Why Barcelona won't be Silicon Valley

In 2025 not one, but two friends from the Catalan tech diaspora in Seattle told the press they wanted Barcelona to be the next Silicon Valley. Both very accomplished tech execs for whom I have great respect. But I think they got this one wrong.

We’ve been hearing this since the late nineties. Only in Europe the same vision was spouted for Paris, Madrid, Valencia, Cote d’Azur, Murcia, Rome, Málaga, Berlin, London, you name it! A vision that’s been repeated over 25 years all over the world with no progress towards it, is just stale.

Seattle is home to Microsoft and Amazon, and the biggest hub outside California for Google, Meta and Apple. Yet no one talks about Seattle as the second Silicon Valley. Nor does this happen in the different tech hubs across the US, be it New York or Austin. All these hubs share much more with the Silicon Valley than any European region. The culture, the market, and just the physical proximity. Beyond that, one of the things that makes the Silicon Valley be Silicon Valley is the large amount of VC money, compared to other US tech hubs, and to Europe. Last, Silicon Valley is an ecosystem. Would OpenAI be a San Francisco company if Google, NVIDIA, Meta and Stanford were based in Denver? I bet it would be Coloradan.

Putting all these challenges aside. Does the Catalan society even want it? To be clear, I do. But if successful, this would bring more expats, more economic disparity, more private schools, private healthcare, privatization of everything. It’s up for debate, but I don’t have a sense that’s where Barcelona wants to be. A city that sympathizes with de-growth, says no to expanding the airport because of the ducks nearby, bans building new hotels and frowns upon the Mobile World Congress, is not a city to welcome a “Silicon Valley” in it.

Oh, but let’s come up with “our own version” of Silicon Valley. Frankly, enough already. Let’s give this concept a break and just come up with a new one that feels fresher, more relatable and maybe even measurable.

Here’s some ideas. Admittedly, not as flashy headlines: double the weight of the tech sector in the GDP 10 years (that’s growing it 8% every year). Grow the presence of tech workers from top firms faster than London, Warsaw and Madrid. Produce 3 new unicorns in 5 years. 2026 is not even started yet. Let’s track every year how we fare against these goals. Let’s look back at 2030 and know objectively how we did. The talent is there. There is money to bootstrap this, and the floodgates will open if we can produce consistently successful bets. Not everyone will agree with this direction, but I for one can’t wait for this to happen.