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

We used to mine the silicon by hand

[Anonymous Coward]

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:We used to mine the silicon by hand

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Failure

[girlintraining]

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:Failure

[Zeio]

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:Tom Wolfe Wrote About This 30 Years Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

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

I grew up there

[Misanthrope]

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.

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