Ridiculous
I've worked in silicon valley for more than 20 years. The opinion that silicon valley doesn't benefit from government programs would be laughable if it wasn't so annoyingly persistent. Sadly it's easy to find tech people in the valley who hold this view. And yet a huge fraction of the valley's economy derives from government funded research, both corporate and spinning out of universities. Not to mention direct government contracts and mandates. And defense work. And DARPA directed development efforts. And spin offs from government labs. In my career, I've been either a early stage hire or founder of four tech startups. Not one has been impeded by federal or state government policy, and more than one has benefited from government research and export promotion policies. Even tax policy has generally been encouraging rather than detrimental, ranging from R&D credits to end user tax incentives.