Silicon Valley Nation: Immigrants keep coming

PALO ALTO, Calif.--A few blocks from "The Garage," we sat down to dine in the heart of a region a lot of people try to write off as dead.

"There's no silicon in Silicon Valley," Cypress CEO T.J. Rodgers is fond of saying. Perhaps that's true of manufacturing, but there's silicon design and innovation that's hard to match anywhere in the world. And if things are dead or dying, then why have these three guys pulled up European stakes and moved here?

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Let's let Peter Jones, Andreas Eieland and Sander Arts tell their stories. Each man is educated, can presumably read a newspaper or a blog post and knows which way the economic winds are blowing. Europe is struggling but remains a hub of innovation, particularly in telecommunications and automotive electronics. They could have de-camped for India or China. But they came to the Silicon Valley at a time when executives like Rodgers and Intel CEO Paul Otellini have deep reservations about the future of the valley and of California in general.

But they still come. The question is why?