The History of

Silicon Valley

Vocabulary

Video

Transcript

Silicon Valley is an almost three trillion dollar neighborhood, thanks to companies like Apple, Google and Tesla.

But it wasn’t always this way.

In the late 1800s, San Francisco’s port helped make it a hub of the early telegraph and radio industries.

In 1909, San Jose became the home of one of the country’s first radio stations.

In 1933 the Navy purchased Moffett Field to dock and maintain the USS Macon. This made Moffett Field a major hub for the early days of the aerospace industry.

Many scientists and researchers all found work in the area.

In 1939, the Ames Research Center was founded in the area. And it became home to the world’s largest wind tunnel in 1949.

Also in 1939 William Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, which originally made oscillators.

Then during World War Two, Hewlett-Packard made radar and artillery technology. At this point computers were about the size of a room.

In the 1940s, William Shockley co-invented the transistor while at Bell Labs. The transistor is now known as the computer processor.

In 1956, Shockley left Bell and founded his own company, Shockley Semiconductor Labs. It was the first company to make transistors out of silicon and not germanium.

The company was founded in Mountain View California, so Shockley could be closer to his sick mother. Shokley’s company employed many recent graduates from Stanford.

In 1957, eight Shockley employees grew tired of his demeanor and left the company. Shockley called this group the “Traitorous Eight”. They partnered with Sherman Fairchild to create Fairchild Semiconductor.

In the early 1960s, Fairchild helped make computer components for the Apollo program.

Later in the decade, many of the “Traitorous Eight” left Fairchild, including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, who in 1968 founded their own company in Santa Clara called Intel.

Soon after, other ex-Fairchild employees and “Traitorous Eight” members helped found AMD and venture fund Kleiner Perkins.

In 1969 the Stanford Research Institute became one of the four nodes of ARPANET a government research project that would go on to become the Internet.

In 1970 Xerox opened up PARC lab in Palo Alto.

PARC invented early computing tech, including Ethernet computing and the graphical user interface.

In 1971, journalist Don Hoefler titled a three-part report on the semiconductor industry: Silicon Valley USA. The name stuck.

In the 1970s companies like Atari, Apple and Oracle were all founded in the area. In the 1980s Silicon Valley became the widely accepted center of the computer industry.

Ebay, Yahoo, PayPal and Google are just some of the companies founded in the area in the 1990s, with Facebook, Twitter and Tesla joining them the following decade.

The growth of the tech industry in the area continues to this day.

Questions

Radio. The economy of Silicon Valley, California is currently primarily based on finance, tourism, and media. True or false?

Radar. Is the Bay Area (San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto, San Mateo) of California in the middle of the United States? How has its geography influenced its development?

Telegraph, Telephone. Did the US military play a role in early development of Silicon Valley?

Television. Early computers looked similar to televisions. Is this right or wrong?

Computer, PC, Desktop. What was the technological breakthrough for computers and high-tech in general?

Internet. In California, and the US in general, 99% of employees are loyal and stay with one company or organization for their entire careers. Is this correct or incorrect?

Online. Is Silicon Valley the official name of a city in northern California. Was a city in northern California founded and named Silicon Valley in 1889?

Cyberspace. Are business, companies, labs, universities and institutes in Silicon Valley involved mostly with technological equipment and devices?
 
 
 
Digital Media. My friends, classmates, colleagues and I would like to live and work in Silicon Valley. Yes or no?

Website, Web-page, Blog. Are there cities or regions in your country that has become a “Silicon Valley”?

Laptop, Notebook. What are the top universities in your country in terms of science and technology?

Social Media, Platform. Do you and your friends have any ideas for a startup?

Mobile Phone, Smartphone, Tablet. What might happen in the future?

App. Are there any negative aspects of the tech-industry?

Artificial Intelligence. What could or should people, businesses and governments do?