The traitorous eight was a group of eight employees who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1957 to found Fairchild Semiconductor. William Shockley had in 1956 recruited a group of young Ph.D. graduates with the goal to develop and produce new semiconductor devices. While Shockley had received a Nobel Prize in Physics and was an experienced researcher and teacher, his management of the group was authoritarian and unpopular.[note 1] This was accentuated by Shockley's research focus not proving fruitful.[note 2] After the demand for Shockley to be replaced was rebuffed, the eight left to form their own company.