How many engineers have you met that grew up in Silicon Valley?

Because when Silicon Valley established its dominance, access to computing resources, digital networks, tech talent, and venture capital were by far the crucial factors. All those things were much rarer back then, and startups more costly, especially to get off the ground. Given today’s low costs and ubiquitous computing and internet access — and the trends in this direction even 20 years ago - it makes sense other, softer factors can now come into play.