In the 2000s, Silicon Valley (SV) was the epicenter of wealth creation, with giants like Google, Facebook, and Uber making it the place to be for big returns. Merely living in Silicon Valley often provided a front-row seat to early-stage opportunities that became massive successes. However, the internet has broadened access, opening doors to talent and ideas from all over the globe, and we're now seeing the results. Peter Thiel, ahead of the curve as usual, highlighted this shift back in 2018, and the cracks in the Valley’s monopoly are starting to show.
Today, major SaaS winners are emerging beyond SV—think Datadog, Ramp, and rising stars like Traba. The LA area is home to impressive successes like SpaceX and Anduril. Historically, dispersed centers of innovation are the norm, with companies like Amazon and Microsoft arising far from Silicon Valley. It was actually the extreme concentration of the Valley era that was unusual.
It’s not just about companies; leading venture capital firms outside the Valley, such as Thrive Capital, are also thriving. New ecosystems are developing, too; for example, Brooklyn has become a hub for the crypto community. This broader distribution of innovation means more competition. Investors who may struggle to adapt to this new era are often the ones who still don’t understand Bitcoin and crypto—an indicator of their disconnection from the future of decentralized innovation.
