It’s time to admit that Silicon Valley is a bit of a freak. A paradoxical place where self-driving cars, drones and presidential visits are so common they barely merit a second thought. Yet we steal elections with licked stamps and feed ballots into counting machines by hand. From $100 million mansions to a now-disassembled plywood and canvas favela that was ready for its own Zip code, the valley incubates diversity and embraces unconventional thinking. Our normal is never the norm.
This issue celebrates our exceptional existence. This is Metro’s 29th go-around of the original Best of Silicon Valley. We track the ramen joints and the Michelin star recipients, the local traditions and the new arrivals. We survey our readers and draw upon our own experiences to compile a useful roadmap to many of the valley’s noteworthy offerings. And, in a nod to the culture of invention, we built this year’s logo with the Tesla font by Lexi Griffith, and the script used in this issue is a typeface based on Nikola Tesla’s handwriting.
Over the coming weeks, winners will post announcements to websites and social media pages, and framed certificates will be hung on walls. Our mission, simply, is to recognize exceptional efforts and enable readers to discover and enjoy what’s here. We hope you like this issue and take advantage of the many amenities in the valley it salutes. (DP)
