I spent some time today looking at a book chapter, “Silicon Valley Networks,” from The Silicon Valley Edge. This chapter is by Emilio J Castilla, Hokyu Hwang, Ellen Granovetter, and Mark Granovetter.
They analyzed the social networks in Silicon Valley and how they contributed to the success of the Valley over time, with the kinds of social network maps you’d expect to see. But they also highlight the conditions of success of those networks, which were a unique blend of culture, mix of and interplay among educational institutions and high-tech startups (and the brokerage role of research centers), and the way that supporting business roles like lawyers, venture capitalists, and audit firms also became embedded in networks of their own. This was written in 2000, and I expect that they have continued the research, though I haven’t come across it yet.

It was hard not to be reminded (especially since they referenced it), the 1994 book, The Regional Advantage, which notably contrasted the success of Silicon Valley at the time of the demise of Route 128. Although she is careful to point out that the true difference was between the industrial systems set up in these regions following World War II, author AnnaLee Saxenian, couldn’t help but remark on superficial explanation that was current at the time: the “laid back” California had bested the “buttoned up” East Coast.

I was working for a Route 128 company at the time, and I remain on the East Coast, which has become more unbuttoned now around the Kendall Square area, where we have a similar proximity of universities, biotech and high-tech startups, and research collectives. But I do remember reading excerpts from this book at that time and being a bit sad, because I was in one of those vertically integrated companies that are governed by hierarchies, closely kept boundaries, and a code of loyalty. As a product of that culture, it took me quite a while to shake loose of those patterns, and some perhaps remain.

Also in 1994, there was a rumor that we’d be getting a Nordstrom in Boston, but the rumor was quashed very quickly. One of my co-workers laughed and said (in reference, I supposed to the notorious behavior of some of Boston’s crankiest, sassiest, sharpest-toungued, surliest waitresses), “they probably couldn’t find enough nice people to work there.”

Nordstrom’s is scheduled to open in Natick this fall (not Boston, but close enough). At least, that’s changed.