Ultra-ritzy enclave where nine local families have collective wealth of $638 billion
But now it has emerged that the eye-watering sum is shared between just nine families.
And a new study conducted by San Jose State University concluded that the city's wealthiest households are only gaining wealth.
Their collective net worth was up by a staggering $136 billion from 2024, according to the recent data.
The annual report, titled the Silicon Valley Pain Index,is designed to measure 'personal and community distress' through data tracking structural inequalities in the region.
Silicon Valley refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, including Santa Clara, San Mateo, the western edge of Alameda, and Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz.
It represents a high concentration of wealth and can be an increasingly difficult place for working and middle-class families to make ends meet.
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is among the ritzy residents, accounting for $253.5 billion of the area's wealth.
Zuckerberg's net worth is more than 20 times the wealth of the bottom 446,505 households in the area.
The Meta CEO purchased a five-house compound in the area, estimated to be worth a whopping $37million.
He bought a $7 million mansion in 2011 before buying the neighboring residences to create the compound.
The report also estimates that the region has $1.01 trillion of liquid wealth. Three companies based in Silicon Valley - Adobe, Alphabet (Google), and Meta comprise a combined net worth of $535 billion.
Even outside of the nine wealthiest families, the annual income needed to afford just a median-priced house is $370,000, up 54 percent in the last six years, according to the report.
The report also found that renters need to have an average annual income of $136,532 to afford an apartment at 30 percent of their take-home pay, representing the highest rents in the country.
In San Mateo County, a household annual income of $156,650 for a family of four is considered 'low, ' compared to the state average of $94,500.
Nearly 71 percent of homes sold in the area were priced around 1.92 million and were considered the 'median home price.'
The median home price in Santa Clara alone was 2.171 million in May, which is a 3.4 percent increase from last year.
The study doesn't explicitly state the nine families contributing to the mass concentration of wealth in addition to Zuckerberg, but Realtor.com listed Google's former CEO, Larry Page, as the second richest billionaire in the area.
Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google with Page and served as the president of Alphabet, is the third-wealthiest billionaire in the region.
Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, an artificial intelligence company, comes in fourth. Page and Zuckerberg live in Palo Alto, while Brin and Huang have properties in Los Altos Hills.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is listed as the fifth-wealthiest billionaire in the region, with Dustin Moskovitz of Facebook as the sixth.
Financier George Roberts was listed seventh, while Laurence Powell Jobs of Apple came in eighth.
Venture capitalist John Doerr came in ninth, and Charles Schwab of Charles Schwab brokerage ranked tenth.
Silicon Valley is home to major enterprises including Apple, Alphabet, Chevron, Meta, Visa, and Wells Fargo.
The companies employ a significant portion of residents in the region, leading to the high concentration of wealth from executives and engineers reporting high incomes.
The success of these companies has solidified Silicon Valley as a wealthy enclave and the tech capital of the world, but the region has a long history of advancement.
The silicon chip, which is used in computerized machinery, was invented in the region, and electronics reporter Dan Hoefler coined the name 'Silicon Valley' in 1971.
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BBC News
11 hours ago
- BBC News
My journey to the heart of the forgotten internet
Slowly but surely, huge swaths of the internet are vanishing. But the artefacts of the early web are still out there, and they have lessons for the future. When my family got our first computer in 2003, I watched in awe as the components were set up the living room. Our wooden desk groaned under the weight of the hefty monitor. The computer tower left dents in the carpet. The future was here. And it was big. But it was more than just a computer. It was a portal to a new world for me – a way to access something called the internet. My parents let me log in for one hour per day. My early excursions in cyberspace left me feeling like a pioneer chopping through bushes in a strange land, browsing esoteric websites with bad graphics, message boards and clunky Flash games. At night, I snuck downstairs to boot the computer back up, looking over my shoulder at every creak of an upstairs floorboard. But these days the internet can seem mundane by comparison. I have 24-hour access, and my go-to sites are dreary and familiar: social media platforms that can feel better suited for doomscrolling than exploration. Algorithms lead the way, like a strict tour guide on sanctioned trails cut through a once enigmatic wilderness. So a few months ago, I went in search of some of the earliest corners of the web to see how much of it still there and find out what it has to teach us. The web you and I know may be ending. Because of AI and some radical changes to Google Search, some worry the tools that used to send us to websites will simply give us the answers we're looking for instead. If fewer people visit websites, it could be harder for sites to make money. Some experts fear we've entered a new era that could derail the economic system that encouraged people to create websites in the first place. It's likely that this chapter of digital history is closing. We've lost alarming amounts of our digital history. Some 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible, according to the Pew Research Center. Niels Brügger, a professor in media and internet history at Aarhus University in Denmark, began noticing it as early as the 1990s. "The average lifetime of a website, it's around a couple of months," he says. (Read more about why there is so little left of the early internet.) This decay has been happening since the web was created. But the older, simpler, stranger net hasn't vanished yet. Ruins of a bygone internet live on, waiting to be explored. You only need to know where to look. 'Welcome Cybernauts!' There's no better place to start than the world's first website, built by the researchers who invented the World Wide Web. Today, it's dedicated to the history of the web itself. But you can also experience the first website as it existed back in 1992, thanks to a tool that simulates the first readily-accessible web browser, called the Line-Mode Browser. It's text only, and you couldn't even use a mouse in its original iteration. To visit pages about bioscience, for example, you typed the number three. "The web existed in the early '90s, but it really was academic and had a very small user base," says Ian Milligan, associate vice-president of research, oversight and analysis at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and a historian who studies web archives. If you want to see the dawn of the modern web, he says you should start in 1996. "That's when the web really begins to pick up as the central communication medium for Western society and then international society," Milligan says. Today, the website for the Liberal Party of Canada, the country's leading political party, is a slick and modern affair. Look back to an archived copy of the Liberal's very first site, however, and you'll find a different atmosphere. "Welcome Cybernauts!" reads a message posted in October 1996, greeting visitors on behalf of then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. "We Liberals are excited about the potential of the World Wide Web... the potential for interactive communication with you!" There's a similar tone on the site for former US Senator Bob Dole's failed 1996 presidential run. "There's a wholesomeness to the early web, an earnestness that's hard to find online these days," Milligan says. "Today we live on the internet. It's where our social lives are, where our commerce is, where we interact with our governments, where we decide what university we're going to. As a result, archived websites are the historical record of the last 25 years. They are the primary sources of today." The chronicles of ancient websites have a deep and important history to unveil – but of course, there's also the pull of nostalgia. Dial-up dreams Growing up, the slowness of the web was incredibly frustrating. All that buffering and loading ate into my one allotted hour of internet time – though it did make webpages somewhat more thrilling when it finally loaded. To my delight, I discovered a website that recreates that experience. recreates the sluggish interfaces of outdated web browsers, from Internet Explorer 6 to prehistoric options such as MacLynx 2 and Navigator 3. If you want to go all out, you can even try "Old Google", which replicates former designs of the search engine dating from between 1998 and 2013. But Old Google can't link you directly to the past; you have to find the old websites yourself. One method is to trawl through your own memories. One day in school, while my teacher's back was turned, I logged on to their desktop computer and loaded up a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-themed chat room I had discovered during one of my illicit night-time excursions online. It was my first experience of instant messaging. My friends and I watched wide-eyed as strangers chimed in from other continents. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, the Buffy site is no more. Enter the Internet Archive, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving the web. Perhaps it's no coincidence, as Milligan points out, that the Archive was founded in 1996, just as the internet's popularity exploded. "In many cases, archives of the web, like those available from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, offer the only access to those otherwise-lost records," says Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine. "News stories, obituaries, poems, fan-fiction, travel reports, family histories and other pages that have special and unique meaning to people all over the world." The Internet Archive has scraped more than 946 billion webpages, sometimes saving different versions of the same page multiple times a day. You can paste URLs in its search engine to find copies of decades-old sites. I looked up "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and there was the login screen, frozen in time since October 2003. I then tried Bebo, the long-gone social media platform I used in my pre-teens, and found 34,000 captures taken since 2000. My profile may be gone, but countless others have been saved, tiny windows into the lives of anonymous strangers from the past. It reminded me of another site I spent hours bouncing around: eBaum's World, famous for viral videos, games, crude humour and stolen content – a repository for memes before they even had a name. The archived copies of eBaum's World perfectly encapsulate my early 2000s online experiences: a chaotic mish-mish of disparate interests. I found a page I remembered dedicated to celebrity soundboards. You could play audio clips through the phone and trick friends into thinking Jim Carrey was calling. There it was, saved for posterity. Lost and found One of Milligan's favourite research subjects is GeoCities, one of the first platforms that made it easy for anyone to host their own page online. GeoCities shut down in 2009, but much is preserved in the Internet Archive. Browsing its pages is like a trip back in time, a vision of an era when the internet seemed as private as it was public. "People felt that not everything they would say would be tracked back to them," Milligan says. "There's a refreshing candour to it, a sense that people are really engaging without self-censoring themselves." GeoCities is perhaps best known for its graphic design, full of text in written in the font Comic Sans and the generous use of gifs. In fact, there's an entire search engine dedicated to it called GifCities. Type in a word or phrase, and you'll uncover mountains of animated digital folk art on the subject. The Internet Archive isn't the web's only digital repository. In 2005, for example, Brügger helped launch the Danish Web Archive, committed to recording the nation's one million web pages. "It's really important that we preserve this cultural heritage, because it's an important part of our life," Brügger says. Then there are the online artefacts that haven't gone offline. I was four years old in 1996 when a website promoting Space Jam, a live-action movie where Michael Jordan plays basketball with the Looney Tunes, was created. It's still intact in an archived form – a living relic from ancient times. The site is resplendent with an overbearing, repeating background pattern (a staple of early web design) and pages with barely enough information to justify their existence, at least by today's standards. I dug up another old website dedicated to the study of sporks, a perfect example of early internet humour seemingly untouched since – you guessed it – 1996. It felt wonderfully handmade: white and yellow text sitting on a plain black-background, with simple animations decorating the page. It captures a time when nothing was too niche or inane to warrant its own site. An archive can feel more like visiting a museum than actively surfing the net, however, but that experience isn't totally lost either. In the early 2010s, I let strangers send me to unexpected places on the web using StumbleUpon, a site that would take you to random webpages added by other users, full of obscure blogs or quirky homepages. StumbleUpon shut down in 2018, but the concept has been reborn, this time with a nostalgic twist. A new tool called Wiby has a similar randomising button, but its library consists entirely of the handmade, idiosyncratic sites of the early web. You can enter a specific word using the search box to find related pages or click "surprise me" to land on a random ancient site. I encountered a website dedicated to photos of someone's pet fish, a random gnome generator and Starsky and Hutch fan-fiction. The pages are endearingly under-developed, filled with pixelated images, overbearing graphics and dense text in jarring colours. More like this: In a world of polished, algorithmically optimised content, the old internet is a testament to individuality and experimentation. People didn't necessarily care about appealing to big online followings or going viral. They made things for the sake of it. Because they loved whatever it was they were into. Now, as some worry that AI is ushering in an increasingly impersonal online experience, where human output is filtered and regurgitated via chatbots, the early internet reminds us that personality and human creativity was once far more prized. It's hard to argue that today's internet isn't more useful, or at least more functional. But the internet used to feel like wandering through a college dorm, knocking on doors and seeing how each person had decorated their room to their individual tastes. You never knew what to expect, who you'd meet, or where you'd end up. It wasn't necessarily "better", but it was weirder, freer and far more personal. As the web enters its next chapter, perhaps those memories can steer us towards a more human online world. -- For more technology news and insights, sign up to our Tech Decoded newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights to your inbox twice a week. For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Geeky Gadgets
13 hours ago
- Geeky Gadgets
How to Use Google Veo 3 to Create Viral Videos : Full Prompt Guide
Have you ever wondered what separates a video that goes viral from one that barely gets noticed? In the age of AI-driven creativity, tools like Google Veo 3 are rewriting the rules of content creation. Imagine crafting a video where a serene mountain sunset seamlessly morphs into a bustling cityscape—all in hyperrealistic detail. With its innovative features and intuitive design, Google Veo 3 enables creators to produce visually stunning, emotionally resonant videos that captivate audiences. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a curious hobbyist, the potential to create something extraordinary is now at your fingertips. In this piece, Dr Alex Young explains how to harness the full power of Google Veo 3 to craft videos that stand out in today's crowded digital landscape. From mastering the art of prompt structuring to experimenting with surreal transitions and seamless loops, this guide will equip you with actionable techniques to elevate your content. You'll also explore advanced features that enable dynamic environments, hyperrealistic animations, and even POV-style storytelling. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination, and by the end, you might just find yourself redefining what's possible in video creation. Let's explore the intersection of technology and creativity—where viral success begins. Mastering Google Veo 3 The Importance of Prompt Structuring Effective prompt structuring is the cornerstone of creating precise and engaging AI-generated videos. Google Veo 3 relies on JSON formatting, which allows you to break down your instructions into clear, actionable components. This structured approach ensures the AI understands your creative vision and delivers polished results tailored to your needs. For instance, if you're designing a tourism video, your JSON prompt might include: Description: 'A serene mountain landscape at sunset.' 'A serene mountain landscape at sunset.' Style: 'Hyperrealistic.' 'Hyperrealistic.' Camera Angle: 'Aerial drone perspective.' 'Aerial drone perspective.' Lighting: 'Golden hour glow.' This level of detail provides the AI with a clear framework, allowing it to generate content that aligns with your goals. Whether you're aiming for cinematic drama or artistic flair, a well-structured prompt is essential for achieving high-quality results. Techniques to Enhance AI Video Creation Google Veo 3 excels in generating diverse video styles, ranging from pixel art to photorealistic scenes. By starting with high-quality images or AI avatars, you can create dynamic, visually stunning content. Platforms like Clipyard complement this process by offering tools to refine and enhance your videos further. Consider experimenting with these techniques: Seamless Loops: Craft videos where the first and last frames connect perfectly, making them ideal for social media platforms. Craft videos where the first and last frames connect perfectly, making them ideal for social media platforms. Surreal Transitions: Use creative prompts to morph objects into entirely new forms, adding a unique edge to your content. Use creative prompts to morph objects into entirely new forms, adding a unique edge to your content. Layered Effects: Combine motion, lighting, and sound to create immersive and engaging video experiences. These techniques allow you to push the boundaries of traditional video creation, helping your content stand out in a competitive digital landscape. Creating Viral Videos with Advanced VEO3 Prompts Watch this video on YouTube. Explore further guides and articles from our vast library that you may find relevant to your interests in Google Veo 3. Creative Applications for Viral Content AI video models like Google Veo 3 open up endless possibilities for creating viral content. Their versatility makes them suitable for a wide range of applications, including: Marketing Campaigns: Design hyperrealistic ads with compelling narratives and cinematic visuals to captivate audiences. Design hyperrealistic ads with compelling narratives and cinematic visuals to captivate audiences. ASMR Videos: Use detailed prompts to integrate sound and motion, enhancing the sensory experience for viewers. Use detailed prompts to integrate sound and motion, enhancing the sensory experience for viewers. Educational or Historical Content: Bring unique concepts to life, such as animated recreations of historical events or DIY-style tutorials. These applications demonstrate how AI tools can cater to diverse audiences and creative goals, offering innovative ways to engage viewers. Advanced Features to Explore Google Veo 3 includes advanced features that can elevate your video projects to new heights. These features enable you to experiment with innovative ideas and expand your creative possibilities: Surreal Transitions: Create scenes where objects transform into entirely new environments, adding a layer of intrigue. Create scenes where objects transform into entirely new environments, adding a layer of intrigue. Dynamic Environments: Simulate shifting weather patterns or evolving landscapes to add depth and realism. Simulate shifting weather patterns or evolving landscapes to add depth and realism. Product Mockups: Showcase products like furniture or tech gadgets using hyperrealistic visuals and cinematic lighting. By using these features, you can craft videos that not only captivate but also leave a lasting impression on your audience. Specific Use Cases for AI Video Models AI video models are particularly effective for niche applications, offering tailored solutions for various industries and creative needs. Here are a few examples: Tourism Promotion: Highlight cultural landmarks or natural wonders using symbolic animations and stunning visuals. Highlight cultural landmarks or natural wonders using symbolic animations and stunning visuals. POV-Style Videos: Create unique perspectives, such as a first-person view of a Yeti exploring a snowy landscape, to captivate viewers. Create unique perspectives, such as a first-person view of a Yeti exploring a snowy landscape, to captivate viewers. Gaming Content: Generate dynamic streams that simulate real-time gameplay, providing an immersive experience for audiences. These use cases illustrate the adaptability of AI tools in meeting specific creative and industry demands. Experimentation and Customization Mastering AI video creation requires a willingness to experiment and customize. By tweaking your prompts and combining elements like sound, motion, and lighting, you can achieve highly personalized results. For example, layering surreal transitions with seamless loops can create mesmerizing effects that resonate with viewers. Platforms like Clipyard further enhance this process by offering tools to refine and polish your AI-generated content. Whether you're crafting a cinematic ad or a POV-style video, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Experimentation is key to discovering new techniques and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI video creation. Media Credit: Dr Alex Young Filed Under: AI, Guides Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Big tech has spent $155bn on AI this year. It's about to spend hundreds of billions more
The US's largest companies have spent 2025 locked in a competition to spend more money than one another, lavishing $155bn on the development of artificial intelligence, more than the US government has spent on education, training, employment and social services in the 2025 fiscal year so far. Based on the most recent financial disclosures of Silicon Valley's biggest players, the race is about to accelerate to hundreds of billions in a single year. Over the past two weeks, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet, Google's parent, have shared their quarterly public financial reports. Each disclosed that their year-to-date capital expenditure, a figure that refers to the money companies spend to acquire or upgrade tangible assets, already totals tens of billions. Capex, as the term is abbreviated, is a proxy for technology companies' spending on AI because the technology requires gargantuan investments in physical infrastructure, namely data centers, which require large amounts of power, water and expensive semiconductor chips. Google said during its most recent earnings call that its capital expenditure 'primarily reflects investments in servers and data centers to support AI'. Meta's year-to-date capital expenditure amounted to $30.7bn, doubling the $15.2bn figure from the same time last year, per its earnings report. For the most recent quarter alone, the company spent $17bn on capital expenditures, also double the same period in 2024, $8.5bn. Alphabet reported nearly $40bn in capex to date for the first two quarters of the current fiscal year, and Amazon reported $55.7bn. Microsoft said it would spend more than $30bn in the current quarter to build out the data centers powering its AI services. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the current quarter's capex would be at least 50% more than the outlay during the same period a year earlier and greater than the company's record capital expenditures of $24.2bn in the quarter to June. 'We will continue to invest against the expansive opportunity ahead,' Hood said. For the coming fiscal year, big tech's total capital expenditure is slated to balloon enormously, surpassing the already eye-popping sums of the previous year. Microsoft plans to unload about $100bn on AI in the next fiscal year, CEO Satya Nadella said Wednesday. Meta plans to spend between $66bn and $72bn. Alphabet plans to spend $85bn, significantly higher than its previous estimation of $75bn. Amazon estimated that its 2025 expenditure would come to $100bn as it plows money into Amazon Web Services, which analysts now expect to amount to $118bn. In total, the four tech companies will spend more than $400bn on capex in the coming year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The multibillion-dollar figures represent mammoth investments, which the Journal points out is larger than the European Union's quarterly spending on defense. However, the tech giants can't seem to spend enough for their investors. Microsoft, Google and Meta informed Wall Street analysts last quarter that their total capex would be higher than previously estimated. In the case of all three companies, investors were thrilled, and shares in each company soared after their respective earnings calls. Microsoft's market capitalization hit $4tn the day after its report. Even Apple, the cagiest of the tech giants, signaled that it would boost its spending on AI in the coming year by a major amount, either via internal investments or acquisitions. The company's quarterly capex rose to $3.46bn, up from $2.15bn during the same period last year. The iPhone maker reported blockbuster earnings Thursday, with rebounding iPhone sales and better-than-expected business in China, but it is still seen as lagging farthest behind on development and deployment of AI products among the tech giants. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said Thursday that the company was reallocating a 'fair number' of employees to focus on artificial intelligence and that the 'heart of our AI strategy' is to increase investments and 'embed' AI across all of its devices and platforms. Cook refrained from disclosing exactly how much Apple is spending, however. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion 'We are significantly growing our investment, I'm not putting specific numbers behind that,' he said. Smaller players are trying to keep up with the incumbents' massive spending and capitalize on the gold rush. OpenAI announced at the end of the week of earnings that it had raised $8.3bn in investment, part of a planned $40bn round of funding, valuing the startup, whose ChatGPT chatbot kicked in 2022, at $300bn.
