Bits: More Secrecy in Silicon Valley

SAN FRANCISCO, May 6 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley is taking itself a tad too seriously, and a few of its shriller residents have taken note.

THE San Francisco Bay area is undergoing one of its periodic tech booms on the back of the flourishing of social networking firms. That boom, the Wall Street Journal tells us, is very good for local tech workers:

Earlier this year the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) awarded its prestigious “Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year” prize to Ben Franklin TechVentures.  

Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank delivered remarks to a full house and participated in a panel discussion at San Jose State University on driving U.S. innovation to create jobs. The panel was moderated by Carl Guardino, President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Blank was joined by Dr. Pat Kennedy, CEO of OSISoft, Eric Kelly, President and CEO of Overland Storage  and Dr. Mohammad Qayoumi, President of San Jose State University.

By James Kwak Whenever someone criticizes “Wall Street,” someone else tries to defend Wall Street by saying that without it we wouldn’t have Silicon Valley and all of its wonders. Most recently, A.S. at Free Exchange says this:

Visit any company in the Valley, and you’ll see that it resembles the United Nations.  At the Google cafeteria, they always serve Indian, Chinese, and Mexican food; hamburgers and hotdogs are nowhere to be found.  Indeed, my research team documented that 52% of startups in Silicon Valley during the recent tech boom were founded by immigrants—like me.  So I used to call Silicon Valley the world’s greatest meritocracy.

While Kleiner will appeal, the decision could ultimately clear the way for a trial unlike any Silicon Valley has seen in recent years.

As a recent arrival to Silicon Valley and its unique culture, I’ve had the unique opportunity to consider how it contrasts with the culture of medicine, with which I’m deeply familiar.  I’ve been especially struck by the excessively reductive view many Silicon Valley engineers seem to have of medicine, a practice [...]