Silicon Valley's nondescript garages and iconic companies they birthed

On a sunny Saturday morning, after a hearty breakfast of dosa, we decided to drive to the legendary Silicon Valley garages.

- Shweta Taneja

On a sunny Saturday morning, after a hearty breakfast of dosa, we decided to drive to the legendary Silicon Valley garages. We had heard a lot of these humble garages that had given birth to the most influential tech companies of the world. Our journey began with a handy pamphlet from a tourism non-profit of San Jose - a city which was the centre of the Silicon Valley innovation in chips manufacturing before San Francisco's software startups took over.

In a tree-lined avenue, we parked our car in front of 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, which has been designated as the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley" and is a California Historic Landmark in 1989. The house is a Shingle Style home built in 1905 on a street peppered with similar houses. It feels like you've time travelled to a hundred years ago, where there were no computers or phones, where most of what the Silicon Valley was just orchards run by Hispanics. And two important institutions: Stanford University and a lot of military establishments.