Tom Perkins is one of the icons of Silicon Valley. I have not read yet his new autobiography but Andre Mercanzini, a colleague at EPFL, just mentioned to me an interesting podcast from VentureVoice. Here is Perkins’ views about why Silicon Valley is unique:

The difference is in psychology: everybody in Silicon Valley knows somebody that is doing very well in high-tech small companies, start-ups; so they say to themselves “I am smarter than Joe. If he could make millions, I can make a billion”. So they do and they think they will succeed and by thinking they can succeed, they have a good shot at succeeding. That psychology does not exist so much elsewhere.