Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.

Grandin argues that traits associated with autism—especially the focused, detail-oriented, systemizing style often linked (rightly or wrongly) with Asperger’s—have been central to human technological progress. By imagining an “Asperger guy” inventing the first stone spear, she frames neurodivergence as an evolutionary and cultural asset rather than a deficit. The Silicon Valley line extends the point to the modern economy: many breakthroughs in engineering and computing depend on people who can sustain intense concentration, think visually or analytically, and pursue narrow problems to completion. The quote is also a caution against viewing autism solely as pathology; eliminating “autism genetics” would, in her view, risk erasing a significant source of innovation.