Journey to Silicon Valley: the cradle that still sets the pace of innovation

In April 2025, from the 24th to the 30th, I led a delegation of twenty-six people — entrepreneurs, managers, professionals, academics and university students — to Silicon Valley, between San Francisco and the South Bay. This was the Foundation's first major international mission: seven days spent studying from the inside the ecosystem that, for half a century, has invented the future first.

The presence of the youngest members was not a minor detail: the first bridge the Foundation wants to build is precisely the one between the "differently young" — those who often hold the decision-making power — and the young, who represent the future in every sense. We were heading to the place where that future, for half a century, has been invented first.

The cradle that still sets the pace

There has been talk for years of Silicon Valley's decline, of an exodus towards Austin, Miami, London. On the ground, the exact opposite is evident. This corner of California remains the place where capital, talent and ideas converge at a density unmatched anywhere in the world — and it is here that the pace of innovation is still being set.

The numbers speak plainly. According to Crunchbase data, in 2024 Bay Area startups raised approximately 90 billion dollars — 57% of all venture capital in the United States. And in the very months of our mission, at the start of 2025, the area alone captured nearly 70% of American VC investment. The concentration is even more extreme in artificial intelligence: in 2025, according to PitchBook and Crunchbase, the Bay Area captured approximately 60% of global capital directed at AI, despite accounting for a minority of deals.

There is a physical reason for all of this. Along just a few miles of Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park sit the funds that backed Apple, Google and Airbnb. A few kilometres away, Stanford and UC Berkeley produce thousands of engineers every year. There is also the matter of human density and speed. According to SignalFire data, approximately 49% of engineers at major American tech companies live here; and a Valley startup, PitchBook reports, moves from its first to its second funding round in an average of fourteen months, compared to eighteen in Austin and twenty-two in Europe. It is no coincidence that, after the pandemic years and the departures to Austin and Miami, in 2025 capital has returned here in greater concentration than before: the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area alone exceeded half of all national venture capital, at its highest level in over a decade. Capital, universities and businesses communicate daily, in person — at a speed that is unthinkable elsewhere. This is the ecosystem we went to study.

Geographical boundaries are no longer a barrier. A group of people who set out from Italy can sit at the tables that matter, listen, learn, and build relationships.

San Francisco: institutions, research and the human factor

We landed in San Francisco on 24 April and the first door to open was that of the Italian Consulate General: Consul Sergio Strozzi welcomed us for a meeting on "Italy's System in California". Starting from our country's institutional presence, even before the companies, is how we approach these trips: not technology tourism, but missions with a framework and a sense of responsibility.

The following day we entered Berkeley Lab, guests of Professor Alessandro Ratti: a laboratory where frontier research is conducted, at the level where ideas are born long before they become products. Shortly afterwards, the other side of the coin — the product that reaches millions of people — at Airbnb, thanks to Salvatore Giammarresi: a company culture built around the user experience.

That evening, at dinner, came the moment I still carry with me. We met Don Norman, the father of human-centred design, together with entrepreneur Marco Trombetti and Alessandro Cannas of Google. Hearing the man who taught the world to put people at the centre of technology speak about it was the confirmation of our deepest conviction: technology only matters if it becomes a bridge towards people. It is no coincidence that this is our payoff: the bridge between technology and people.

On 26 April we were guests of Translated, Marco Trombetti's company, which has turned AI-based translation into a story of Italian excellence at the heart of the Valley — a bet on the moment when the machine would equal human ability in translation.

And then a moment worth as much as any company visit: a tour of the Bay with Paul Cayard, a legend of sailing. Looking at San Francisco from the water, with the Golden Gate in the background, helps one understand why the best people keep arriving here. This too is part of the method: understanding an ecosystem means living it as well.

The South Bay: inside the technology giants

On 27 April we moved to Sunnyvale, the ideal base for visits to the major companies. The following days were a journey inside the names we all know, but seen from within.

At Meta we were welcomed by Paolo Parigi: the scale of a company that connects billions of people is something that, until you see it, remains abstract. Then Cupertino, and the almost mythological aura of Apple's headquarters — proof that secrecy here can still be a competitive advantage. The contrast was striking with the open campuses of Google and Meta, designed to keep people there: two opposing philosophies, the same objective — attracting and protecting the best talent.

And at Cisco, with Massimo Malizia, a precious and entirely different conversation: how a large company grows by acquiring others — a pitch on the craft of acquisitions that alone was worth the trip.

At Google, again with Alessandro Cannas, we walked through the Googleplex, where workplace culture is itself a product. Then a visit to Innovit, the Italian innovation hub in San Francisco, for a side event on cybersecurity: a reminder that Italy already has a presence here, and it works.

The future is not something that happens to you — it is something you steer. And you steer it better when you have looked it in the eye.

The academic highlight was at Stanford University, guests of Professor Luigi Pistaferri: walking through the campus that generated such a large portion of the Valley makes it clearer than any statistic why capital and knowledge, here, are one and the same.

To close, the Tesla plant in Sunnyvale, thanks to Andrea Esposito, and the farewell dinner. An automotive finale that, looking back today, feels like a foreshadowing: a year later, in China, we would see the same sector — electric vehicles — become the proving ground for the new global manufacturing landscape.

The Italian delegation in Silicon Valley

The strength of the mission lay in its delegation: a team that brought together business, finance, public health, academia, law, communications and the world of innovation. These are the twenty-six who crossed the Valley:

• Giancarlo De Leonardo — President, Fondazione Innovation Bridge
• Achille Saraldi — Vice President, Fondazione Innovation Bridge
• Valerio Zoino — Chief Executive Officer, Prima Sole Components
• Vincenzo Zoino — Economics graduate student, Luiss University
• Matteo Zoino — University student
• Antonio Pizzutelli — Tech Consultant
• Federico Abate — Consultant
• Mirko Zangrilli — Consultant
• Luca La Mesa — Tech entrepreneur
• Marco Santucci — CEO, Geely Italia
• Anna Vittoria Formisano — University lecturer
• Nicolò Giangrande — Consultant
• Eurialo Felici — Lawyer
• Marco Cimmino — Co-founder, Ubiquo Agency
• Filippo Alesii — Economics graduate student, Luiss University
• Francesco Cerilli — Director, ASL
• Leopoldo Cavalli — Entrepreneur
• Michele Cavalli — University student
• Enrico Cedrone — Consultant
• Andrea Cedrone — University student
• Valentina Cedrone — Political Science graduate student
• Carlo Rinaldi — Marketing & Communications Director, Humans.tech
• Mario De Santis — Co-founder & CEO, Humans.tech
• Valerio Mizzoni — Co-founder, Ubiquo Agency
• Andrea Pizzutelli — Co-founder, Ubiquo Agency
• Roberto Romolo — Videographer

What we brought home

We had not gone to Silicon Valley to sign contracts. We went to understand a method: the speed, the density, the culture that does not punish failure but transforms it into experience. And above all to verify, on the ground, the conviction that gave our Foundation its name: geographical boundaries are no longer a barrier. A group of people who set out from Italy can sit at the tables that matter, listen, learn, and build relationships.

I brought three lessons home in my luggage. The first: what wins here is speed, not just the idea. The second: innovation never belongs to a single company, but to an ecosystem that connects capital, universities and businesses within a few blocks of each other. The third: a culture that does not punish failure, but treats it as experience to be capitalised upon. These are the three ingredients that, in our own small way, we are trying to bring to Italy.

On that coach and in those meeting rooms, entrepreneurs with thirty years of experience sat alongside a student still at university: it is a portrait of the bridge we want to build — the one between those who make decisions today and those who will inherit their consequences tomorrow.

The decisions we make today about technology shape the way we will live tomorrow.

This mission is not a destination. It is the method we intend to repeat: bringing a delegation every year to the places where the future is being built, to observe it up close, forge relationships, and bring back to Italy what is worth learning. The future is not something that happens to you — it is something you steer. And you steer it better when you have looked it in the eye.

Fondazione Innovation Bridge – ETS organises annual study missions to the countries most advanced on the innovation front. To find out about our programmes and discover how to support us, visit the dedicated section of the website.