How the Silicon Valley Innovation Ecosystem Creates Success
![Stephen](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/03hnmfyj/production/7405b41ee3ca3c4657865e3dd9b9964dbff2c82d-1680x2100.jpg?rect=224,58,1233,1676&w=64&h=87&or=0&q=100&fit=clip&auto=format)
Silicon Valley boasts perhaps the most unique, difficult-to-replicate regional innovation ecosystem in the world. The presentation explores five key characteristics that make Silicon Valley so distinct: 1) its five world-class research universities, five U.S. national laboratories, and dozens of world-class corporate and private research institutions; 2) a half-century of intense federal R&D investment; 3) 40 percent of U.S. venture capital invested and seven of America’s top ten VC investors; 4) 6 of the world’s top 10 ICT companies located with a ten-square-mile radius; and 5) a concentration of both advanced-degree holders and foreign-born start-up founders more than twice the national average. The presentation also explains how companies in the Valley are different, particularly that they use a “need-seeker” strategy that strives to address unarticulated needs and seeks to be first-to-market with the resulting new products and services.