San Mateo, the northern (and largely software) half of Silicon Valley, expects to get back to its 2007 job count by 2015. The county economic development agency, which decided to buy a vowel when it chose the acronym of SAMCEDA (San Mateo County Econ Dev Association), sees a slow recovery over the next few years.
So in this county, which is home to Oracle and Genentech, is a stone's throw from Google, Yahoo, and Intel HQ, and receives 10-12% of all venture capital invested domestically, what do you expect are the growth industries? Well, according to SAMCEDA, it's professional and technical services, retail trade, government, hospitality, health care, social assistance and manufacturing. Basically, the leading growth professions in the county that sits between San Francisco and San Jose are the same as everywhere else.
I've said that for just about every region outside of Silicon Valley, Boston, and maybe Austin/Seattle, that VC is no longer part of any sensible economic development strategy. And if you're Cleveland, or KC, or Lansing, and you wonder whether this applies to you, just look at VC's increasingly niche role in the middle of the San Francisco peninsula.
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