HACKER Q&A
📣 vclouder

Any good Silicon Valley Photo coffee table books?


Has anyone come across any good photo books of Silicon Valley from the past or present. I love looking back and reliving those early days of the valley and like to see how it has transformed.


  👤 marcuskaz Accepted Answer ✓
Not a book, and a bit self promotional, but I have a small photo series I worked on https://mkaz.com/silicon-valley/

Also, look for Silicon Valley '07 by Gabriele Basilico, it's a photo book - not a huge coffee table book but pretty good with about 80-100 photos from 2007


👤 ruggeri
I bought San Francisco Dream (Yoko Takahashi) a while back. It had a lot of photos that reminded me of what it felt like when I had just moved here.

Possibly not an answer to your question, but just in case someone else reading finds it interesting.

https://leicastoresf.com/collections/lssf-photobooks/product...


👤 bwb
i am not 100% sure, but i think this one was the same one I browsed in a waiting room once and it was pretty cool -> https://www.siliconvalleysmarts.com/silicon-valley-book

👤 sizzzzlerz
To really understand it's changes, you first need a book with pictures of the valley from the 1940's to the 1960's. I don't have such a book but I've seen a number of pictures when the valley was all orchards. Then you overlay those with modern day pictures and you see how places like Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto transformed into large cities that essentially removed those trees and replaced them with buildings, houses, and roads. I could study those pictures for hours.

👤 coldpie
I suppose print-on-demand services are cheap enough that you could put together your own fairly easily. Flickr has very permissive licensing by default, if you wanted to make it available for others, too.

👤 electrondood
At Half Price Books in Fremont, there's an entire shelf dedicated to these local history books.

Some of my favorites:

https://www.amazon.com/Palo-Alto-Centennial-Ward-Winslow/dp/...

https://www.amazon.com/Menlo-Park-California-Beyond-Gate/dp/...

https://www.amazon.com/Seabright-Images-America-Arcadia-Publ...

In fact, the Images of America series is exactly what you're looking for, think.

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/collections/images-of-amer...


👤 ratana
Check out “Songbook” by Alec Soth. He’s an amazing photographer, and while the book isn’t exclusively Silicon Valley, there’s some great photos of various campuses and areas that feel timeless.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/justinesharrock/silicon...

https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/collections/books/songbook...


👤 cpach
I haven’t read it in physical form, but maybe Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made by Andy Hertzfeld?

AFAICT it’s based on the stories from https://folklore.org/, so I ought to be good.

You can see how it looks here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMExWOBvmho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_the_Valley


👤 bastian
Same. Let's work on publishing one. I am happy to fund it.

👤 moose44
Does anyone have any tips for moving to the valley at a young age?

I'm very young, not from the US and looking to move to the valley to be around more ambitious people.

Any tips or things I should know? Neighbourhoods to consider? Areas to be in? What to avoid? How to meet people? Hidden gems?


👤 spking
This book has a lot of great Bay Area photos from the 50s-60s:

https://www.amazon.com/Mid-Century-Bay-Celebration-Francisco...


👤 Yanael
I enjoyed the photo book of SF by Victoria Smith

https://www.amazon.co.uk/See-San-Francisco-Through-SFGirlbyB...


👤 rafaelc
I highly recommend "Silicon Valley: The History In Pictures" by Mary Wadden

Edit: (Written in conjunction with the Silicon Valley Historical Association)



👤 supportengineer
Look up “San Jose signs project” or the San Francisco one.

👤 aamoyg
The HP Way ?

👤 corethree
A bit of an aside. But I would love a book on the comprehensive history of silicon valley up to and describing the crisis we face today of housing and everyone leaving.