Silicon Valley: From Electronic Warfare to Big Data

Recently I watched one of Ayasdi’s angel investors, Steve Blank, talk about the history of Silicon Valley and how the genesis of the Valley has deep ties to the US Defense Department and Stanford University (reminds me of Ayasdi’s history). According to Steve, Defense investment was the first major wave of growth that the Valley experienced; this growth was built around electronic warfare.

Recently I watched one of Ayasdi’s angel investors, Steve Blank, talk about the history of Silicon Valley and how the genesis of the Valley has deep ties to the US Defense Department and Stanford University (reminds me of Ayasdi’s history). According to Steve, Defense investment was the first major wave of growth that the Valley experienced; this growth was built around electronic warfare. Following electronic warfare were integrated circuits, personal computers, and then the internet, each phase giving birth to some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies including Intel, Apple, and Netscape.

This raises the question: what technology is fueling the next growth of the Valley? Is it cloud, social, mobile, or a combination of all three?

Here at Ayasdi we believe that all of these technologies are connected through one important commonality, and that is Big Data. By allowing individuals to quickly discover important information through the use of data, organizations are given the power to make smarter data-driven business decisions. Simply put, Big Data has the power to propel technology, energy, and pharmaceutical companies alike to the next level, and everyone in the world is paying attention.

Recently BBC News covered top technologies in the Valley highlighting specific companies in a piece titled “The Next Tech Billionaires”. During the segment they featured Ayasdi’s Big Data solution, Iris, alongside Instagram, Stanford University, and other companies to watch (17Min 17Sec).

We all know data is important, but is it going to be as big as the internet? The answer is unequivocally YES, it is going to be even bigger. This is not a trend but a fundamental shift in organizational operations. In today’s day and age, employees and companies now have the ability to stop making critical business decisions with impartial data. Individuals can now turn to their data in order to create, transform, and build successful organizations.