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Silicon Valley Culture Originated In Radio Days
yroJJory writes to recommend a piece up at SFGate on the history of Silicon Valley and its roots in radio, accompanied by some great old photos. "When the Traitorous Eight [founders of Fairchild], as they're sometimes called, held their hush-hush meeting in San Francisco, they had reason to fear discovery — but no way to know that by quitting safe jobs for a risky startup, they would earn a place among what Stanford University historian Leslie Berlin calls the 'Founding Fathers of Silicon Valley'... Roughly 30 years before Hewlett and Packard started work in their garage, and almost 50 years before the Traitorous Eight created Fairchild, the basic culture of Silicon Valley was forming around radio: engineers who hung out in hobby clubs, brainstormed and borrowed equipment, spun new companies out of old ones, and established a meritocracy ruled by those who made electronic products cheaper, faster and better."
It's hard to find a real engineer in management anymore.
Engineers as managers don't necessarily do any better than managers trying to serve as engineers. A company run solely by engineers will generally fail: the disciplines are too different, too many basic assumptions don't carry over. There are exceptions to that, of course, some engineers acquire solid business acumen. That's rare, though. What's needed is management that understands engineering, its strengths and weaknesses, and is capable of working with it rather than trying to fight it for every last penny. Good engineers go hand in hand with good business people to build quality products and steady profits. You need both.
But you're right, though. America does have plenty of good engineers to go around. We just don't have management that is capable of using them properly.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
More or less a good article, but I'm very surprised that there is not a single mention of SRI, given that is the best example of university-millitary-private sector development cooperation, and the breeding grounds for such things as...the computer mouse. (Douglas Englebart)
I worked on the campus for a while in 2000 - 2001. Interesting place.
Also, yes, there are a lot more people in SV now, but it's not nearly as bad as it was during tech boom, when everyone had somewhere to be all the time. It was nothing short of amazing, but it's nice that it's back to some level of sanity. I wouldn't describe what's going on now as some sort of tech bust, I'd describe it as 'normal'.
NAFTA
Engineers and others that feel this way as well as having an idea for a new product or service they believe can make money should consider following the lead of many before them, forming their own start up businesses. Many seem afraid to leave the protective umbrellas of the current existing world, those who do not or end up with no choice in the matter often end up the next innovators and success stories. As many have shown before, it can even be by taking an entirely new direction in their careers, ie your new business doesn't have to be in the same field as your old job.
Well, when I said "in ruins" I was referring primarily to large-scale consumer product manufacturing, the kind of things that the Japanese took over from us many years ago. How many television sets, media players, LEDs, motherboards, integrated circuits, LCD panels, memory sticks and other such high-volume items are still produced in the U.S.? Not as much as there used to be ... matter of fact we don't even know how to make a lot of that stuff on any significant scale anymore. I'm sure we could probably find some Japanese or Chinese engineers that might be willing to teach us though.
I hope your product is successful, but even if you do have it manufactured here, odds are most of the components won't be.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
LM741, huh. I thought about calling myself TL081, but didn't want people to think I was a bi-fet.
... I got to push the "TEST" button and make the filament glow, while watching the meter jump up the scale.
... and everything changed.
Radio Shack (once Allied Radio Shack, if you'll remember, the retail division of Allied Radio long before Tandy acquired them) was one of the most awesome stores I used to visit as a child. My father was a physicist and electronics engineer, so we would frequent the big Radio Shack in Bethesda, Maryland. The place was huge, full of every imaginable electronic component. I still remember the tube tester that was always over in the corner: Dad showed me how to plug in a tube and test it
However, I followed the path of many a budding electronics engineer when the Personal Computer revolution began. I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to be a double-E just like my father, even to starting in the Electronics Engineering curriculum when I went to college. Then I started playing around with microcomputers
You ask, what happened to the likes of Radio Shack and Lafayette Electronics, Heathkit, EICO, and all the wonderful hardware hacking delights that existed back in the sixties and seventies? Well, I'll tell you. It was the microcomputer. Thousands of young minds (like mine) that would have followed pc boards and components into a career in electronics or related fields got seduced by software, well, firmware at the time. It was just so much easier to bend a microprocessor to your will, than a complex assemblage of discrete parts that you'd actually have to use a soldering iron to modify.
The advent of the microprocessor, and eventually the personal computer, eliminated much of the need for knowledge of electronics and the ability to assemble circuitry by hand to achieve significant results. Companies that had previously catered to the hardcore electronics hobbyist found themselves faced with an entirely different breed of hacker. Most of those outfits didn't survive the change. I think Heathkit may still be around, but they're not what they once were.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yes, because anyone who has an MBA is quite obviously an idiot.
Gee.
Quitting a full-time job that supports you is a terrifying proposition for many people, as it should be. Most startups fail miserably (the vast majority of them, in fact) and usually because of a complete lack of understanding of the business world. If you're a good engineer and you have a solid product idea and you are qualified to develop it, odds are you'll succeed in that. But producing a quality product is maybe 5% of a successful product.
... sold a bunch of testing systems to fastener manufacturers among other things. What I did learn from that experience is that you a. can't do everything yourself, b. can't be good at everything and c. at some point have to trust other people who can do things you can't. The best you can do is ... get the best people you can.
My perspective is perhaps a little different than most. Right out of college I started my own business (this was back in 1978-79) and ran it right up 'til 1999, when I finally got out of it. I specialized primarily in the industrial and manufacturing businesses
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Electronics-as-a-hobby ALMOST completely died during the 90s... but over the past few years, it's been reborn and growing again thanks to microcontrollers & robots. Check out avrfreaks.net, parallax.com, fpga4fun.com, and other sites dedicated to good 'ol fashioned homebrew electronics. Well, with a few nice improvements, like the 74HCxxx family (runs on just about anything between 2.9 and 6 volts without complaining or frying), ~$180 USB logic analyzers & oscilloscopes (poscope.com). For an example of what Radio Shack SHOULD be selling (in lieu of cell phones, crap stereo equipment, and overpriced computer hardware), check out sparkfun.com.
:-)
Happy Days ARE here again. Electronics-as-a-hobby is once again alive and well. Spread the word
Actually, there's another reason why people who grew up during the late 70s/early 80s love microcontrollers so much... they're like the computers we grew up with. A mortal really CAN understand one fully, and individually create something cool... something that's increasingly difficult to do on any kind of meaningful level with regard to mainstream computer software.