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.'"

Comments

Re:Tom Wolfe Wrote About This 30 Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html

The Secret History of Silicon Valley...

[Aryeh Goretsky]

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:

• 02/24/11: The Secret History of Silicon Valley - this version was recorded for UC Berkeley on February 24, 2011
• Secret History of Silicon Valley - Berkeley Edition.mov - another version of the UC Berkeley recording?
• The Secret history of Silicon Valley - this version of the lecture recorded for Google Tech Talks on December 18, 2007
• Secret History of Silicon Valley - this version of the lecture was recorded for the Computer History museum on November 20, 2008

Extremely interesting stuff, and highly-recommend watching if you've ever wondered about why we even have computers today.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky