Sitting in the car and watching the scenery pass outside the window, John Leighton couldn’t help but think about the place he was heading toward.
San Francisco sits in an earthquake prone zone, and because of that, most of its residential buildings are made of wood.
The great San Francisco earthquake had nearly destroyed the entire city.
The San Francisco of today was rebuilt entirely from the ruins of what came before, a city that had essentially risen from its own ashes.
There was no time to explore it properly.
John had Zach drive straight out of the city and head toward Silicon Valley.
Along the way they passed the Golden Gate Bridge, catching a brief glimpse of the world famous landmark through the window.
John Leighton knew that bridge well, or at least its cinematic reputation.
In the movies of later generations it was a recurring target.
Destroyed by earthquakes, dismantled by giant robots, attacked by aliens, fought over by the Hulk.
In film, the Golden Gate Bridge was absolutely ill-fated.
The distance from San Francisco to Silicon Valley was only a few dozen kilometers.
As Silicon Valley grew into a global name, the route between the two became one of the most travelled roads in America, a kind of modern pilgrimage trail for anyone with ambitions in technology.
…
Speaking of Silicon Valley, one cannot help but mention the man most responsible for its existence: Fred Terman, the brilliant Stanford University professor who saw what others missed.
The area that would become Silicon Valley was originally known as a strong academic district.
After graduation, most students left for established cities and opportunities elsewhere.
Terman noticed this and decided to do something about it.
He arranged a piece of land on the Stanford campus specifically for student entrepreneurship and established an investment fund to encourage graduates to build locally rather than leave.
Under his guidance, two of his students founded a company called HP in a garage with five hundred US dollars.
That garage became the origin of Silicon Valley’s famous garage culture.
Apple was founded in a garage.
Google was founded in a garage.
The list goes on.
In later generations, the HP garage was officially designated by the state of California as the birthplace of Silicon Valley, and became one of its most visited landmarks.
In the 1950s, Terman pushed further and established a campus science park built around Stanford.
That decision laid the foundation for everything that followed.
A remarkable series of companies were born in that environment, Fairchild, then AMD, Intel, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and many more.
Later, as advances in biology, oceanography, space technology, and energy materials joined the mix, Silicon Valley became the definitive symbol of human innovation.
Today, Silicon Valley refers specifically to the area in the San Francisco Bay, while high technology districts in other parts of the world are simply named after it.
…
In under an hour, Zach had driven John Leighton into San Jose, the capital of Santa Clara County.
They had officially entered Silicon Valley.
The purpose of this trip was clear.
They had already contacted Jerry Yang and confirmed that both founders would be present.
So they drove straight through without stopping, heading directly for the Stanford campus where Yahoo was currently based.
At this point in time, both of them were still students at Stanford.
After roughly ten minutes on campus, they arrived at the building.
It was winter break, so the grounds were quiet with few people around.
From a distance, John Leighton spotted the familiar face.
Jerry Yang was too well known to mistake, even from afar.
Not particularly tall, round faced, wearing large framed glasses.
Beside him stood a young white man.
Both of them were waiting outside the building, dressed up in suits and ties.
They had made an effort, clearly, because an angel investor was coming.
Before the car had fully stopped, John Leighton stepped out and walked toward them.
Jerry Yang and David Filo noticed his approach but visibly hesitated.
It was obvious at a glance that he was a teenager.
He was already about 1.75 meters tall, but fifteen years old was fifteen years old, and a young face couldn’t be faked.
“Hello, are you Jerry and David?” John Leighton walked up with a smile and extended his hand.
“Yes, we are.
May I ask who you are?” Jerry Yang shook his hand with a puzzled expression.
“Hello to both of you.
I am the investor who came to meet you today.
My name is Saint John Leighton.”
“Oh my God, Yang, someone hit me.
I must be dreaming.”
“David.” Jerry Yang gave his partner a look, then turned back.
“Mr.
John, are you of Asian descent?”
“I honestly don’t know.
I’m an orphan.
But I have an obvious East Asian background, and I’ve always been drawn to that heritage, so I chose the name myself.” John Leighton shrugged and smiled.
As he finished speaking, Zach parked the car and walked over to join them.
“This is my private lawyer, Zach.” The four of them exchanged greetings.
“Mr.
Lawyer, is it really this Mr.
John who wants to invest?” David asked Zach directly, clearly struggling to reconcile the investor they had been expecting with the teenager standing in front of him.
“I can confirm that.
It was while browsing online with him that he came across your web directory and decided he wanted to invest.
As you can see, he hired me to bring him here.”
“Oh my God.
Mr.
John, first of all, thank you for believing in what we’re building, and thank you for the investment.”
“David, Mr.
John hasn’t invested yet.”
John Leighton, knowing what he knew about both founders, understood that while David was the stronger technologist, Jerry Yang was the more rounded of the two, the one who understood both the product and the people around it.
“Of course, David.
If I didn’t intend to invest, I wouldn’t have flown from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley to find you.”
“Then please, come upstairs.
Let’s talk.” Jerry Yang gestured toward the entrance.
The four of them walked inside.
At this point in time, their entire operation was housed in a small room within their dormitory building.
The servers they were running were the university’s own servers.
It said everything about where they were in their journey.
The room was twenty to thirty square meters at most.
A few pizza boxes sat in a trash bag near the wall.
They had clearly made some attempt to tidy up, but the space still had the unmistakable feel of a student workspace mid-project.
Two computers and a server hummed steadily, and with four people standing inside, the room was almost full.
“Sorry, Mr.
John.
We’re both still students.
We’re using the university’s servers for now, so this is what we have.” Jerry Yang offered the brief explanation after noticing John Leighton take in the surroundings.
“It’s fine.
This is how it starts.
This is Silicon Valley, the place with the greatest talent for creating miracles.
Isn’t that exactly how the garage legends began?”
“Yes, exactly.
This is Silicon Valley!” David responded with genuine excitement.
John Leighton was here to invest, but he wasn’t going to hand over a single dollar without a real conversation first.
Every percentage point of equity he negotiated today could be worth hundreds of millions in the future.
He needed to handle this carefully.
And to do that, he had decided to show them something they could not possibly have expected.
He was going to show them exactly what it meant to know the future.