Anybody in that area at the time could have done it. And SV was hardly the only place where adults worked on electronics. HP wasn't the only computer company. DEC was in Massachusetts, for example. Texas Instruments was in, well, Texas. Tektronix was in Oregon. Universities all had electronics schools. Radio Shack and HeathKit made electronics learning kits for kids. Los Angeles had a thriving microcomputer industry at the time.

The notion that Jobs was in some unique position is not correct.