The San Francisco Bay Area has long been America’s, and the world’s, premier startup hub. The very idea of a high-tech startup was born there in the late 1950s, when a group of young techies launched the seminal firm Fairchild Semiconductor (which spun off a host of companies, including Intel).
Anywhere from a third to half of the founders of Silicon Valley’s high-tech startups are immigrants from outside the United States, according to recent studies. It’s not just that startups and entrepreneurs move to the Bay Area of their own volition. The stories of Silicon Valley venture capitalists insisting that entrepreneurs and companies relocate to the Bay Area as a condition of investment are legion.
