The Cloud

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Before it was chips in Silicon Valley, it was fruit. Orchards dominated the landscape here, a tapestry of cherries, apricots and plums, eventually giving way, acre by acre, to semiconductors and their spawn.

Manufacturing, labs, suburban offices, open-air Eichler homes and their knock-offs added enough concrete and density to cause a modest rise in the average temperature. It was sufficient to make the climate less than perfect for farming. But, no matter, the conditions remained plenty hospitable for the entrepreneurs, investors and engineers who combined forces to make magical electronics the region’s chief export.

On this lazy March afternoon, a fruity fragrance carries on the light wind, a throwback to more pastoral times. Two girls frolic in the front yard of the Menlo Park house with the white picket fence. Without warning, the brown-haired one with the scrawny arms and purple blouse seems struck with an idea, and suddenly bolts.

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