The piece that caught my eye is the notion that the soul of Silicon Valley is moving north. I heard it working in Cupertino and I'm hearing it in the bay area. The question is will the old guard (and I'm including Facebook here) be enough to keep the valley...in the valley?
I mostly see stay-at-home moms when I go to lunch on Castro in Mountain View. I feel out of place out here but I am not dealing with SF.
(I consult and am starting my own thing, I don't need to be in SF.)
I think this is more a consequence of Google glomming up every available sizable office building that comes on the market in Mountain View since they, as well as other large employers like LinkedIn and MSFT--and some smaller companies, like Sumo Logic where I work--offer free lunch.
I've been running and getting lunch with a LinkedIn employee lately, I definitely know what you're talking about. The thing is, those people are all out on Shoreline and more or less isolated. What bothers me is that most of the younger startup people like me are usually in PA or head up to the city first chance they get.