As this 15-minute video shows, Silicon Valley emerged as the center of the tech world due to a dispute about semiconductor research among scientists in 1957. A mutiny of sorts by eight employees of transistor inventor William Shockley paved the way for the area to become the nonpareil computing community. An excerpt from a New York Times article about the scuttlebutt:

“SEPT. 18, 1957: Revolt of the Nerds

Fed up with their boss, eight lab workers walked off the job on this day in Mountain View, Calif. Their employer, William Shockley, had decided not to continue research into silicon-based semiconductors; frustrated, they decided to undertake the work on their own. The researchers — who would become known as ‘the traitorous eight’ — went on to invent the microprocessor (and to found Intel, among other companies). ‘Sept. 18 was the birth date of Silicon Valley, of the electronics industry and of the entire digital age,’ says Mr. Shockley’s biographer, Joel Shurkin.”