Why Silicon Valley could become tomorrow's Detroit

Dozens of tech hubs around the world have dreamed of nipping at Silicon Valley’s heels, but in 2020 those dreams are starting to look like reality. Thanks to Covid-19, “the spreading out of tech is having a 10-year acceleration,” says Rana Sarkar, Canada’s consul general for San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Before the pandemic, mid-size cities across North America and Europe and major Asian centers would create startup accelerators only to struggle to retain their local talent or attract venture capital — one of the leading measures of success, pre-pandemic. Today it’s more about keeping talent at your company, wherever that talent happens to be. “The more broadly we can appeal to people, in terms of letting them work from anywhere and ... letting them contribute at a high level from anywhere, that’s our plan,” said Okta CEO Todd McKinnon. Silicon Valley’s ability to cluster talent has long been tied to colleges like Stanford University and a profusion of venture capital. Stanford is going strong — pandemic disruptions notwithstanding — but Palo Alto’s famed Sand Hill Road is no longer the only place startup founders flock as they seek to raise cash. The world’s biggest tech-focused venture capital fund is now SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which is Japanese-owned and Saudi-financed.