Browsing Tag

Silicon Valley

The Context of Dirt

To understand generosity is to understand thankfulness. I’ll explain with a story about dirt.

What we now call Silicon Valley was once vast fruit orchards. I remember growing up in San Jose and walking through cherry orchards on my way to school, and I’m not even old enough for social security. Imagine what the old timers could tell us!

When I was four we moved to a home with a small area in the backyard meant for a garden, but at various times it was my play area. One time I wanted to dig a foxhole, probably something I had …

Goble Properties,

A Short Walk Down Goble Lane

One of my earliest work related recollections as a child is sweeping out a metal building on Goble Lane in South San Jose. My Dad purchased the property in the 1950’s to start a wrecking yard, and over the years he had built metal buildings that he leased to small businesses. We sold the property about 15-years ago.

Just recently a colleague sent a picture of Goble Lane as viewed from Communication Hill in South San Jose. The wrecking yard is gone of course, and so is the small trailer park next door. So is the concrete batch plant that

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Book Reviews,

The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson

One of the hottest books of the year is The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. After the amazing success (and timing) of his book about Steve Jobs, in this new book Isaacson explains how the process of innovation has commonalities no matter the people, places, institutions or even centuries involved.

It’s a touch of brilliant marketing. Take the hottest field of our era (technology), combine with many of the richest people in the world (Gates etc.), look at a topic of great interest (innovation), and then draft a historical …