Silicon Valley Before the Startup 57
kenekaplan writes "An upcoming PBS documentary reveals how technology pioneers transformed Silicon Valley into the epicenter of technology innovation. From the article: 'Gordon Moore remembers a time before the idea of a Silicon Valley startup existed. That was half a century ago, before the place became an epicenter for wildly successful technology, and companies such as Apple, Google and Intel generated billions of dollars in annual profits. “It just exploded,” said Moore in the PBS documentary, “American Experience: Silicon Valley,” premiering Feb. 5. “Every time we came up with a new idea we spawned two or three companies that would try to exploit it,” he said, referring to his days at Fairchild Semiconductor, a company he helped found in 1957, a decade before he co-founded Intel with Robert Noyce.'"
We used to mine the silicon by hand (Score:5, Funny)
Back in them days, the siliconers would work 28-hour days, with nothing but a slide rule. And we kids would leave school and go to work at age 2, hand-punching punchcards until our fingers bled. And even the best Porsches were all slow and hand-cranked.
But we was happier for it, I think.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I was employee number six in an early startup. I'll never forget the IPO, when we went public for $50 as a reward for eleven years of hard work.
Not $50 per share, that was fifty bucks for the entire company. There was a lot less inflation in those days.
Re: (Score:2)
And we had to eat domestic cheddar instead of imported brie on our sandwiches in those days. I remember my dad telling me about places where employees even had to bring their own lunch, rather than having it subsidized by the company! It was the dark ages, I tell you...
Re: (Score:2)
Well here's my SV story from the 20th century at Memorex flexible disk plant in 1979. I worked there for three months, little more than minimum wage, not bad as living expenses were not high like they are now. This was at Central Expwy and San Tomas (I think) in Santa Clara, right there in Silicon Valley when this place was rockin. Rest of country may have been in the gutter in 1979. Lots of places hiring, assemblers hired with no experience necessary. My first job was to insert a 5.25 cover (with no disk)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Interesting, I had to refresh a couple times before the article came up, and I had to repeat this across different browsers as well.
Here's the text in case anyone else has trouble viewing it.
PBS documentary reveals how technology pioneers transformed Silicon Valley into the epicenter of technology innovation.
Gordon Moore remembers a time before the idea of a Silicon Valley startup existed. That was half a century ago, before the place became an epicenter for wildly successful technology, and companies such as Apple, Google and Intel generated billions of dollars in annual profits.
"It just exploded," said Moore in the PBS documentary, "American Experience: Silicon Valley," premiering Feb. 5. "Every time we came up with a new idea we spawned two or three companies that would try to exploit it," he said, referring to his days at Fairchild Semiconductor, a company he helped found in 1957, a decade before he co-founded Intel with Robert Noyce.
The documentary, directed by Randall MacLowry and narrated by Michael Murphy, shows how the space race spurred demand for transistors and transformed what became Silicon Valley into a global hub of technology innovation; in the third quarter of 2012 nearly 40 percent of all U.S. venture investment was in Silicon Valley, according to Fenwick and West.
The microprocessor invented at Intel in 1971 is just one of many transistor technology-related breakthroughs explored in the documentary. "It's been successful beyond anything we could've possibly imagined in the beginning, and the result is it really revolutionized the way people live," said Moore.
Silicon Valley's Original Startup
Nearly 2 decades before the microprocessor was invented, Moore was among a group of young, highly educated innovators who came to the farmland of Santa Clara County to tinker with science, hoping to create the next technology. In Moore's case, that career path led to him helping take the transistor mainstream at a laboratory in Mountain View, Calif. under William Shockley, who was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for co-inventing the transistor.
"We discovered a group of young Ph.Ds. couldn't push aside a Nobel Prize winner so easily," said Moore, describing what led to the Sept. 18, 1957 defection of the so-called "traitorous eight" from Shockley Labs. After failing to convince company owners that Shockley should be removed as manager because of increasing mistrust among employees, Moore and seven young scientists left the company to found Fairchild Semiconductor. The documentary singles out Fairchild as the source for hundreds of startup companies -- dubbed "Fairchildren" -- and the catalyst for the startup economy that defines Silicon Valley to this day.
Several recordings of Noyce, who left Fairchild with Moore and died in 1990, are included in the documentary. "I felt that I had a commitment to Shockley and I wanted to do everything that I could to make the organization work, so I felt that my first obligation was to try and talk those seven folks into not leaving," Noyce said. "When I failed in that, I felt that I should join with them."
"At Fairchild we had a clean slate," said Moore. "We had an empty building and we could do it the way we thought was the right way to do it."
Robert Noyce: The Mayor of Silicon Valley
Much of the documentary focuses on Noyce, an early transistor engineer who met Moore after both joined Shockley. "Bob was the kind of guy everyone liked when they first met him," said Moore. "He had the kind of personality that came across very smoothly. As such, it opened doors and of course he was brilliant, which helped."
Moore recalled a time at Fairchild when Noyce made a gutsy business deal to sell new transistors for a dollar, which today would be about $8. "Bob was taking a risk that made us all gulp at the time," said Moore. "But it turned out to be the proper solution."
Moore recollected another daring leap instigated by Noyce in 1968. "Bob came to me and said, 'How about we start a new company?'" said Moore. "My first reaction was no, I like it here. Then a couple of months later he came back and said, âNow that I'm leaving, how would you like to start a new company?' It put a whole different light on the thing."
That year Noyce and Moore started Intel and in its first year the startup company made a million dollars.
Failure (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sick of hearing about pioneers who were really just exploitative suits in the right place at the right time. Like, say, the late Steve Jobs. Total prick, nobody in the industry likes him, but damn if he didn't know business. That does not make him a tech pioneer. It makes him a turtleneck sporting suit.
Still waiting for the follow-up article where we talk about how those same "pioneers" raped everyone with patent trolling, monopolistic business strategies, and all the other fun "FOR TEH BENNIES!" financial destruction that my country has come to epitomize. We worship CEOs, not engineers.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm sick of hearing about pioneers who were really just exploitative suits in the right place at the right time. Like, say, the late Steve Jobs. Total prick, nobody in the industry likes him, but damn if he didn't know business. That does not make him a tech pioneer. It makes him a turtleneck sporting suit.
Still waiting for the follow-up article where we talk about how those same "pioneers" raped everyone with patent trolling, monopolistic business strategies, and all the other fun "FOR TEH BENNIES!" financial destruction that my country has come to epitomize. We worship CEOs, not engineers.
first seek to understand then seek to be understood....
Moore was a hard core techie back in the day. He was one of the 8 invited to start fairchild. This was the dream team of semiconductor guys at the time.
from wikipedia
"Moore was born in San Francisco, California, but his family lived in nearby Pescadero where he grew up. He received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1950 and a PhD in Chemistry and minor in Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Calt
Re: (Score:2)
Within the context of the OP, this is perhaps one of the most ignorant posts I've ever seen on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:1)
perhaps one of the most ignorant posts I've ever seen on Slashdot.
Understatement much? GP was by far the most ignorant rant in the history of Western Civilization.
Re: (Score:2)
nah, you're wrong, he's right. The tech was getting cheaper, and there were those of use that saw the potential. These suits just provided what we were willing to pay for. If silicon Valley hadn't been where it was, it would have popped up somewhere else. Necessity is the mother of invention. Our needs are what made these people.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh look, a Jobsian!
Oh look, another ignoramus who has no idea who Gary Moore is!
Steve Jobs/Gordon Moore vs. Ivory Tower +Armchairs (Score:2)
I'm sick of hearing about pioneers who were really just exploitative suits in the right place at the right time.
Your comments above seem to lack any awareness and seem to be intellectually lazy.
Anyone can be an ivory tower intellectual or armchair quarterback. There is applied science and pure science, and the ones that get things done (applied science) and produce a successful product are the alphas of this world. Anyone can think something, dream something, scheme something, have a point of view.
The ones that can take an idea from their head, bang the engineering into reality and do it in a way that people will wa
Re:Failure (Score:5, Interesting)
Im in SiVal in a new startup. I've been at 5 so far. I love working for the next big thing. I hate how the rats and scum from Shanghai and New York have showed up, skyrocketed the cost of living and totally stifled innovation by making it impossible to run a middle class existence due to idiotic zoning rules, bad pub trans and ridiculous home prices.
Yes, the core team, the founders and the smart people are needed for cool startups, but you also need a bunch of regular people who can maintain regular lives.
SiVal is SillyConScammy now. Pockets of the good stuff, but a burned out husk with landed gentry and wealthy rats roaming around contributing nothing to innovation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here it is:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html
Massive IP violation (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I grew up there (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad bought a house on the edge of a cherry orchard, eventually Fairchild built a plant across the street and then promptly leaked solvent into the groundwater. My sister and several of her friends ended up with large amounts of settlement money due to possible health effects. The Santa Clara Valley was known as the valley of heart's delight and was world renowned for it's stone fruit, especially apricots. It was fun growing up surrounded by tech companies, on the other hand some of the world's best farmland is now fallow.
Re: (Score:3)
The fact I like to relate to illustrate the difference over time is this: My HS (SJHA [Now once again SJHS, I guess]), though, which is now more or less in the middle of a ghetto, had hitching posts out front up until 1976.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Fairchild built a plant across the street and then promptly leaked solvent into the groundwater....
And that magic potion was is how Santa Clara Valley was transformed into Silicon Valley...
Sadly I have personal experience with this as well, I currently live very near an ex-EPA superfund site that was brought into existance by an AMD fab dumping solvents into the ground next to an elementary school. They say it has been technically cleaned up, but in reality it's just that they put in a rain-water barrier over the polluted soil, covered it with new dirt and haven't noticed the underground pollution plume
Re: (Score:2)
This is the legacy of the era.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/ce6c60ee7382a473882571af007af70d/1368bf2b217e29e288257007005e9462!OpenDocument [epa.gov]
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/7508188dd3c99a2a8825742600743735/f11948ed421fa45188257007005e9412!OpenDocument [epa.gov]
http://mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=6180 [mv-voice.com]
Re: (Score:1)
I was there (Score:1)
those days are over (Score:2)
now it's financial engineering.
and social distortion programming. the number of start-ups working on social apps which look to be completely worthless is mind-boggling, and they are getting bought up all the time for ridiculous somes of money. we're all going to write social networking apps which try to sell each other social networking apps.
America the land where people made things is disappearing and we will absolutely be worse off for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Silicon Valley (or the computing industry is like that). Back in the 1980's, the hot jobs were X-windows/Motif and X.25 communications (early 1990's). Then Windows 95/NT (late 1990's). Then HTML, ActiveX, Java and the dot com boom (late 1990's). Windows XP with MFC (early 2000's). Now Android systems like smartphones, tablet and netbooks are current value.
The Secret History of Silicon Valley... (Score:4, Informative)
Hello,
The PBS documentary sounds pretty interesting, but the history of Silicon Valley is older and more interesting than that. Professor Steve [wikipedia.org] Blank [wikipedia.org] is a Bay Area academic and entrepreneur who has chronicled the secret history of Silicon Valley, which dates back to electronic warfare in WW2 and moves forward from there to involve Stanford University, the Space Race, the CIA and even the California State franchise tax board (not an organization one would normally associate with any sort of progress).
Professor Blank gives an hour-long talk on the subject, which is fascinating. Here are a few links to various versions of that talk:
Extremely interesting stuff, and highly-recommend watching if you've ever wondered about why we even have computers today.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Re: (Score:2)
Also interesting is the high tech that existed before "silicon". There were defense contractors of course. But I like Ampex [wikipedia.org] which pioneered high quality audio and video recording. Still around in Redwood City though not doing the same thing anymore. that's why I always liked to think of Redwood City and San Carlos as the northern edge of Silicon Valley
Re: (Score:2)
+1 interesting. I spent the last hour watching the first video. He's an excellent storyteller.
Re: (Score:3)
http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/cpmt/presentations/cpmt1209a.pdf [ieee.org] "The Origins of Silicon Valley: Why and How It Happened Here" Paul Wesling, IEEE SFBA Council (3.5 MB PDF). One particular slide has , "Tube Shops’ Challenges Design around ~250 RCA triode patents – Enormously difficult task (Samsung vs Apple case)"
http://www.incose.org/sfbac/2011events/111108Presentation-50YearsInSpace_v5.pdf [incose.org] "The Global Triggers in the Birth, Growth, and Chall
Re: (Score:2)
BBC did a documentary too back in the 1970's - "When the Chips are down". They had a panel of three people (Corporate CEO, union leader and academic researcher). The worry was "if the chip replaces all these jobs, what is the rest of the population going to do?" They knew something was on the horizon, but didn't know what to do. They looked at how in Silicon Valley companies had spun-off start-up, while in Japan, they concentrated on memory chips, quality and high yields.
I liked the stories of the early hou
California Used To Rock (Score:2, Insightful)
Low taxes, low cost of living, great climate, great freeways, first class universities, an influx of returning GIs, marijuana and LSD.
Now California is verging on a failed state [battleswarmblog.com]. High taxes (a rate of 9.5% for those millionaires making $48,942 [ca.gov]), high cost of living, a bloated state bureaucracy in league with public employee unions to bankrupt the state, decaying infrastructure, a failing education system on par with Mississippi, one third of the nation's welfare recipients, an outflux of Americans and an in
Re: (Score:2)
I have lived in California all my life, and I for one am outraged... ...that what you say is true.
The high taxes aren't the chief problem; you get more in California than you get in other states, notably you get to live in California. If you live in Los Angeles or pretty much anywhere in SoCal you get water piped in from half a very large state away. And in any case, California's tax burden is excessive because of the federal government. California gets the least back for every dollar we send to the feds, f
Re: (Score:2)
> You can see time and again that California's problems are related to the failures of the foreign and economic policies of the United States as a whole.
There is truth in that. I'd observe that the issues related to said foreign and economic policies affect all of us, but have the biggest effect in the high density coastal areas. So moving to a lower density area, or closer to the center, would seem in order.
HP was there before Intel (Score:2)
I remember... (Score:2)
There were more horses then.