If you blink you may miss it—the unassuming garage on a tree-lined street in Palo Alto where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard created a company that would become the computer powerhouse HP. Though most visitors to Santa Clara County are naturally captivated by the sprawling campuses of the likes of Apple and NVIDIA, you’ll likely witness your share of hungry techies and laser-focused business professionals heading to Addison Avenue to pay homage to the birth of HP and what’s possible in Silicon Valley.
Visitors may arrive in Santa Clara County to marvel at the beauty of the region and meander through the Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino or the Googleplex Visitor Center in Mountain View, but the hopefuls stay behind, itching for an opportunity to snag their piece of the pie. Tenacity and a strong backbone are what’s required to rise to the top in a region that’s been known to chew up and spit out its share of aspiring business leaders.
Santa Clara County and its major metropolis of San Jose have been a breeding ground for business and industry for decades, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. While the Internet boom and bust has come and gone, today the region is best known for the research, development, and marketing of computer products and software.
Tech-centric San Jose and the greater Santa Clara County area is a place where your MBA can pay off in spades.
Microsoft and Google Double Down on Santa Clara County Real Estate
In recent years, two of the world’s largest tech companies, Microsoft and Google, have cemented their presence in, and their commitment to, Santa Clara County through significant real estate purchases.
In September 2024, Microsoft finalized a $330 million purchase of its sprawling office campus in Mountain View. Coming in as one of the largest real estate deals for the year in Santa Clara County, the purchase signifies Google’s long-term plans to remain in the region.
Microsoft has called Mountain View home for more than five years, using the Silicon Valley campus as its office hub. Consisting of about 33 acres and more than 630,000 square feet, the campus can accommodate up to 3,000 employees.
But the purchase of this property signifies more than just the transition from tenant to owner. It reverses the tech goliath’s trend of selling off property in recent years (largely as a result of the COVID pandemic), instead revealing the company’s plans to solidify the region as its home base for years to come.
The purchase of the Mountain View campus comes on the heels of a 2017 modernization effort of the property that included the addition of water-conserving green features, one of which included creating a fully sustainable water system that uses only recycled water and rainfall for its non-drinking water needs. The campus is now known as a “net-zero water usage” facility.
Microsoft currently owns or leases nearly 29 million square feet of office space around the world, a significant portion of which is in Silicon Valley.
Not be outdone, Google is in the process of transforming some of its property in San Jose into an advanced research hub that will employ dozens of people focused on electronics R&D. They’ve recently shored up plans to begin making significant changes to a large building in the city’s Alviso district, a 233,000 square-foot site that they bought for $117 million in 2018.
The tech giant also purchased two more properties in San Jose totaling more than $150 million in the same year. And in 2019, they purchased another three buildings totaling more than 332,000 square feet. As a result, Google has created a San Jose tech campus that totals about 1.27 million square feet.
Why Santa Clara County Has Some of the Best Online MBA Programs and Campus Options in California
Tech rules in Santa Clara County. In fact, the sheer number of tech companies in its fairly small 20 square miles is nothing short of impressive. Applied Materials, Oracle, Ericsson, Intel… Santa Clara County and its city of the same name are like a who’s who of tech giants.
No less than 12,000 businesses are drawn to Santa Clara County for its low business taxes, abundant commercial space, and talent. According to the California Department of Technology, employment in the computer and electronic product manufacturing sector was at a 21-year high as of 2023, with Apple and Tesla leading production.
In fact, about half of all manufacturing jobs in the county are found at computer and semiconductor enterprises like Apple, Cisco, Intel, and HP. Nearly 18,000 people work at Apple’s three campuses in Sunnyvale and Cupertino.
The thriving tech manufacturing industry here supports equally strong distribution, warehousing, and transportation industries. In 2022 alone, the transportation and warehousing sector expanded at a rapid clip, adding about 2,600 jobs in trucking, warehousing, airport services, couriers, and messengers.
Santa Clara County’s major universities supply a steady stream of business talent for the region, with most MBA programs here led by Silicon Valley innovators who prepare students for the challenges and opportunities awaiting them. MBA grads at schools like Stanford and San Jose State become tomorrow’s trailblazers, changemakers, and entrepreneurs. Stanford grads alone have raised more than $1.4 billion in startup capital in just the last five years.
Universities in Santa Clara County don’t just introduce MBA students to Silicon Valley, they immerse them in it. For example, San Jose State offers MBA students a “Silicon Valley Experience,” an experiential learning course that allows students to begin developing the entrepreneurial mindset needed to lead tomorrow’s startups.
Speaking of startups, there’s plenty of funding to back up the next big thing in Santa Clara County. Sand Hill Road, a five-mile stretch of road that weaves its way through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, remains home to massive VCs that have funded some of the largest tech companies in the nation. AI companies have proven themselves to be the next big thing in Silicon Valley, as is evidenced by recent stats showing a 220 percent increase in investments among generative AI companies between 2022 and 2023 alone.
Accredited Online MBA Programs and Campus Options Serving Students in San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Throughout Santa Clara County
Options abound in Santa Clara to earn the MBA that will catapult your business career and place you among the business elite. Four, major universities here offer a host of MBA programs that are ranked among some of the best, not just in the region but in the nation.
With so many MBAs at your disposal, it may be an overwhelming prospect to decide which program is right for you. Fortunately, accreditation allows schools to stand out from the competition.
The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) and the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE) are the top accrediting agencies in the MBA world. Each accrediting body measures a program’s quality using its own set of standards, those that have achieved accreditation are recognized as having met or exceeded generally recognized industry standards for academic quality and student outcomes.
Most of today’s MBAs are not structured as one-size-fits-all programs, so you’ll find many programs designed for students at specific points in their careers.
For example, San Jost State University offers both an Early Career MBA and an MBA for Professionals to accommodate both newcomers and mainstays in the business world. Many programs also offer opportunities to specialize and align your grad program with your specific professional goals and interests. For example, Santa Clara University’s MBAs include concentration options like Finance, Marketing, Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation, and Leading Innovative Organizations.
And while many MBAs are offered as on-campus programs, perhaps just as many are offered in online or hybrid formats that appeal to the needs of today’s busy, working professionals.
Santa Clara University
Leavey School of Business
Santa Clara, CA
Website
- Evening MBA (Data Science and Business Analytics, Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation, Finance, Leading Innovative Organizations, Marketing, Individual Studies) (on-campus)
- Executive MBA (hybrid)
- Online MBA (Data Science and Business Analytics, Leading Innovative Organizations, Marketing, Finance, and Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation) (online with two, on-campus residencies)
- Accreditation: AACSB
Stanford University
Graduate School of Business
Stanford, CA
Website
- MBA (on-campus)
- Accreditation: AACSB
San Jose State University
Lucas College and Graduate School of Business
San Jose, CA
Website
- Early Career MBA (on-campus)
- MBA for Professionals (on-campus)
- Accreditation: AACSB
California Miramar University
School of Business
San Jose, CA
Website
- MBA (Business Administration, Finance, Health Care Management, Artificial Intelligence, Strategic Leadership and Management in Global Business) (online)