an academic article arguing against SVs future.
Visual Piece: http://goo.gl/FyCm1u
New York Times slideshow: A week in Silicon Valley
I picked this slideshow as an example because it doesnt primarily discuss just the
technology produced in the Valley. To me flipping through these elaborated pictures of the

computer museums, wineries, engineer hangout spots, and restaurants owned by ex-Google
employees makes me able to see more of the culture experienced by these well-treated
employees. It seems great to me that beyond work culture, there are plenty of social
opportunities with locals that have the same interests. I think that this slideshow was meant to
make an adult want to visit the area using Pathos and a small amount of Ethos persuasion, due
to the pictures of informal restaurants, bars, and museums, while leaving the Silicon Valley
experience by showing the enormous effect the people who work in the environment have on
their surroundings.
Silicon Valley images (pictures shown below text)
These images are posters displaying the layout of the Silicon Valley, and show the locations of
the tech companies in the area. I decided to pick a map from 1990, as well as a current one
because it shows the incredible changes the area has undergone since the peak of the
Information Age. Not every company can become a giant, so many companies have changed
hands, been bought, renamed, or gone bankrupt. These have been as much due to business
strategies as the difficulty of working a developing market. However there are some companies
still around from way back when. Intel, Oracle and HP were all big businesses, while Apple and
Google were merely startups with lofty goals, and many major players like Yahoo didnt exist
yet.
During this age, HP made the decision to appoint the first woman CEO of a Fortune 20
company, a major breakthrough in the business world. People today would find it hard to live
without a smartphone let alone a basic PC, both objects people in the past used to live without.
I believe smartphones today are viewed similar to PCs in the 1990s, or radios in the 1900s. I

find these relatable because theyre innovations that weve created for our convenience that
weve become reliant upon.
Pictures:
Silicon Valley in 1990:

Silicon Valley current

Web article: http://goo.gl/OKodyI

SFGate magazine: Growth of a silicon empire
This article documents the history and causes of development in Santa Clara county that
led to the creation of the Silicon Valley. Before reading this, I didnt understand the effects

Stanfords noninvolvement with the military (due to the governments contracts with MIT) had.
While this did affect their funded research projects being commercial, it specifically lead to the
scientists graduating from this college to turn to entrepreneurial pursuits, rather than
government employment. The writer of this article portrays Logos well, he focuses on specific
events, explains their results, and builds on them. This piece in reality seems like less of an
article, and more of a documentation of SV progress written by a local. It seems the writer is
trying to make the reader aware of the history behind this area, key players, and computing in
general. Thanks to the sections pertaining to each subject and the authors ability to use facts,
unlike the academic article, I now understand how the entrepreneurs were connected, and the
history of computing and the Silicon Valley.
Academic article: http://goo.gl/bXSQuz
Richard Florida / Martin Kenney: Silicon Valley and Route 128 Wont Save Us
I tried reading this article for proof behind the author entitling the article negatively and
attempting to base the entirety of it around the supposed future failure of Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs. However none of the stated problems that have actual basis logically connect to
the authors opinion on the future of the valley. For example the author states Silicon Valley
and Route 128 firms contract out a large and growing share of manufacturing to specialized
"contract manufacturers" and states these companies are buying from outside the country, but
gives Flextronics, a leading contract manufacturer for Silicon Valley semiconductor firms, has
plants in the Sunbelt, New England, Southern California, and Hong Kong, as well as Silicon
Valley. as an example to this. So logically these outside contract manufacturers are all in
America except for Hong Kong? As well as that fact, I did some research and discovered that not

only all outside contract manufacturers actually owned by Flextronics, the only reason they
own a location was because they had bought a manufacturing company in Hong Kong. So much
for this information is completely contradictory towards the authors entire argument about us
outsourcing our semiconductors, and unveiled the tactic he was using to create fear of other
countries overtaking us. Both authors completely ignore the fact that the economic majority of
capital from technology produced in the Silicon Valley is not industrially produced hardware,
but actually software and design concepts. The Author refuses to recognize many arguments
that disprove his statements, such as benefits of factories outside the valley, fragmentation of
business structure, benefits of collaborating with other countries on home soil, as well as the
fact we are highly advanced compared to many competitors (something he says is incorrect) .
Due to these examples as well as several others I didnt write, the authors style
screamed Pathos to me, which I do not believe an academic article should be. The authors
twisted information about companies, and used quotes about situations that have been
resolved. The author even stated it was a huge issue that not all of the factories are in this small
30 miles wide by 15 miles long area, when in reality the current factories there are creating
toxic environment, because of improper disposal methods in the city. I understand several
points concluded in this article about lawsuits and intellectual law are true current issues (that
will be resolved in a few months), however the majority of this article is intentionally
misleading.

Bibliography:
Visual piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/08/27/travel/20100905SILICON.html

"A Weekend in Silicon Valley." The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Aug. 2010.
Web. 24 Oct. 2014.
Silicon valley images:
http://siliconangle.com/files/2011/01/silicon_valley.jpg
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-silicon-valley-looked-like-in-1991-2014-10
Web article:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/GROWTH-OF-A-SILICON-EMPIRE-Bay-Area-sfertile-2888303.php

Norr, Henry. "GROWTH OF A SILICON EMPIRE." SFGate. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

Academic article:
http://uncc.worldcat.org/oclc/1430346613755

Florida, Richard, and Martin Kenney. "Silicon Valley and Route 128 Won't Save Us."
[UNC Charlotte Libraries]. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.