The name Silicon Valley was popularized by the journalist Don Hoefler, whose article “Silicon Valley U.S.A.” ran in the trade paper Electronic News on January 11, 1971. San Jose’s place in the story goes back further: IBM opened its first West Coast operation here in 1943, a punch-card plant downtown, and in 1952 a research lab where Reynold Johnson’s team invented the RAMAC computer and the hard disk drive.
Mayor Tom McEnery adopted “Capital of Silicon Valley” as the city’s motto in 1988. Companies headquartered in San Jose include Cisco, eBay, Adobe, PayPal, NetApp, Cadence and Zoom.