I recently headed west to visit my son in Palo Alto, California, home of Stanford University. The lodging costs in Palo Alto and nearby towns were very high, so my wife and I decided to stay a little farther south in Santa Clara, one of the many pulses of Silicon Valley.
Right outside my door were the headquarters for Sun, Yahoo, and Mcafee. Up the street in Mountain View were one of Microsoft’s California offices, and the mother of all search engines, Google.
I expected a monolith tower to the mighty Google god, but instead found a quiet business park as non-descript as any other you might find in San Antonio. They did occupy quite a few buildings, so it was more akin to USAA’s campus.
Nothing remarkable on the outside, but a world of innovation on the inside. I guess that sums up the whole Silicon Valley experience. But I’ll have to find out for sure another day. This time it was just a quick peek as I wandered around Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay area.
