Today, Silicon Valley is home to some of the world's largest and most innovative technology companies, including Google, Facebook, and Apple, as well as thousands of start-ups and smaller tech firms. Silicon Valley is known for its culture of innovation, entrepreneurship, and investment in cutting-edge technology.

Still, the term Silicon Valley has grown to largely encapsulate the entirety of the tech community in the Bay Area in casual conversation. Cities that officially comprise Silicon Valley include San Jose, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Redwood City and Sunnyvale.

Bangalore in India and the central California region in the USA are called the Silicon Valley of their respective countries. They are called so because of their extensive use of electronic chips, many of which are primarily made of silicon.

If you've seen the HBO show Silicon Valley, you know that the characters are loosely based on real Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Peter Gregory is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Gavin Belson is a mixture of the two Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.