The Story Behind 'Silicon Valley: The Untold Story'

The Openist - Podcast of Democracy Cafe/Socrates Cafe

What accounts for Silicon Valley's virtually unrivaled history of innovation on the technology front? Well, it's storied history for one big thing. "What other places don’t have is Silicon Valley’s history," according to Michael Schwarz, the Peabody- and Emmy-Award winning producer, director, investigative journalist and founder of Kikim Media (Kikim.com) -- of which his wife and our dear friend Kiki Kapany is the CEO. The recently released three-part series 'Silicon Valley: The Untold Story,' was produced by Kikim Media, and surely is and will be for many moons to come the definitive documentary on this region that has had an outsize impact on the world. The series premiered in March on Discovery's Science Channel, and now is available on the SciGo app, iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon, and it also will be rebroadcast on the Science Channel. "This place has evolved over a 150-year period," Michael relates. "Like any ecosystem in nature, the different elements of it have grown and matured and interacted. It's become more resilient and eventually achieved a kind of critical mass that is hard to replicate instantly." And so it is, Michael asserts, that time itself "is a critical element that differentiates Silicon Valley from so many other places" that seek to replicate its success. Listen in as Michael shares the story behind the making of the untold story of Silicon Valley, and the wealth of insights that he has gleaned in the more than five year journey it took to complete this extraordinary project.