Ask HN: Any good Silicon Valley Photo coffee table books?

Not a book, and a bit self promotional, but I have a small photo series I worked on https://mkaz.com/silicon-valley/

Also, look for Silicon Valley '07 by Gabriele Basilico, it's a photo book - not a huge coffee table book but pretty good with about 80-100 photos from 2007

I bought San Francisco Dream (Yoko Takahashi) a while back. It had a lot of photos that reminded me of what it felt like when I had just moved here.

Possibly not an answer to your question, but just in case someone else reading finds it interesting.

https://leicastoresf.com/collections/lssf-photobooks/product...

i am not 100% sure, but i think this one was the same one I browsed in a waiting room once and it was pretty cool -> https://www.siliconvalleysmarts.com/silicon-valley-book

To really understand it's changes, you first need a book with pictures of the valley from the 1940's to the 1960's. I don't have such a book but I've seen a number of pictures when the valley was all orchards. Then you overlay those with modern day pictures and you see how places like Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto transformed into large cities that essentially removed those trees and replaced them with buildings, houses, and roads. I could study those pictures for hours.

I suppose print-on-demand services are cheap enough that you could put together your own fairly easily. Flickr has very permissive licensing by default, if you wanted to make it available for others, too.

At Half Price Books in Fremont, there's an entire shelf dedicated to these local history books.

Some of my favorites:

https://www.amazon.com/Palo-Alto-Centennial-Ward-Winslow/dp/...

https://www.amazon.com/Menlo-Park-California-Beyond-Gate/dp/...

https://www.amazon.com/Seabright-Images-America-Arcadia-Publ...

In fact, the Images of America series is exactly what you're looking for, think.

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/collections/images-of-amer...

Check out “Songbook” by Alec Soth. He’s an amazing photographer, and while the book isn’t exclusively Silicon Valley, there’s some great photos of various campuses and areas that feel timeless.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/justinesharrock/silicon...

https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/collections/books/songbook...

I haven’t read it in physical form, but maybe Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made by Andy Hertzfeld?

AFAICT it’s based on the stories from https://folklore.org/, so I ought to be good.

You can see how it looks here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMExWOBvmho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_the_Valley

Same. Let's work on publishing one. I am happy to fund it.

Does anyone have any tips for moving to the valley at a young age?

I'm very young, not from the US and looking to move to the valley to be around more ambitious people.

Any tips or things I should know? Neighbourhoods to consider? Areas to be in? What to avoid? How to meet people? Hidden gems?

This book has a lot of great Bay Area photos from the 50s-60s:

https://www.amazon.com/Mid-Century-Bay-Celebration-Francisco...

I enjoyed the photo book of SF by Victoria Smith

https://www.amazon.co.uk/See-San-Francisco-Through-SFGirlbyB...

I highly recommend "Silicon Valley: The History In Pictures" by Mary Wadden

Edit: (Written in conjunction with the Silicon Valley Historical Association)

Look up “San Jose signs project” or the San Francisco one.

The HP Way ?

A bit of an aside. But I would love a book on the comprehensive history of silicon valley up to and describing the crisis we face today of housing and everyone leaving.