SILICON W
Is San Diego the next tech hub ? Could it be even better ?
BY ANTHONY KING
The rise of Silicon Valley can be seen as one masterful convergence . If Stanford University was the gas fueling the tech industry , its alumni were the ones pushing the pedal — and they were doing so right next to campus .
The stories are those of the quintessential tech startup : William Hewlett and David Packard — the eponymous duo behind HP — were Stanford graduates who began in a Palo Alto garage ; Jerry Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo ! after graduating ; and Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed Google ’ s page rank algorithm as graduate students . It was the silicon in transistors that made the name , and ever since , the valley in question has been a stronghold for both established companies and every eager tech upstart hoping to break into an already crowded space .
San Diego doesn ’ t necessarily have much silicon to speak of , but start comparing notes and the question begs to be asked . UC San Diego is fast feeding the talent in technology industries , Chancellor Pradeep K . Khosla has encouraged faculty and alumni to go forth and make innovative businesses , and companies like Qualcomm and Cymer , Inc . lend a firm footing for the region ’ s next generation .
So , could San Diego be the next Silicon Valley ? Or is it in another league altogether ? lOCATiOn , lOCATiOn , lOCATiOn
Paul Martini , CEO and co-founder of iboss Cybersecurity with his brother Peter , made recent headlines by canceling the company ’ s planned move to Austin , Texas — another up-and-coming city for tech talent . Rather than move iboss , which builds and markets hardware and cloud-based technology to enhance network security against cyberattack , the brothers made the conscious decision to grow their business in San Diego . For Martini , the choice was largely based on recruiting new employees — they plan to more than double their current workforce , and San Diego provided more than enough talent to anchor the company .
But there was another factor as well , one made plain by the company ’ s purchase of the recently vacated Science Applications International Corporation ( SAIC ) data center in La Jolla , overlooking Interstate 5 and , not coincidentally , Martini ’ s alma mater .
“ More important for us was being strategically positioned next to UC San Diego ,” Martini says . “ Look at the way UCSD is such a research-oriented university . It causes students to be very creative as well as analytical . It ’ s teaching how to be more progressive in the way [ students ] think about solving a problem . In our space , dealing with cyber warfare , you ’ re basically a researcher every single day .”
24 TRITON | FALL 2015