How did Silicon Valley become a $3 trillion area?
It all starts with a story - and this narrative starts with Mr and Mrs Leland Stanford
Early 19th century was farmland
1885 - Mr and Mrs Leiland Stanford set up Stanford University in memory of their son who died at Harvard. There is a great narrative how they arrived at the Harvard Presidents office in threadbare clothes- and was ignored by the secretary - eventually after a few hours - was “granted an audience” - and offered to erect a memorial in the form of a building . The president , looking at their clothes said - “it’s very expensive you know .... Harvard’s buildings cost $7m - at which Mrs Stanford whispered to her husband “is that all that is needed to set up a University? - and they moved to Palo Alto and set up Stanford!
1930s navy built an aerospace hub - scientists and smart people moved to area
1939 HP founded there - got government contract making radar and artillery
1940s - at Bell labs - William Shockley co-invented the transistor. Transistor became computer processor
1956 - Shockley set up silicon labs - employed grads from Stanford
1958 - 8 employees left to create Fairchild semiconductors - became known as the “traitorous 8” -made computer components for Apollo programme
1960s - Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce 2 of the 8 founded intel on a one page business plan
Late 60s - 2 other of the 8 founded Kleiner Perkins
1969 - government research project with Vint Cerf - that went on to become the internet
1970 - Xerox set up in Palo Alto
1971 - Don Hoefler set up Silicon Valley Times - and the name Stuck!
Lots of stuff around Stanford research
1980s - Atari, Apple and Oracle founded
1990s - Ebay, yahoo ., Paypal and google
2000 - 2002 - dot com crash - I remember seeing empty building after enoty building!
2003 - 2018 - Facebook , Uber , Twitter and Tesla
2018 - 2030 - ????
2030 - 2050 - ????
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