Silicon Valley is a region based in Northern California, serving as the international centre for high innovation and technology. Silicon Valley is home to various global technological corporations. Technologies like microcomputers, microprocessors and silicon-based integrated circuits were invented, changing the course of the contemporary world. Silicon Valley has become synonymous with collaboration, creativity and innovation. Silicon Valley has maintained its exceptional reputation, having global brands like Google, Facebook, Apple and Netflix. The culture of Silicon Valley has been incorporated into modern workplaces around the globe. It is often referred to as Silicon Valley North since Vancouver is referred emerging ecosystem for digital, media and software ventures with favourable immigration policies, permissive tax schemes and proximity to Silicon Valley. It has become home to various technological giants, changing the course of the contemporary technological world. Silicon Valley is now for both unicorns and black swans. It depends on the perspective of the individuals (Audretsch, 2021). The essay highlights the political, social and economic ideas shaping the culture of Silicon Valley at the current time.
Silicon Valley represents an entire category of politics, representing capitalism and competition. The ideology is based on the context of liberalism within the democratic party. For instance, there is a strong belief in the importance of the role of the government in empowering individuals to make a valuable contribution to the growth and development of Silicon Valley. It can be inferred that Silicon Valley was created by civil society, mainly focusing on innovation and creativity. There is no concept of conflict and competition between libertarians in Silicon Valley, and there only exists cooperation and mutual benefit to develop compelling solutions. These political ideas shape the culture of Silicon Valley (Pahnke & Welter, 2018). In this culture, the teams learn to self-organise as employees from different business functions collaborate to work on different projects by habit, not just good ideas and exceptions. The primary idea is to obtain momentum by attracting talent from different aspects of the business.
Silicon Valley is a hotspot for unicorn businesses, where most companies have roots in the United States of America. Additionally, it has high value unicorns from US and other parts of the world as depicted in figure 1 (Statista, 2022a). The networking and onenesses impacts of the Metaverse will enable explosive growth and development while placing implications on its main operations on the global scale. In the current world, politicians only refer to Silicon Valley as a symbol of an exceptional future for the growth and development of the local region. Silicon Valley is considered a tool of political rhetoric, indicating the benefits of deploying the metaphor of Silicon Valley in international settings are highly tangible (Cherrier & Saïdi, 2019). The heterotypic function of Silicon Valley refers to the model of success providing the chance to the government institutions to evoke electors to facilitate accordingly. Based on the paradox perspective, the significant gap between the global counterparts and Silicon Valley is quite suggestive, referring to the inimitability of Silicon Valley. This indicates that politics are potentially absolved from delivering the promises. The metaphor associated with Silicon Valley is not identified as a mere instrument of journalistic tokenism or public relations strategy (Hall et al., 2019). Instead, it can be referred to as an idea of political rhetoric that summons the pretension of desires, with similarities being proof of the collaborative role in the global environment. These ideas evidently shape the current culture of Silicon Valley.
Figure 1: Highest Valley unicorns at Silicon Valley (Statista, 2022a)
Silicon Valley is based on a compelling economic framework encouraging the growth and development of small and medium-sized enterprises. These enterprises started with the different types of venture capital with the heavy beach of elusive unicorn status. These unicorn startups are valued at at least USD 1.5 billion upon public flotation. This indicates that this status is more ambitious and extensive than entrepreneurialism identified by various researchers. The term unicorn is easier to be recognised and matched in the technological world, as a unicorn is a creature directly associated with heroic fantasy. This literature aspect of the unicorn is largely impressed and appreciated by the protagonist of Silicon Valley (Lusoli & Turner, 2020). For example, various unicorns were developed by buyouts from significant public organisations. The bigger companies would boost their businesses by buying the technological business world instead of creating the idea from scratch.
The above economic idea has shaped the culture of Silicon Valley, which is more people-oriented. There is a strong emphasis on people’s fundamental and central role in economic activities (Palego & Pierce, 2020). It also provides immense opportunities for employees to develop freely and comprehensively. Businesses realise that a people-oriented culture is crucial to achieving success, mainly focusing on praise, recognition, empathy and positivity. When the employees will feel listened to and valued, they will more likely be motivated to work hard and maintain the reputation of Silicon Valley’s culture. Furthemore, the economic impact of the while San Francisoc Bay is quite high as it adds value to the GDP to reach 525 billion USD in 2020 (Statista, 2022b).
Figure 2: GDP contribution (Statista, 2022b)
The emergence of the coronavirus impacted the different aspects of economic conditions in Silicon Valley and the greater community. The outbreak of the coronavirus has magnified problems that had primarily plagued Silicon Valley. The employees facing the struggles of increasing costs, division of wealth and gaping income were impacted the most. While some employees were easily able to transition to work at home or a hybrid business model, other employees faced unemployment issues or had to risk exposure to the deadly virus (Huggins & Thompson, 2022). The income equality of Silicon Valley was increased twice by the emergence of the coronavirus. This economic aspect negatively shaped the culture of Silicon Valley. It took a certain amount of time to effectively manage the side effects of the outbreak of the coronavirus, especially for startups.
The local businesses and technological industry got involved to combat the issues created by the emergence of the coronavirus. For example, Apple donated USD 16 million to support the employees largely impacted by the virus. The idea was to lessen the coronavirus outbreak’s overall impact on Silicon Valley’s culture. Apple also sourced more than 20 million masks for donation to the medical workers while actively working with suppliers to produce and distribute face shields (P. Chandran, 2022). This economic idea positively impacted the growth and development of Silicon Valley’s culture. It indicates that giant technology firms like Apple did their part to revive Silicon Valley’s cultural dynamics.
Technological business individuals in Silicon Valley are considered the most left-leaning democrats who are quite liberal. The individuals actively support different economic measures to effectively allocate and divide the money among the social classes. This means that higher taxes should be imposed on individuals from the high socioeconomic class while providing immense social benefits for those from the low socioeconomic class (Letterman, 2022). The international view of Silicon Valley’s culture is cosmopolitan and international, mostly favouring free trade and implementing immigration policies to promote positivity. The idea is to provide new opportunities to ensure social protection.
Silicon Valley-based startups need to embrace social ideas and promote sustainable living, people power and healthy living. Startup accelerators and venture capitalists have begun to fund young technological companies in the United States of America and emerging economies like Indonesia, Vietnam and Nigeria. For example, more than 500 startups have invested to effectively address ideas like financial inclusion, decent work, education and sustainable food. It has become imperative for businesses to become socially responsible for meeting the expectations of the workers and promoting a positive image in the minds of the customers.
Silicon Valley is a region based in Northern California, serving as the international centre for high innovation and technology. Silicon Valley is home to various global technological corporations. Silicon Valley represents an entire category of politics, representing capitalism and competition. The ideology is based on the context of liberalism within the democratic party. Silicon Valley is a hotspot for unicorn businesses, where most companies have roots in the United States of America. The networking and onenesses impacts of the Metaverse will enable explosive growth and development while placing implications on its main operations on the global scale. Silicon Valley is based on a compelling economic framework encouraging the growth and development of small and medium-sized enterprises. These enterprises started with the different types of venture capital with the heavy beach of elusive unicorn status. Technological business individuals in Silicon Valley are considered the most left-leaning democrats who are quite liberal. The individuals actively support different economic measures to effectively allocate and divide the money among the social classes.
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