Venture capitalist Bill Ericson of Mohr, Davidow Ventures and other venture capitalists tell the Christian Science Monitor that they are starting to actively invest once again.
Moreover, it is times like now, when scientists and entrepreneurs can fully turn their attentions toward a new generation of innovation, that the technological cornerstones for the next boom are laid. "Today, a lot of that noise [from the Internet boom] is gone," says Ericson. "It is an environment of stability ... where you can work toward building up a good idea." Adds fellow venture capitalist Allan Thygesen of the Carlyle Group in San Francisco: "It is no different from the first half of the 1990s."
This comes on the heels of a tech sector downturn so severe that the Census Bureau estimates that from July 2001 to July 2002 San Francisco's population was the most rapidly declining of any city in the United States.
San Francisco's population fell 1.5 percent to 764,049. Nearby Sunnyvale and Daly City were among the Top 10 losers. San Jose declined 0.6 percent to 900,443.
Sunnyvale is next on the list, losing 1.4 percent of its residents in one year
The region has suffered big job losses.
Experts attribute the population losses to sweeping layoffs in the high-tech sector. The Bay Area lost an estimated 313,000 jobs from December 2000 to December 2002.
One problem that Silicon Valley faces is that it is less unique than it used to be. There are other cities with concentrations of highly skilled engineers and programmers. Also, communications cost reductions have reduced the need to co-locate as many different kinds of workers. I think they face a tougher time coming back this time than they have during previous tech downturns.
Posted by Randall Parker at July 17, 2003 08:42 PM