LOOK out from Crissy Field, in San Francisco, on a fog-free day and chances are you will see some technology entrepreneurs leaping into the sky. The hybrid sport of kitesurfing has become a favourite pastime of the Bay Area’s startup crowd. Lifted by high-tension rigging, unpredictable gusts and a delight in daring, they fly up into the air before splashing back to the cold surf. Some landings are smooth; others are not. The sport requires skill, good equipment and hard-won experience, but chance and ambition also play a part. And even the most experienced cannot control the winds.
On shore, too, exhilaration and risk go hand in hand. San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the strip of land that runs along the shore of the Bay between them have had a tremendous decade as the hub of the global technology industry. The area’s biggest companies have soared to heights once unimaginable, coming to represent all that the world finds most exciting about American capitalism. Even its smaller fry have attracted mountains of money. The Valley has reshaped lives and languages, creating new verbs—to google, to facebook, to uber—and repurposing old ones—to tweet, to message, to like.
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