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Comment by icapybara | Hacker News Reader

Much of Silicon Valley is hardware work that literally can’t be done from home.

In 2023? Do you have statistics? I want to believe, but isn’t it mostly web shops of one type or another, like everywhere else on the planet?

The Valley is mostly tech, while SF is more the web shops. SF didn't even have much tech exposure at all until the dotcom boom; in 2000 it was still mostly old line industries (a stock exchange!) and music and other art. People in tech lived up there and commuted to work in the Valley.

I don’t have statistics. It’s in the name though, “silicon” valley. The South Bay is home to the semiconductor industry and its ecosystem.

My own company has about 15k employees in San Jose, and we’re all back to the office full time. Many of us can’t do our jobs from home, it’s hardware work.

The "Silicon" part of Silicon Valley is still very much relevant. Intel, AMD, nVidia, etc. all have major presences down there. There's also a multi-billion dollar industry supporting silicon design shops in various ways, and they're all in SV too.

That's also my perception.

Just by looking at buildings and job offerings, there seems to be more hardware in the South Bay, vs. the peninsula or SF. Not sure about the Oakland area.

The article defines Silicon Valley as "Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, along with the cities of Fremont and Newark." I would have split out the first two.

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