cwc@daisy.UUCP (C.W. Chung) (06/11/85)
I always enjoy and respect Roger & Gene's At The Movies. On last Sunday's
program, while commenting on AVTAK, they have made two intriguing remarks.
First, Roger mentioned that Silicon Valley is not a producer but a consumer
of semicounductors (the chips). Then Gene half-jokingly said that he
didn't care if Project Mainstrike kills all those millionaires in the Silicon
Valley (SV).
I am not looking for scientific facts in Bond's movies. Walken said that
SV accounts for 80% of world IC is a gross exaggeration. However,
Roger also erred in asserting that SV does not produce any IC.
To set the record straight, I have done a bit of findings. U.S. still accounts
for over 60% of world-wide IC production, while Japan produces over 30%.
The rest mainly comes from Europe (watch for Korea). I would estimate that more
half of U.S.'s production comes from Silicon Valley (that's what the folks at
Intel, AMD, Fairchild, Signectics, National Semi, LSI Logic, VTI ... doing,
right?) That would puts SV production to be more than 30% of world production,
not a trivial amount.
SV may be a net importer of IC. I have no figures to confirm or deny this.
(U.S. becomes a net importer of electronic equipment recently, but it is due
in large part to the consumer electronics and I have seen no regional breakdown
of the trade).
But even if SV imports more than it exports, it is only because there are even
more system houses/integrators here.
(I would like to think the world cannot afford to lose SV. I am not going
to let Roger spoiling my fun :|-)
Gene's remark seems to suggest that folks here are all Steve Jobs, just
dream up some products, make them and sell them, and then we are all
millionaires. I am interested to find out if that is a prevalent image
that SV projects. I am particularly interested in the thought of those
who live/work outside of the Bay Areas.
For myself, I am nowhere near a millionaire (or even a tenth of it).
I am just working for a living (although not too shabby). If what Jobs or
Hewlett/Packard are the good news, then I got some bad news for those who
may think that SV is glittered with gold: for every one company that succeeds,
there are nine others that go to nowhere (some even put it to 19).
Even the successful ones are not immune to the late downturn of IC
and computer industry. Intel, National, AMD, Fairchild, Apple.. all have
forced-vacation, layoff or extended working hours. (Even Steven Jobs just
lost his jobs (as Executive Vice President?) ).
The atmosphere here, in spite of all these, still encourges entrepreneuship
and the willingness to take risk. That's why these ar so many start-ups.
I still enjoys Gene & Roger's program.
--
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!daisy!cwc Chi Wo Chung
Daisy System Corp, 700 Middlefield Road, Mountain View CA 94039. (415)960-6976