Published: October 28, 2020
Since this week is the two-year anniversary of Mr. Alan Eustace's landmark jump, we're celebrating all the "hometown folks" that call the southern Bay Area their skydiving home!
If you were currently living on the planet two years ago--specifically, on October 24th, 2014--you are certainly aware of Mr. Eustace's jump, which broke previous record holder Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos skydiving stunt, set in 2012.
To pull it off, Eustace planned the jump in secrecy. He and his crack team of top technologists worked for almost three years on the design of his space suit, the totally-necessary life-support systems, the balloon technology and even his parachute. On the day of the skydive, he was carried by a large helium balloon from New Mexico to over 25 miles above the earth. Kitted out in a fetching spaceman suit and supported by an all-star staff of experts, the jump was a resounding success.
We were especially excited about it because he's, like, our neighbor. Eustace is a senior Google vice president--as well as pilot/skydiver/engineer--who has hailed from the same soil that we do since he graduated from school: good ol' San Jose.
Eustace isn't the only Silicon Valley luminary that likes to jump out of planes! We're convinced that the biggest secret in Silicon Valley is how the tech industry is blowing off steam. In actual fact, Silicon Valley's greatest minds love to sneak off to the dropzone on the weekends to make a skydive.
It's easy to see why--jumping is the ultimate stress reliever, and it's the surest way to release the crackling buildup of energy that they amass in a busy week of reimagining the world. It's a quick drive, too: San Jose Skydiving is less than an hour on the freeway from the very door of Google, making us by far the closest skydiving operation to the Silicon Valley.
It might seem like an odd connection, at first blush: the sport of skydiving and the art of technological universe design. What does jumping out of a plane have to do with heading up a company that designs the spaceship-cars of the future, changing the way the world finds information (in the case of Sergey Brin), or revolutionizing air travel with one's sights set on space? We would cheerfully argue that skydiving helps to exercise and stretch your muscles of possibility--and that, for a Silicon Valley thinker-tinker-doer-maker, is platinum stuff.
We're not making it up, either. Even Entrepreneur Magazine drew a wealth of parallels between running a business and running out of an aircraft.
So: Whaddaya think? Want to bring some of your experience in the sky to the boardroom? If you're from around here, we're willing to bet that you're going to find plenty of fellow jumpers at the water cooler.
Come blow off some steam at San Jose Skydiving Center, the premier destination for Bay Area skydiving, and get in on Silicon Valley's best kept secret.
...would go back again
» Bonnie M.