Nov 24, 2012

AnnaLee Saxenien Downplays Influence of Manufacturing on Silicon Valley's Innovation

From the San Francisco Chronicle

High tech's course hinges on tax talks

By Carolyn Lochhead

Washington -- Silicon Valley is casting a wary eye toward the Washington budget negotiations, which could include a tax overhaul to arrest an ominous slide in U.S. competitiveness or yank key industry tax breaks.

Also at stake are billions of dollars in science and other federal funding that has fueled the valley's growth....

Yet despite the valley's fame as the hotbed of American innovation, it has outsourced much of its manufacturing and, increasingly, design work. With much of U.S. manufacturing gone to Asia, many fear innovation may follow. The coming budget "fiscal cliff" is seen by some as a tipping point that might provide opportunities to turn things around and bring jobs back from overseas....

Harvard Business School Professors Gary Pisano and Willy Shih contend that "once manufacturing capabilities go away, so does much of the ability to innovate and compete." They point to Amazon's Kindle reader, which was designed in California but can't possibly be made here because supply chains no longer exist.

Skeptics, such as AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of UC Berkeley's School of Information, point to the emergence of "mass customized manufacturing" in the valley based on such innovations as 3-D printing. Others point to the activity in clean energy, despite the spectacular crash of solar panel maker Solyndra.

"Economic dynamism doesn't depend on manufacturing alone," Saxenian said.

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Last updated:

October 4, 2016