Cold War Armory: Military Contracting in Silicon Valley

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Heinrich
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Venture Capitalists ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Continuous Innovation ◽  
Microwave Electronics ◽  
Military Contractors ◽  
Hard Times

Silicon Valley is frequently portrayed as a manifestation of postindustrial entrepreneurship, where ingenious inventor-businessmen and venture capitalists forged a dynamic, high-tech economy unencumbered by government's “heavy hand.” Closer examination reveals that government played a major role in launching and sustaining some of the region's core industries through military contracting. Focusing on leading firms in the microwave electronics, missile, satellite, and semiconductor industries, this article argues that demand for customized military technology encouraged contractors to embark on a course of flexible specialization, batch production, and continuous innovation. Thriving throughout much of the Cold War, major military contractors fell on hard times when defense markets started to shrink in the late 1980s, because specialized design and production capabilities were rarely applicable to civilian product lines. But Pentagon funding for research and development helped lay the technological groundwork for a new generation of startups, contributing to Silicon Valley's economic renaissance in the 1990s.

Collaboration Among Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists

2019 ◽  
pp. 200-219
Author(s):  
Lyda Bigelow ◽  
Jennifer Kuan ◽  
Kyle Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Venture Capital ◽  
Regulatory Focus ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Venture Capitalists ◽  
Regulatory Focus Theory ◽  
Industry Clusters ◽  
Entrepreneurial Ventures ◽  
Point Of Entry

Regional differences among industry clusters have long been a puzzle, especially when performance differences are significant. This chapter examines the case of venture capital investing, in which Silicon Valley differs from the rest of the world despite attempts to imitate its model. The point of entry in this chapter is the contract between venture capitalist and entrepreneur. Although such contracts have been analyzed in other research, this chapter argues that the psychological effects of different contract styles are of primary importance to innovative outcomes of entrepreneurial ventures. Thus, it argues that regulatory focus theory, which considers the psychological effects of contracting, is essential to understanding differences in practice and outcomes in venture capital clusters.

scholarly journals The Silicon Valley Syndrome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olav Sorenson ◽  
Doris Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Venture Capital ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
High Tech ◽  
High Tech Sector ◽  
Tradable Sector

How does expansion in the high-tech sector influence the broader economy of a region? We demonstrate that an infusion of venture capital in a region appears associated with: (i) a decline in entrepreneurship, employment, and average incomes in other industries in the tradable sector; (ii) an increase in entrepreneurship and employment in the non-tradable sector; and (iii) an increase in income inequality in the non-tradable sector. An expansion in the high-tech sector therefore appears to lead to a less diverse tradable sector and to increasing inequality in the region.

The ‘Good War’ after September 11

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lawler
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
New Wars ◽  
The Cold War

Rather Than Signalling The End Of War, As Many Liberal Minds had hoped, the end of the cold war has seen ‘hot’ war moving firmly to centre-stage, while at the same time presaging a reclassification of its predominant forms and purposes. Since 1990 there has been a rash of what Kaldor calls ‘new wars’. Although often highly localized, they confound settled understandings of inter-state or civil war by virtue of the diverse range of protagonists involved, the issues over which they are fought, and their consistently brutal impact upon civilians. A virtual revolution in media technology has also made such wars publicly visible to an unprecedented degree. In spite of the fact that new wars are often fought without recourse to the most sophisticated or destructive of military technology, the horrific impact upon populations caught up in them has clearly assaulted public sensibilities worldwide and generated a chorus of demands that something should be done about them. Consequently, the political and ethical dimensions of going to war in response to such threats have also moved in from the periphery to the centre of public and intellectual debate. As Walzer has recently observed, the ‘chief dilemma of international politics is whether people in danger should be rescued by military forces from outside’. From the point of view of the key members of the international community at least, armed ‘humanitarian intervention’ is no longer just a form of war but has become virtually synonymous with permissible war itself.

Cultural Differences in Trust in High-Tech International Business Ventures

2012 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Alexandra Gerbasi ◽  
Dominika Latusek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Field Study ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Start Up

This chapter presents results from the qualitative field study conducted in a Silicon Valley-based American-Polish start-up joint venture. It investigates the issues of collaboration within one firm that is made up of individuals from two countries that differ dramatically in generalized trust: Poland and the United States. The authors explore differences between thick, knowledge-based forms of trust and thin, more social capital-oriented forms of trust, and they discuss how these affect collaboration between representatives of both cultures. Finally, the authors address how these differences in trust can both benefit an organization and also cause it difficulties in managing its employees.

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