What can we learn from Silicon Valley in the Netherlands?
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2025 6:15 am
Silicon Valley is “hot”. Many Dutch municipalities are putting themselves on the economic map with a subtle reference to this Mecca of innovative entrepreneurship. The Financieel Dagblad recently counted no fewer than 13 valleys in the Netherlands, 9 deltas, 32 campuses, 20 innovation parks and 116 partnerships. The number of missions by ambitious aldermen and provincial executives, but also by directors of knowledge institutions, to Silicon Valley is countless.
This raises the question in the Valley itself whether a bit more coordination would not be useful. The appeal of this high-tech innovation region in the strip of approximately 90 kilometers between San Francisco and San Jose is great. A region with the most startups in the world. And our country also wants to stick its chest out. Whether that will succeed is not a matter of copy & paste, but depends on the question of whether we can unravel the secret of Silicon Valley. Whether we understand the factors that make Silicon Valley a success and can give them a smart place in our own innovation ambitions. My research with colleague Arne Maas shows that it is about a unique interplay of institutional and cultural factors.
The Silicon Valley Ecosystem
So how does this fascinating ecosystem work? First of all, Silicon Valley has a rich history of technological innovation that goes back more than three quarters of a century. It all started australia telegram number list with the development of radio technology, the vacuum tube and oscillators in the 1920s and 1930s, the invention of the silicon transistor and the integrated circuit in the 1950s, the development of defense technology and space technology during the Cold War, and later in the 1970s the memory chip and microprocessor.
All this formed the breeding ground for the computer revolution of the seventies and the high-tech software explosion as we know it today. In short, you become an innovative hotspot if you can boast a history of technological innovation.
Access to motivated and highly educated talent
The institutional characteristics of your ecosystem must point in the right direction. For Silicon Valley, with almost 300,000 students in the immediate vicinity, the best universities in the world (Stanford, Berkeley), access to motivated and highly educated talent is assured. Talent that effortlessly finds its way to the high-tech giants in the Valley. These public and private universities have a long tradition of valorizing technological innovation. A tradition that is cherished. As early as the 1950s, Stanford encouraged its professors to start startups around the exploitation of their technical inventions. Fundamental research and commercialization go hand in hand here.
stanford university students
Students are also encouraged to become startup entrepreneurs. And they are all succeeding. HP, Google, Cisco, Yahoo, PayPal, eBay, LinkedIn and Tesla all started as startups founded by Stanford alumni.
Access to capital
Access to capital is well assured: almost 16% of global and more than half of American venture capital ends up in Silicon Valley. And this is not just about hard dollars but also about smart money : venture capitalists who also offer their networks, experience and knowledge.
There is also (unlike what is often thought in the Netherlands) a government that invests heavily in science and technology. Also as a launching customer . And that is also not from today. Just think of the billions of dollars that were (and are) invested in defense technology.
This raises the question in the Valley itself whether a bit more coordination would not be useful. The appeal of this high-tech innovation region in the strip of approximately 90 kilometers between San Francisco and San Jose is great. A region with the most startups in the world. And our country also wants to stick its chest out. Whether that will succeed is not a matter of copy & paste, but depends on the question of whether we can unravel the secret of Silicon Valley. Whether we understand the factors that make Silicon Valley a success and can give them a smart place in our own innovation ambitions. My research with colleague Arne Maas shows that it is about a unique interplay of institutional and cultural factors.
The Silicon Valley Ecosystem
So how does this fascinating ecosystem work? First of all, Silicon Valley has a rich history of technological innovation that goes back more than three quarters of a century. It all started australia telegram number list with the development of radio technology, the vacuum tube and oscillators in the 1920s and 1930s, the invention of the silicon transistor and the integrated circuit in the 1950s, the development of defense technology and space technology during the Cold War, and later in the 1970s the memory chip and microprocessor.
All this formed the breeding ground for the computer revolution of the seventies and the high-tech software explosion as we know it today. In short, you become an innovative hotspot if you can boast a history of technological innovation.
Access to motivated and highly educated talent
The institutional characteristics of your ecosystem must point in the right direction. For Silicon Valley, with almost 300,000 students in the immediate vicinity, the best universities in the world (Stanford, Berkeley), access to motivated and highly educated talent is assured. Talent that effortlessly finds its way to the high-tech giants in the Valley. These public and private universities have a long tradition of valorizing technological innovation. A tradition that is cherished. As early as the 1950s, Stanford encouraged its professors to start startups around the exploitation of their technical inventions. Fundamental research and commercialization go hand in hand here.
stanford university students
Students are also encouraged to become startup entrepreneurs. And they are all succeeding. HP, Google, Cisco, Yahoo, PayPal, eBay, LinkedIn and Tesla all started as startups founded by Stanford alumni.
Access to capital
Access to capital is well assured: almost 16% of global and more than half of American venture capital ends up in Silicon Valley. And this is not just about hard dollars but also about smart money : venture capitalists who also offer their networks, experience and knowledge.
There is also (unlike what is often thought in the Netherlands) a government that invests heavily in science and technology. Also as a launching customer . And that is also not from today. Just think of the billions of dollars that were (and are) invested in defense technology.