--- title: Silicon Valley’s Arrogance Is Out of Beta and Ready to Ship description: Venture capitalist Tim Draper's proposal for a Silicon Valley state (and 5 others) is the apotheosis of tech hubris canonical: https://time.com/2993601/6-californias/ author: Matt Vella article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-16T19:28:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:02:47.551Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Silicon Valley’s Arrogance Is Out of Beta and Ready to Ship og:description: Venture capitalist Tim Draper's proposal for a Silicon Valley state (and 5 others) is the apotheosis of tech hubris og:url: https://time.com/2993601/6-californias/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69d247a53ed0e22/69869bfe55a859630ea81d38/san_francisco.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The downtown San Francisco skyline and Bay Bridge are shown during a 30-minute ferry ride across to AT&T Park on July 10, 2013, in San Francisco. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Silicon Valley’s Arrogance Is Out of Beta and Ready to Ship twitter:description: Venture capitalist Tim Draper's proposal for a Silicon Valley state (and 5 others) is the apotheosis of tech hubris twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69d247a53ed0e22/69869bfe55a859630ea81d38/san_francisco.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Silicon Valley's Arrogance Is Out of Beta and Ready to Ship by [Matt Vella](https://time.com/author/matt-vella/) ## Matt Vella Jul 16, 2014 7:28 PM UTC  The downtown San Francisco skyline and Bay Bridge are shown during a 30-minute ferry ride across to AT&T Park on July 10, 2013, in San Francisco. The downtown San Francisco skyline and Bay Bridge are shown during a 30-minute ferry ride across to AT&T Park on July 10, 2013, in San Francisco.George Rose—Getty Images by [Matt Vella](https://time.com/author/matt-vella/) ## Matt Vella Jul 16, 2014 7:28 PM UTC Silicon Valley’s newest startup is not an app or a gadget. But it is, in the parlance of the hoodie-clad, disruptive. Wealthy venture capitalist [Tim Draper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%5FDraper), who funded products like Hotmail and Skype, wants to [split California into six pieces](http://time.com/2983496/california-six-state-proposal-vote/), putting the state of Jefferson as well as North, Central, West and South California on the map. The sixth—the state of Silicon Valley—would stretch from the top of the San Francisco Bay ­Area down through San Jose, stopping just before the verdant vineyards of the Central Coast. The idea is that the new states would be more efficient and governable. On July 15, the consortium backing the plan announced that it had [submitted enough signatures](http://time.com/2985611/california-six-states-2016/) to put the issue in front of voters in 2016 as part of the state’s wildly democratic ballot initiative. That the plan has little chance of becoming a reality—the Constitution requires the approval of the state assembly and Congress—hardly matters. A sovereign Silicon Valley, which would be the richest state in the U.S., with [annual per capita income of $63,288](http://www.lao.ca.gov/ballot/2013/130771.aspx), is the apotheosis of tech hubris, in beta for decades but now ready to ship. Earlier this year, [Draper told TIME](http://time.com/9410/tim-draper-six-californias-proposal-qa/): --- > “” --- The idea is an ego trip of [Randian proportions](http://www.aynrand.org/), a Galt’s Gulch kitted with Google Glass and $70,000 electric Teslas. It has its roots in the Valley’s libertarianism. This is a place, after all, where Facebook investor Peter Thiel is funding a floating utopia, venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan has proposed a deregulated territory devoted to [radical experimentation](http://www.cnet.com/news/a-radical-dream-for-making-techno-utopias-a-reality/), and Elon Musk has toyed with the idea of a [Martian colony](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/elon-musk-says-spacex-making-progress-toward-mars-colony-n110081). A place, in other words, that not only knows what it wants but thinks it knows what’s best for the rest. Certainly, that arrogance is the twin of a more noble impulse in many technology innovators: a profound certainty that often yields wonderful results for the rest of us, from Gmail to gene therapy. The tradition holds that a good idea trumps convention or existing law. But the Silicon Valley that has created remarkable products (and wealth) is also prone to alienating detours like [Bitcoin](http://time.com/630/the-secret-web-where-drugs-porn-and-murder-live-online/), the unregulated cryptocurrency, and [Soylent](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/12/140512fa%5Ffact%5Fwiddicombe?currentPage=all), the trendy open-sourced food substitute. Or, a plan to create six new states, four of them awkwardly named some variation of California. Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time California was shaped to serve powerful interests. At the turn of the 20th century, Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the _Los Angeles Times_ and father of the Golden State’s most powerful political dynasty, used inside information and his newspaper to funnel resources from the agrarian Eden of the Owens Valley to the then fledgling city of Los Angeles. And why? As John Huston’s Otis-like character put it to Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes in _Chinatown_, “[The future, Mr. Gittes. The future.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGd-2nEOVQ)” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2993601/6-californias/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2993601/6-californias/"},"headline":"Silicon Valley's Arrogance Is Out of Beta and Ready to Ship","datePublished":"2014-07-16T19:28:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:02:47.551Z","description":"Venture capitalist Tim Draper's proposal for a Silicon Valley state (and 5 others) is the apotheosis of tech hubris","url":"https://time.com/2993601/6-californias/","keywords":["Technology","Tech"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69d247a53ed0e22/69869bfe55a859630ea81d38/san_francisco.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Vella","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/matt-vella/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta69d247a53ed0e22/69869bfe55a859630ea81d38/san_francisco.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The downtown San Francisco skyline and Bay Bridge are shown during a 30-minute ferry ride across to AT&T Park on July 10, 2013, in San Francisco.","caption":"The downtown San Francisco skyline and Bay Bridge are shown during a 30-minute ferry ride across to AT&T Park on July 10, 2013, in San Francisco.","creditText":"George Rose—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/technology/","name":"Technology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2993601/6-californias/","name":"Silicon Valley's Arrogance Is Out of Beta and Ready to Ship"}}]}] ```