Apple and some of the biggest tech companies have risen to the top on the principle that the most innovative needed a place like Silicon Valley to make their mark on the world. But fuelled by rapid change, that shows no little sign of slowing down, are we seeing the decline of Silicon Valley?

Not long after the development of Apple Park – the long-awaited corporate HQ set in the rich, landscape of Cupertino – Apple is speeding up their efforts to decentralise from Silicon Valley. Everyone from current employees to senior executives and even future talent for the company are realising that flexibility and choice is so much more important in their decision to be a part of a company still pioneering the future. An internal survey carried out by Apple suggests that employees want greater flexibility and choice over where they work. Around 90% of those surveyed “strongly agree” that location-flexibility is serious concern for them and many are willing to walk, according to the Verge.

The campus was meant to provide workspace for thousands and become a spectacle for visitors of all nature. However, what has transpired can be seen as another out-of-touch example of a dominant ‘hub and spoke’ style development – reliant on a large, centralised HQ from which everything operates. The global pandemic that quickly followed the development has completely uprooted and demanded reconsideration of the purpose of the scheme. The scale and severity of Covid-19 could not have been predicted but effect it has imposed on the future of work is likely to be long-lasting. It is important for companies to address the need to rethink workplace strategies that have been unquestioned for so long. The rising importance of flexible working has encouraged companies to shift their spatial focus and give greater importance to how they are able to provide better choice, flexibility and inclusion.

Apple has undergone $2bn in new building costs for campuses in Austin, Texas and North Carolina and it is clear that decentralisation efforts are fully underway at the company – spatially – although there is still fear and growing concern that the root issues around flexibility and choice are simply being copied and pasted across the globe. Hiring and retaining talent will be one of the major challenges in the future of Apple’s success. A key step to mitigating this issue will be decentralising from Silicon Valley and rethinking their offering of choice.

Despite the amount of investment into sites elsewhere and flexible remote options, pilot results are not promising, and the company is yet to find a sustainable solution. Sadly, Apple has found themselves playing catch up with smaller, more forward-thinking companies offering more choice and flexibility that is better suited to the future of work.