Valley proves that tech-driven economic growth can last

Net Results: As I disembark (or "deplane", the silly term the US industry prefers) from my Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles into the main terminal at San Jose, there's a dull roar of conversation of the type familiar to anyone at a tech show, writes Karlin Lillington.

Loud, hearty, primarily male, punctuated by laughs and, now and then, a shouted hello to a familiar face spotted on the other side of the room. As I emerge from the walkway into the terminal, all that's missing is a few "booth babes" (the flippant term for the women hired to hand out product info and lure people over to company stands at tech shows).

All the other ingredients of a US tech convention floor show are there. A packed, milling crowd of men aged 25-40, almost all wearing the Silicon Valley uniform of some variation on khaki trousers and an open-necked polo shirt or a T-shirt emblazoned with a tech logo. There are also a few incongruous shirt-and-tie men.

Lots of neat haircuts, black canvas computer shoulder-bags or computer backpacks. A crowd of men who are mostly white, but heavily leavened with east Asians - Far East primarily (of the "Asian persuasion", as a Chinese American friend in university used to say) - but a good smattering from the Indian subcontinent too.

The industry advertising that is everywhere in this airport completes the picture - a huge Flextronics advertisement about 20ft long covers the first wall I see. Many of the advertisements contain information only an engineer could love (or understand).

Yes, this is a region where what is mainstream would be only a niche interest elsewhere. As tech-drenched as Dublin has become, I cannot imagine seeing similar advertising in Dublin airport.

I don't know where all these guys are going. Presumably many don't live here but have come for business (or for tech conventions) and will fly back out to the many tech centre destinations around the country - Austin, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Reston, Virginia; Boston, Massachusetts. Airports that service all these regions are staple destinations on the San Jose daily flight roster. Flights to some destinations like Austin have recently increased in number, a sure sign of a tech sector in growth mode.

And LA is an important tech link too, for that matter; my flight was full of the working tech crowd for whom Southwest is a popular carrier as its friendly service is more likely to be on time than the other carriers, many in the Valley have told me.

Others waiting in the departure lounges are obviously taking their good earnings and heading off to see family or friends, or maybe fitting in a nice weekend break somewhere. There's that good-humoured buzz that comes from people looking forward to whatever comes next. These guys - and in this industry it is still mostly guys, as the airport crowd indicates - work hard and play hard.

That's what the Ethiopian driver of the airport shuttle tells me with a sense of approval as we manoeuvre through Friday-evening traffic on the spaghetti of intersecting Valley freeways leading away from the airport.

I love these ubiquitous American door-to-door shuttle services that cost about half the taxi fare, but take you from airport to door, usually with a few other people going to the same area. Sometimes, as this evening, you might be the only passenger and get a chatty shuttle driver.

He's fascinated that I have flown in from Ireland and wants to know what it is like to live there: "What's good and what's bad." It's expensive to live there now, I say, and traffic is awful, but the people are wonderful and it's always interesting, with a booming economy in large part due to the same industry that pumps blood through Silicon Valley's economy.

"More expensive than the Valley?" he asks with some scepticism. "Some things," I reply. Restaurants. Petrol. Services. Broadband. "But not houses," he laughs. Actually, I say, some housing prices are close and, in terms of value for money, San Jose is often better than Dublin.

He looks dubious, but I explain that a two-bedroom house with no garden in Dublin city centre costs €500,000, or close to $630,000, while the median price of a San Jose house - a California "ranch style" with three bedrooms, big kitchen, lots of windows and a large American-style garden - is currently $670,000 (interestingly, prices for new homes have dropped more than 13 per cent in recent months and now average $596,270).

"So what makes people go there if it is so expensive?" Same reasons that people come here to Silicon Valley, I say: a variety of good jobs that pay well; for some, the chance of a better life than in the places people come from; the excitement of working in interesting growth industries; and many service jobs for an expanding economy.

Just like in the Valley, some find what they want, some don't. Some leave, many stay. And just like in the Valley, a growth economy and good salaries will place pressures on other areas: housing, education, services.

Some in Ireland will say things can't continue in this way. The Valley experience proves that, in general, it can, and for a long, long time.