Despite the international hype over the rich and famous of Silicon Valley, the truth is far less glamorous. In fact, I would estimate that for every gazillionaire that’s celebrated for having “won” in the tech sector in Northern California, there are a good half million people behind him or her that have not. That have not “won” big, but have simply showed up for work each and every day in the Valley, labored away intelligently year after year, and lived out lives of quiet contribution — not quiet desperation — implementing ideas, engineering better bits of this system or that, and helping to direct business decisions and market strategies deep within the organizations that reside here.
These are not the people who are in the headlines of the lay press, the business press, or the lead story in tech pubs. And even though it seems these lesser heroes are supposed to read the stories in the press and pubs about their more successful colleagues, they probably don’t. They don’t believe the hype. They don’t believe Steve Jobs invented the iPhone. They don’t believe the streets of Silicon Valley are paved in gold.
