Before Silicon Valley: The Government’s Forgotten Role in Innovation
For many, viewing the public sector as a powerhouse of innovation and entrepreneurship may raise a few highbrows. After all, we accept Silicon Valley as the center of modern-day innovation. But what if I told you that the roots of Silicon Valley are actually seated in the government?
Silicon Valley did not spring forth from sun-drenched garages and wild entrepreneurial dreams alone—it was conjured into being by the quiet machinery of the state. In the smoky aftermath of World War II, as the Cold War’s chill crept across the globe, the U.S. government turned its gaze inward, pouring treasure into laboratories and minds that could build the future before the enemy did.
Stanford became the hub of a new innovation ecosystem, where academia, startups, and government intertwined. Companies like Hewlett-Packard and Fairchild Semiconductor thrived on defense contracts, turning federally funded research into industry—and transforming the region into a powerhouse of public-backed technological progress.
In these early decades, semiconductors glimmered like alchemical gold, forged in clean rooms paid for by the Pentagon. Satellites, microchips, and eventually the first whispers of the internet emerged not from the marketplace, but from military necessity. ARPA’s bold vision spun threads of communication across machines, stitching together what would one day become cyberspace.
The myth of the lone inventor persisted, but beneath it pulsed the steady heartbeat of public funding. Silicon Valley’s gleaming towers were built atop the scaffolding of national ambition, war-fueled urgency, and a belief that technology could secure peace—or at least, supremacy. Before it was a global engine of capitalism, Silicon Valley was a garden carefully cultivated by the state, its roots tangled with secrecy, strategy, and science.
Silicon Valley is just one example of government fueling innovation—but sometimes, government is the innovator. Like a doppelganger, it shifts form: funder, builder, regulator, convener, even disruptor. Too often, the public sector is dismissed as slow or unimaginative. This view distorts history and can even disempower those working inside it.
In Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Public Sector, I trace the roots of public innovation back to our earliest human communities. Long before startups or labs, people were solving problems together—organizing, governing, creating new systems. Innovation has always been a public act. Throughout history, governments have launched moonshots, built digital highways, and shaped entire industries. They’ve also listened, adapted, and responded when people demanded something better.
But the taller the public sector grows, the larger the shadow it casts. When guided by narrow interests or unchecked power, it can breed surveillance, corruption, and harm those it intended to help. To lead effectively, we must see both the light and the dark.
This book is a call to action for those in public service—not just to administer, but to imagine. Whether you’re a policy analyst, city official, agency leader, or consultant, you have the power to drive change. Innovation isn’t the sole domain of tech founders or private enterprise. It lives wherever people dare to make things better.
Preorder Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Public Sector today from Oxford University Press or Amazon and reclaim your role as a public innovator.
