"Seattle vs. the Valley" seems to have become a hot topic lately.

Quoted: The fact is that all those great things about Seattle, or wherever, don’t have a damned thing to do with offsetting the business and cultural advantages of Silicon Valley. Making lifestyle choices is fine, but don’t delude yourself into thinking those choices are anything but a tradeoff. If staring at lakes and skiing after work are important to you, don’t pretend to be surprised when your startup doesn’t cut it.

Perkins was just profiled on 60 minutes (including a tour of his yacht (largest privately owned sailboat).

Quoted: In 1957 Perkins started working for Hewlett-Packard, and his career with the company spanned, becoming the administrative head of the research laboratories and the first general manager of its skyrocketing computer businesses. He was a pioneer in laser technology, starting the company that he later merged into Spectra-Physics. As chairman of Genentech for fourteen years, founder of the Silicon Valley venture-capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and director of Applied Materials at Compaq, Corning Glass, and Philips Electronics, Perkins never shies away from the cutting edge.

From the Nov 2006 Guardian article:

Quoted: At the town's heart since 1991 has been a diner, Buck's of Woodside. At 8am it is packed with people debating, engaging, persuading. For it is here that some of the most important deals in internet history have been struck, as some of the world's wealthiest venture capitalists give the thumbs up or down to would-be entrepreneurs over their breakfast burritos and black coffees. 'Over there, table 15, is where Hotmail was founded,' said the diner's owner, Jamis MacNiven. 'Netscape had a lot of its early meetings here and PayPal got their funding here. Yahoo! was turned down twice for funding here.
...
'In the last two-and-a-half years there's been a vibrancy increasing,' added MacNiven, 57, wearing a black shirt with vivid cowboy-boot motifs. 'It's like a hum in a hive and right now it's very loud and the thinking about Silicon Valley is overwhelmingly optimistic. We're back to where we were in 1999, but without the craziness.'

Quoted: Buck's Restaurant in Woodside is where cold fusion was first developed. It turned out not to work though.