- Palo Alto
- 94301 zip code is home to tech billionaires
- Palo Alto's affluence runs deep — residents of its two zip codes paid a total of more than $1.5 billion in personal income tax to the state of California in 2016.
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The Silicon Valley hometown of Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook is relying on millionaires to keep the economy booming — and it signals a huge problem
Palo Alto, California, is the proverbial capital of Silicon Valley. Its 94301 zip code is home to tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Larry Page and many millionaire and billionaire executives — and they're stewards of California's booming economy.
Palo Alto is home to a staggering number of tech billionaires and millionaires.
According to a recent story by the Los Angeles Times, California's economic success is increasingly contingent upon the wealth of residents of tony enclaves like Palo Alto.
"We are very dependent on millionaires," Mike Genest, former budget director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the LA Times. "If the millionaires get a cold, we all die of the flu."
In 2016, 9,000 tax returns from Palo Alto residents in the 94301 zip code — which includes the Stanford University campus — resulted in $934 million in tax revenue for California, more than any other zip code in the state, according to the LA Times. And Palo Alto's 94303 zip code generated an additional $636 million in tax revenue for the state.
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Those tax dollars fund government programs in less affluent areas of California, and eventually "
Palo Alto's main drag is dotted with obvious signs of a booming economy. "
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