Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 census. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the location of many high technology companies. In 1956, William Shockley established Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, the first company to develop silicon semiconductor devices in Silicon Valley. Mountain View houses the headquarters of many of the world's largest technology companies, including Google and Alphabet Inc., Unicode Consortium, Intuit, NASA Ames Research Center, and former or existing headquarters for Microsoft, Symantec, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Samsung, Quora and Synopsys.