A View to a Kill

Silicon Valley refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers,... but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the American high-tech sector. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States and the world, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States. Geographically, the Silicon Valley encompasses all of the Santa Clara Valley including the city of San Jose , the southern Peninsula Valley, and the southern East Bay. The term Silicon Valley was coined by Ralph Vaerst, a successful Central California entrepreneur. Its first published use is credited to Don Hoefler, a friend of Vaerst's, who used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News.
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San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.6 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area... of about 46.9 square miles on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile . It is the most densely settled large city in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 13th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of 4,335,391. In 1776, colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi a few miles away.
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The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline and one of its most iconic. Although the building no longer houses the headquarters of the Transamerica Corporation, it is still strongly associated with the company and is depicted in the company's logo. Designed by... architect William Pereira and built by Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company, at 260 m , upon completion in 1972 it was among the five tallest buildings in the world. The tower has no public access except for the first floor lobby, thus visitors cannot ascend to the top for a panoramic view. The Transamerica building was commissioned by Transamerica CEO John R. Beckett, with the claim that he wished to allow natural light and fresh air to filter down to the street below. Built on the location of the historic Montgomery Block, it has a structural height of 260 m and contains 48 floors of retail and office space. Construction began in 1969 and finished in 1972, and was overseen by San Francisco-based contractor Dinwiddie Construction .
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