Silicon Valley & our regional economy

Unique among U.S. cities, the key economic driver of San Francisco and the Bay Area developed not in its urban center but in the agricultural countryside to the south. Yet as Silicon Valley has evolved from the land of innovative start-ups to become home to the largest and most established business headquarters in the region, less clear is where the Silicon Valley economy begins and ends — and what its long-term prospects will be for the entire Bay Area. Two leading economists — Russ Hancock, CEO and president of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, and Ted Egan, chief economist for the City and County of San Francisco — discuss whether the Silicon Valley economy is becoming the Bay Area economy.