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Silicon Valley Before the Startup
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.'"
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.
Apparently Silicon Valley was (how appropriate)
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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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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 want to buy it is exceedingly rare. And you seem to dismiss this concept and not be aware of it. Oh yeah ... who cares if someone "likes" $INSERT_NAME, has nothing to do with science or engineering and all the likability in the world doesn't mean someone can do math/engineering/product planning.
An article in (IIRC) Esquire - specifically about Noyce. Great stuff!
"âoeEvery time we came up with a new idea we spawned two or three companies that would try to exploit it" I mean, doesn't this obvious violation of the holy IP rights monopoly lead to the destruction of western society and the end of all innovation? Oh whoops, it did the opposite in this case... Same as how when software patents didn't exist yet, and same as when wheels and axles couldn't be patented...
My parents worked for Micro Power Systems in the early 80s. They worked for John Hall, one of the pioneers of CMOS and others. I grew up playing with chip pullers and serial terminals instead of typical toys. I wouldn't trade being in that environment for anything.
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.
My parents worked for Micro Power Systems in the early 80s. They worked for John Hall, one of the pioneers of CMOS and others. I grew up playing with chip pullers and serial terminals instead of typical toys. I wouldn't trade being in that environment for anything.
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.
Absolute statements are never true
Hello,
The PBS documentary sounds pretty interesting, but the history of Silicon Valley is older and more interesting than that. Professor Steve Blank 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
Dexter is a good dog.
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. High taxes (a rate of 9.5% for those millionaires making $48,942), 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 influx of low-skill illegal aliens. The only things left are the marijuana and LSD.
The future of business in general and startups in specific are low-tax, now-state-income tax, low-regulation state like Texas and Florida.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
especially Space Nutters. Maybe even they will finally understand that technology didn't come from rockets... Technology came first, THEN we started the space age.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
I am sick of all this silicon valley hero worship. I love technology, computers, etc. But why does it have to become all about lifestyles of the rich and famous? Everyone's a genius. Everyone's a game changer. Everyone's changing the world in fundamental ways, and then going to TED to talk about it (and giving the same boring speech, with just a few words changed).
So much of what is being spoken about as innovation in SV these days is just a bunch of reasonably interesting applications of already existing technology, but that don't really move the human race on by much, or help many people in their daily lives.
Do I sound bitter? I don't mean to be. I just want everyone to stop tooting their own horn and get back to work.
Been in the valley for over 20 years. This place is the epicenter of innovation which changed the humanity lives,works and plays. I do feel bad for the people who can't afford to own homes. Then again back in the late 1980s people were complaining prices were too high;I bought as a 23 yr/old, a condo. I have friends who recollect people complaining how Palo Alto was SOO expensive becauses houses there were $40,000 and San Jose was $30,000. If you are working in technology you have no excuse, except lack of money sense, for not buy. People outside of tech, I feel have it tough.
The dark side of Silicon Valley is all the failed startup and ruined lives. Let us not forget the ground water pollution or the dishonest and unethical VCs on Sand Hill Road. Hmm, if some reporter wants to win a Pulitzer Prize, I'd recommend doing an indpeth investigation on Sand Hill Road.
And let us not forget the wholesale undermining of the American worker by bringing in H1B1 and J1 workers to replace American workers. I saw great engineers who happen to be American and over 40 being layed off and being replaced by 20 something on a work visa locked to that particular company. Don't get me wrong, without the incredibly talented immigrants Silicon Valley would not be where it is but lets not kid our self that the H1B1 worker is a highly skilled techie;
Even with all my complaints, I am still in awe and think Silicon Valley is awesome.
On a tech campus just east of Stanford. After their historical garage . HP was mainly about electronic instruments then. Xerox PARC, NeXT and FaceBook had buildings in the same complex.
Rare events don't always have deterministic causes. Methinks ye, like most, ascribe too much wit and genius to the vast majority of our CEOs. Executive decisions can be just as armchair and un-grounded in reality as idle discussion.
There were more horses then.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
SiVal is Silicon Validation.
Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley.
And I know how you feel, it sucked to see all those people roll into town in the last 90s, in the .com boom. Lawyers and MBAs were filling the valley up with their hot air and inflated egos. With the stock values high and ".com millionaires", the frat-boy east coast business-types suddenly saw Silicon Valley as interesting place to be.
It was fun to see them run home with their tails between their legs during the .com crash.
Sadly, it's all back in full swing now, as a quick (er, slow) trip down 280 will tell you. The rats are back.
Unless this technology innovation is taking place under ground, it would be the CENTER of technology innovation. In fact it would be the CENTER of TECHNOLOGICAL innovation, but pointing out two grammatical errors in one sentence it too picky.