Newsmaker: In Silicon Valley, help not wanted

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industry. They did lose a little share, but mainly what happened was that the aerospace market went away all over the place when the defense spending was cut. Other areas are hurting, too. It's just that we have more high tech here, so it's more important.

So you're not so concerned about Silicon Valley losing its status as the tech capital?

We're not growing in demand worldwide fast enough to support the kind of job growth that we had in the '90s.

I am concerned going ahead. I'm not concerned based on what's happened. I'm concerned about a different set of issues. I'm concerned about housing prices, and if people come here, whether they would find places for their kids in school.

Will they tolerate the commute? I'm worried about the quality of life and housing challenges in an increasingly competitive world. That's prospective--where we could lose our advantage, because people came here because it was a great place to live and work.

I've been hearing about companies trying to attract what would be offshore IT dollars by locating in lower-cost U.S. regions like Arkansas or Oklahoma City. Do you think there is a chance that those areas could challenge Silicon Valley?
They aren't doing our stuff. They are doing stuff, but they are not doing the innovation. We have a niche, and the venture capital numbers tell you the story. Whenever anything gets maturing, it's cost-conscious. It's not going to remain here in great numbers for a long time. I mean, 30 years ago, everybody said we were dead because of Malaysia and Taiwan.

That was when you were losing the manufacturing--circuit boards and stuff like that.
Yeah. We always have to be the next new thing. That's generically what we do, and the next new thing has not yet gone to Arkansas. The mature stuff may. But if you look at a chart, you don't see Silicon Valley losing a share of jobs dramatically. You just see the whole high-tech job base kind of going with no growth.

Do you think that it's more likely that the next new thing could start happening overseas more? So many Silicon Valley companies have manufacturing operations in Asia and are now putting research facilities in Bangalore.
Yes. I think the United States is in a competition we don't think we have to pay attention to.

		Special report Offshoring: The reality behind the politics CNET News.com examines the problems, solutions.

I think we're kind of trying to live off of our legacy. It's not a Silicon Valley problem; it's a national problem. There are other countries, including China and India, that now have science, technology and skilled people. And the Internet is a great leveler. So, yes, that's a national threat.

What would you do as the first one or two or three steps to improve the Silicon Valley economy, the high-tech economy? Is it the quality-of-life stuff that you would focus on?
Yeah, I would. I may be an outlier. But I would.

Give me an example what would you do.
Housing would be the No. 1 thing. If you went to talk to the city of San Jose and the economic development people, they got it. People around here are rezoning voluntarily. (They are taking) industrial research and development land that wouldn't be built until 2050, and putting in housing there. Every time they build a house, they help with the price. They say, "You can locate in Silicon Valley, and we've got more workers now, (and) they don't have to commute three hours."

So housing becomes a very important part of the competition. So does making sure that all of the schools are good. So wherever your workers locate in the region, their kids are going to a good school. It's important. And transportation--we have to have world-class mobility and world-class places to live because we're trying to compete for the best and the brightest. We are not competing for the stuff that's going to Arkansas.

Do you worry about the notion that the tech industry has gotten lot of negative press over the past couple of years? People have heard about the offshoring stuff, the dot-com bust and high rates of unemployment in the tech field. Do you think there is a need for the tech industry to almost have a public-relations campaign to get people interested?
No. California just passed the stem cell funding initiative. Everybody got really excited, and we all kind of "got it" that way. I think the excitement comes back the minute you do something tangible. We may not have the levels of job growth that we had before, but that's a productivity phenomenon. Google was exciting.

Even the space efforts, I imagine, can generate interest.
Yeah. And there's a big nanotech initiative at NASA here that the congressmen got funded. We could be the nanotech center and the stem cell center.  

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[jswap]

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What a wack job.