The History of Silicon Valley: Birth of Computers and the Internet
For those who want more than the standard Silicon Valley history given here, I suggest <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;secret-history&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;secret-history&#x2F;</a> . The topics covered are:<p>Part 1: The Vietnam War; Part 2: B-52’s and the Soviet Air Defense System; Part 3: Bill Perry&#x2F;ESL and the Cold War; Part 4: Undisclosed Locations; Part 5: Silicon Valley, the 2nd 100 years; Part 6a: The Endless Frontier: U.S. Science and National Industrial Policy; Part 6b: Stanford, Terman and WWII; Part 7: Stanford, Terman and the Cold War; Part 8: Stanford and the rise of Cold War Entrepreneurship; Part 9: Stanford and Electronic Intelligence; Part 10: Stanford and Weapons Systems; Part 11: The Rise of Venture Capital; Part 12: The First Valley IPO’s; Part 13: Startups with Nuclear Missiles; Part 14: Spy Satellites in Silicon Valley; Part 15: Lockheed – Silicon Valley largest employer; Part 16: Balloon Wars.<p>For example, why was Steve Wozniak in Silicon Valley in the first place? Answer: his father worked as an engineer at Lockheed Martin with a top secret job involving electronics.<p>Which leads to the question, why was Lockheed Martin working on electronics in what came to be Silicon Valley?<p>Now, part of the problem is that history is complex, and you might not want to track down all of these different threads. And that&#x27;s okay!<p>But in doing so you find curious things, like this Medium essay by Founder Playbook which says at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;founder-playbook&#x2F;the-history-of-silicon-valley-transistors-stanford-and-venture-capital-6a761f171e9d" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;founder-playbook&#x2F;the-history-of-silicon-v...</a> :<p>&gt; Arthur Rock, now known as the father of Venture Capital, was the principal investor in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1961. His firm, Davis &amp; Rock, is considered the first Venture Capital firm ever.<p>While <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-11-the-rise-of-“risk-capital”-part-1&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;the-secret-history-of-sili...</a> writes:<p>&gt; In 1946, George Doriot, founded what is considered the first “venture capital firm” – American Research &amp; Development (ARD).<p>ARD funded DEC, and &quot;Some of the very early VC’s got their venture capital education at Harvard as Doriot’s students&quot;, including Arthur Rock.<p>Indeed, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Georges_Doriot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Georges_Doriot</a> says &quot;In 1946, he founded American Research and Development Corporation, the world&#x27;s first publicly owned venture capital firm, earning him the sobriquet &quot;father of venture capitalism&quot;.&quot;<p>Now, this is a minor point, but it makes me wonder if there is a built-in bias towards the standard (and insular) SV view of history.<p>And then there&#x27;s:<p>&gt; In the 1950s and 60s the semiconductor industry was just getting going out in Silicon Valley. William Shockley’s transistors were many times smaller and much more cost effective than vacuum tubes (part 1). Because of this, the idea of computers moved away from top secret government laboratories, and out west, where the parts it needed were becoming commercialized.<p>I can&#x27;t make that fit into my understanding of the history. Univac was an east coast company, not a top secret government lab. As I pointed out DEC was also an east coast company. Jack Kilby was at Texas Instruments Instruments, in Texas.<p>While on the other hand, Lockheed-Martin was working on top secret government projects in what became SV.