

The Luckiest Address in Silicon Valley - jaybol
http://milo.com/blog/lucky-165-university-ave/

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samratjp
I thought this was the luckiest:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-...](http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a&q=450+Serra+Mall+Stanford,+CA+94305&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=450+Serra+Mall,+Stanford,+CA+94305&gl=us&ei=N53KS7WuM4Oy9gSS_pTGBA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ8gEwAA)

~~~
mikeytown2
Care to explain? :)

~~~
samratjp
The physicist Werner Heisenberg was once asked if he knew where Stanford
University was located. "I believe it is on the west coast of the United
States, not far from San Francisco. There is also another school nearby, and
they steal each other's axes," he replied, referring to Stanford's rivalry
with the University of California, Berkeley.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University>)

Lucky? Sun, Yahoo, Google, Loopt as a small sample. For god's sake, there is a
Sequoia Hall on the map!

:-)

~~~
nostrademons
Couldn't you make the same argument about Harvard (Microsoft, Facebook,
Broderbund, Electronic Arts, OKCupid, not to mention Polaroid, Merck, and
Weezer) or MIT (Hewlett-Packard, Thinking Machines, Texas Instruments,
Qualcomm, Visicalc, Lotus, Akamai, Fairchild, Intel, 3Com, DEC, ETrade, Bose,
Kurzweil, and iRobot, not to mention McDonnell Douglas, Campbell Soup, Boston,
and the National Enquirer)?

~~~
srini
Hewlett-Packard: I'd give that one to Stanford way more than MIT. From
Wikipedia:

"Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard graduated in electrical engineering from
Stanford University in 1935. The company originated in a garage in nearby Palo
Alto during a fellowship they had with a past professor, Frederick Terman at
Stanford during the Great Depression. Terman was considered a mentor to them
in forming Hewlett-Packard."

If anyone's interested, here's a fuller list of SV companies founded by
Stanford-affiliated people:
<http://www.stanford.edu/group/wellspring/economic.html>

~~~
hga
Hmmm, you're right, their formal education at MIT only includes Hewlett
getting his Masters there with his BS and Ph.D. at Stanford (Packard got his
BS and Masters at Stanford, all this according to Wikipedia).

As far as I know they did feel _some_ affinity with MIT, but it sounds like
the Stanford connection is overwhelmingly dominant.

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teaspoon
Obvious questions: how many other, less successful businesses did this
building host?

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rit
Slightly aside, but worth noting is that much of the founding team of Danger
went on to create a small startup known as Android, later acquired by Google.

~~~
jaybol
"Before Google grew here, PayPal did. Later came Danger, the phone innovator
that Microsoft Corp. acquired for $500 million before its founder, Andy Rubin,
took a leading role in Google's Android project." -
[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
milo6-2010apr06,0,3496...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-
milo6-2010apr06,0,3496210.story)

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nostrademons
Wasn't this also FaceBook headquarters until their very recent move? Or is
that across the street?

~~~
wonsungi
I was told FaceBook HQ was at 150 University Ave; just down the street:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=165...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=165+university+ave&daddr=150-university-
ave,+palo+alto&hl=en&geocode=FU1bOwIdvO-3-CmtpEpWN7uPgDErPkPqYjaeqA%3BFUpaOwIdze-3-CnHIGX-
ObuPgDHoZstek_NTTg&mra=ls&dirflg=w&sll=37.444261,-122.163189&sspn=0.001339,0.00284&ie=UTF8&z=19&layer=c&cbll=37.444174,-122.163271&panoid=xX6P8Tg9QosbgvwOW75KfA&cbp=12,94.19,,0,5)

But they may have very well leased space in 165 University Ave; I was also
told by the time they moved, they had a complex shuttle system to get between
their many office spaces in Palo Alto.

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pkaler
I don't believe in luck. There is only work ethic and understanding the
probabilities.

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helwr
actually i was looking to rent a garage in the area.

there is something special about palo alto garages

