2014年9月，谷歌(Google)的子公司Calico有限责任公司和AbbVie Inc.制药公司宣布了一项价值可达15亿美元的合作计划，共同开发治疗阿耳茨海默氏(Alzheimer’s，即早老性痴呆症)、帕金森氏病（Parkinson’s）和其他老年性疾病的方法。

对于谷歌来说，这个项目标志着它正在努力向软件领域之外的目标发展。对于加州这个以高科技企业和创业文化著称的硅谷(Silicon Valley)地区来说，这意味着走向研究、创新的新领域和向未来发出挑战。硅谷以外的观察者也许会问：那个全球高科技和创意实业中心还能继续创新吗？如果可以，硅谷能够拯救世界吗？

半导体在果园生长

观察人士对硅谷特有的技术活力与创业精神的相互结合是如何形成以及始何时形成，说法不一。有些人认为，它的起源是帕洛阿尔托(Palo Alto)的一间车库，在那里戴维·帕卡德（David Packard）和威廉·休利特（William Hewlett）于1939年创办了他们的电子公司。另有些人则认为，晶体管的共同发明者威廉·肖克利(William Shockley)是一位先驱。

1955年，肖克利在旧金山(San Francisco)附近一个山谷的杏园中建立了半导体实验室。他聘用了12名聪颖的研究人员。仅仅两年后，其中八人用他们自己的3500美元开发出一种大规模生产硅晶体管的方法，并离开肖克利，成立了Fairchild半导体公司。

后来，许多Fairchild的员工也都成立了自己的科技创业公司。由此开始，不断有公司分裂，另立门户，更多公司应运而生。创新速度随之加快。正如历史学家莱斯利·柏林(Leslie Berlin)所解释的，在完善一个盈利产品的过程中所积累的技能，支持了下一个盈利产品的开发。

是什么让硅谷与众不同？

硅谷从一开始就具备几个优势。邻近的斯坦福大学(Stanford University)提供了专业技术知识；另外，在第二次世界大战后的关键几年中，这里不仅注重理论发展——美国政府研究经费对此很有帮助——而且也注重利用这些发展来设想和创造新的消费产品。

风险投资家、顾问、律师和其他人在这个模式中看到了商机。他们对新兴技术有足够的了解，可以评估新的创意，并通过他们的商业智慧和提供关键的投资资金支持创业者。总之，创业者在硅谷可以相对容易地仅凭借一个好设想，不必斥巨资就创办起公司。

许多人试图学习和复制硅谷的模式。但成功甚少。那么硅谷的秘诀何在？

一言以蔽之，是它的文化。首先是它雄厚的技术基础设施，外加有加州淘金热(Gold Rush)的历史传统和当地轻松的生活格调。柏林说，这就是一个能够吸引有想法，有很高的风险承受能力，并且没有什么后顾之忧的人的有利条件。

再一点是达到临界数量，形成势头。随着更多高科技创业者的到来，人们在这里遇到同类知己。 《极客硅谷》(Geek Silicon Valley)的作者阿什莉·万斯(Ashlee Vance)说：“爱好者们会互相推动拿出更新更好的创造。员工从一家公司跳到另一家公司，他们带去的想法，经调整改进可以带来新的发明。”

换句话说，打造出一个科技创业者能够相互交流和大力发展的环境。随着他们人数的增加，这个地方对其他人也更有吸引力。

美国其他地区和世界各地也都试图形成自己的硅谷。许多地方有实力雄厚的大学和大量资金。然而，他们往往会失败。 这是为什么？

知情人指出硅谷拥有的两个无形资产：激情和开放。

创业者乔·格里奥(Joh Grall)说: “如果你没有激情，你就无法说服其他人来加入你，投资于你或付酬给你。激情也会帮助你度过难关。”

这并不是说创业者不赚钱。他们赚——有时甚至是赚大钱。但对许多雄心勃勃的科技创业者来说，钱并不是他们的动力。

塞巴斯蒂安·史朗(Sebastian Thrun)对《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)说: “谷歌的立场是，我们有责任为世界做一些美妙的事。”出生于德国的史朗是谷歌的 Google X高级研究部负责人。

关于激情还有另一点。如果你有做一件事的动力，“种族、肤色和口音都不重要。”这是印度出生的创业者尤根·卡帕迪亚(Yogen Kapadia)的话。他还表示，在硅谷“你取得成功的能力只取决于你想成功的愿望、你创新的能力和你艰苦奋斗的力量。”

在硅谷，将近一半的科技公司有至少一个创始人出生在美国以外。卡帕迪亚的初创公司，Infinote，就是其中的一个。这种开放性有助于解释为什么硅谷成功地吸引了来自世界各地的人才。

一个颠覆性的未来

《硅谷优势》(The Silicon Valley Edge)的编辑李锺文（Chong-Moon Lee）表示，硅谷一向力争创造未来。但是，如今它的雄心是否对即使最有远见的创业者来说也有失过高？

谷歌最初的使命呼吁是组织全球信息，使之能够让所有人获取和使用。最近，它的首席执行官拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)对《金融时报》(Financial Times)表示，谷歌“或许可以解决我们人类具有的许多问题。”

再回到Calico公司。它是科技公司试图颠覆或彻底改造传统产业的典型代表——从交通运输（“优步”[Uber]，特斯拉汽车[ Tesla Motors ]和教育（[Udacity]），到能源（Imergy电力系统[Imergy Power Systems]，Bloom能源[Bloom Energy]）和航空航天（Skybox成像[Skybox Imaging]，行星实验室[ Planet Labs]），等等。

怀疑人士曾早就预言硅谷会垮台。在20世纪70年代，他们指出石油短缺问题。之后他们指出日本的竞争和互联网金融泡沫。

今天的怀疑者认为，他们在科技行业的超大雄心中看到了硅谷衰落的蛛丝马迹。然而，2015财年被证明是创纪录的一年，有更多的专利，更多的股票市场上市，并有比以往任何时候都更大比例的投资进入硅谷。

只有时间才能说明加州硅谷那些充满激情、头脑开放、雄心勃勃，而且，是的，才华横溢的创业者们是否真的能够拯救世界。

In September 2014, Google’s subsidiary Calico LLC and a pharmaceutical firm, AbbVie Inc., announced a partnership potentially worth $1.5 billion, to develop treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other age-related diseases.

For Google, the initiative marked an effort to expand beyond computer software. For Silicon Valley, the California region known for its high-tech companies and entrepreneurial culture, it suggested new areas for research, for innovation, and for confronting the future. For observers outside the Valley, it posed questions like: Can that global hub of high technology and creative entrepreneurship continue to innovate? And, if it can, can Silicon Valley save the world?

Semiconductors grow in orchards

Observers disagree on how and when the unique mix of technological savvy and entrepreneurial spirit that define Silicon Valley began. Some point to the Palo Alto garage where, in 1939, David Packard and William Hewlett launched their electronics company. Others point to William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor.

In 1955, Shockley established a semiconductor lab among apricot orchards in a valley near San Francisco. He recruited 12 bright researchers to work for him. Just two years later, eight of them used $3,500 of their own money to develop a method of mass-producing silicon transistors and left Shockley to start Fairchild Semiconductor.

Eventually, many Fairchild employees founded tech startups of their own. And so it went. Companies divided, broke off and multiplied. Innovation accelerated. As historian Leslie Berlin explains, the skills developed while refining one profitable product supported the development of the next.

What makes Silicon Valley unique?

The Valley began with a few advantages. Nearby Stanford University provided technical expertise and, in the crucial years following the second world war, a focus not only on theoretical advances — U.S. government research dollars helped here — but on using those advances to envision and create new consumer products.

Venture capitalists, consultants, attorneys and others saw business opportunities in this model. They learned enough about emerging technologies to evaluate new ideas and to support entrepreneurs with business savvy and crucial investment capital. Bottom line: In the Valley it is relatively easy for an entrepreneur with little more than a good idea to start a company cheaply.

Many have tried to distill and duplicate the Silicon Valley formula. Few have succeeded. So what’s the secret ingredient?

In a word, it’s the culture. Start with a strong tech infrastructure. Add California’s Gold Rush legend and easygoing lifestyle. That’s a recipe to attract people with ideas, a high tolerance for risk and little to lose, says Berlin.

Then there’s critical mass. As more tech entrepreneurs move in, they encounter people like themselves.

“Enthusiasts push each other to come up with something new and better,” says Ashlee Vance, author of Geek Silicon Valley. “Employees shift from company to company, bringing with them concepts that can be tweaked to create a fresh invention.”

In other words, build a place where tech entrepreneurs can network and thrive. As their numbers grow, the place becomes all the more attractive to others.

Other places in the U.S. and around the world have tried to cultivate their own Silicon Valleys. Many have strong universities and plenty of money. And yet they often fail. Why?

Those in the know point to two Valley intangibles: passion and openness.

“If you’re not passionate, you won’t be able to persuade others to join you, invest in you or pay you,” says entrepreneur Jon Grall. “Passion will also help see you through the tough times.”

It doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs don’t make money. They do — sometimes even big money. But for many ambitious tech entrepreneurs money’s not what drives them.

“Google’s position was we have a responsibility to do something amazing for the world,”Sebastian Thrun told the Wall Street Journal. German-born Thrun heads Google X, the company’s advanced research department.

Another thing about passion. If you’re driven to do something, “ethnicity, skin color and accent don’t matter.” Those are the words of Indian-born entrepreneur Yogen Kapadia, who adds that in Silicon Valley “your ability to succeed depends only on your desire to succeed, your ability to innovate and your capacity to work hard.”

Kapadia’s startup, Infinote, is among nearly half of all Silicon Valley tech companies that have at least one founder born outside the U.S. This openness helps explain why Silicon Valley succeeds in drawing talent from around the world.

A disruptive future

The Valley always sought to invent the future, says Chong-Moon Lee, editor of The Silicon Valley Edge. But are its ambitions now too great even for the most visionary entrepreneurs?

Google’s initial mission statement called for nothing less than organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. More recently, its chief executive, Larry Page, told the Financial Times the company “could probably solve a lot of the issues we have as humans.”

Cut to the Calico venture. It typifies tech companies’ efforts to disrupt, or radically remake, established industries in fields from transportation (Uber, Tesla Motors) and education (Udacity) to energy (Imergy Power Systems, Bloom Energy) and aerospace (Skybox Imaging, Planet Labs).

Doubters have long predicted Silicon Valley’s downfall. In the 1970s, they pointed to oil shortages. Then they cited Japanese competition and the “dot-com” financial bubble.

Today’s doubters see glimmers of the Valley’s demise in the tech sector’s outsized ambitions. Yet fiscal 2015 proved a record year, with more patents, more stock market launches and a larger share of investments going into the Valley than ever before.

Only time will tell whether the passionate, open-minded, ambitious and, yes, brilliant entrepreneurs of California’s Silicon Valley really can save the world.