There is an attitude among some of these high-technology companies that this thievery is the government's problem, that trade restrictions are not in the best interests of the growth and development of the industry. One entrepreneur, convicted in December 1980 of illegally selling to the Soviet Union laser mirrors that could be used to develop laster weapons, went so far as to say during his trial that he thinks the government's regulations are wrong.
Federal officials didn't need a 10-year investigation to tell them the effects of selling high technology to the Soviets. They put together a special customs investigation team to crack down on illegal exports across the country. They sent in the FBI. And they warned the entrepreneurs that ignorance was no longer a good enough excuse. Their companies and their management would be held responsible for the final destination of their products.
A year ago Ken Boyd thought Scotts Valley, a small town in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains, seemed like a pleasant place to build his second company. He, his family, and two cows he kept as lawnmowers already lived there, for one thing. His partners were eager to move to Scotts Valley, for another. Although his Silicon Valley bank and his vendors would be a 30-minute drive away, the sky was blue, there wasn't any traffic, and employees might be less inclined to shop for new jobs on their lunch hours since there were fewer local employers to choose from. Santa Cruz and the Pacific were just 15 minutes west. Besides, he figured, he would be in good company. Alan F. Shugart had started his second venture, Seagate Technology, in Scotts Valley in 1979, and for the last half of 1981 sales were $14 million. Watkins-Johnson had a plant there, too.
So although Silicon Valley had been a great place to start his first company, an engineering consulting group, Ken Boyd decided last fall to set up his second venture, Stresstel, in Scotts Valley.
Twelve months later Boyd talks wistfully about returning "home," to Silicon Valley. Scotts Valley is a great place to live, he says, but he isn't sure what he thinks about doing business there. "It's kind of like gambling in Elko," he explains. "The game hasn't changed, but it just doesn't feel the same."
Boyd can't shake this feeling that entrepreneurs aren't appreciated in Scotts Valley. People have said they don't want their small mountain town becoming another Silicon Valley. Boyd says he would rather be somewhere he is really wanted.
Besides, he says, "I don't find what has happened to the Santa Clara Valley repulsive." He thinks the development could have been planned and executed better, but "it's still the best place to live in the U.S." The entrepreneurs will learn to cope with the problems technically, he feels. Of course being the president of a start-up, Boyd is a busy man. He doubts that he will have the time, at least in the near future, to work on the problems.
But there are people like Lorraine Ross who will. People who have learned that entrepreneurs are first and foremost entrepreneurs. People who won't wait for the high-technology companies to come up with technical solutions. People who, instead of cheering or buying stock when they hear about the watches that glow in the dark, will wonder whether what makes them glow is toxic and where the plant is located. People who will push regulations through their local fire departments, their city councils, their state legislatures. People who will support special industry taxes for the power, the water, and the transportation. People who will pass referenda limiting growth.
The solutions these people come up with may not be the best for the high-technology companies. They may not even be the best for the communities. Lorraine Ross's knowledge of the chemicals used in the manufacture of semiconductors is still unsophisticated, and the answers she comes up with may not be the most efficient or effective. They may even be reactions against finding TCA in her well or against having assumed for years that Fairchild and the other high-tech companies had everyone's best interests at heart. But they certainly will hold the companies accountable not only for their bottom lines, but for their impact on the people and the environment around them.
Even in Silicon Valley things have changed. The years of uncritical support are probably over. This may be a time for national skepticism, a time when good intentions are not enough, when companies are expected to imitate the efforts of Hewlett-Packard and donate executive time to work on civic problems, when residents follow the lead of Lorraine Ross and find the babysitters or the time from jobs to enable them to learn what is really going on in their neighborhoods and what they can do about it. This may be a decade when the high-technology companies and the residents come of age in the old sense of the phrase, into responsibility as well as privilege.
