Silicon Valley is rooted in Defense
Silicon Valley’s militarization is in many ways a return to the region’s roots. Before the area was a tech epicenter, it was a bucolic land of fruit orchards. In the 1950s, the Defense Department began investing in tech companies in the region, aiming to compete with Russia’s technological advantages in the Cold War. That made the federal government the first major backer of Silicon Valley. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a division of the Department of Defense, later incubated…