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The venture capitalist Vinod Khosla recently described Silicon Valley as a state of mind, rather than a geographical place. If that's the case, that state of mind can increasingly be found in San Francisco.
Young tech companies have been flocking to the city at such a rate lately that, in the words of Peter Wendell, founder of Sierra Ventures, in parts of San Francisco "you can almost go door-to-door."
San Francisco, a short hop by train or car from the chain of towns that make up Silicon Valley, has long had some tech stars of its own. But the number of prominent tech startups that have opened new or expanded offices here lately is a break from the past. The technology center of gravity in the region seems to be drifting northward to San Francisco.
"When you're a young engineer and all the companies you're interested in are in the Valley, then you're going to work in the Valley. But suddenly if some of them start to have outposts in the city, then those become more attractive employers than the companies that aren't in the city," said Wendell. "There's kind of a tipping point," he said.
"Our downtown San Francisco campus gives us a recruiting edge when attracting top talent," said Monika Fahlbusch, senior vice president of global employee success at Salesforce.com, which has been in the city since it was founded in 1999, and which purchased 14 acres of land here two years ago to build a new headquarters.