Silicon Valley is now the name of an industry. First, it was a place.
The place was the Santa Clara Valley, an area of fruit orchards south of San Francisco. It had a university on an old horse farm. It had radio companies that sold to the Navy. Nobody made a plan for what came next. The industry started in radio-tube shops, airship hangars, and defense laboratories. It also started with a professor who told his best students to start companies near the campus.
Then the industry started to use silicon. In 1957, eight engineers left one company together and started a new one. After that, engineers continued to leave and start new companies. Almost every company in the Valley comes from an older company. Almost every founder learned the work at a different company first.
The money also changed. First, it came from the Department of Defense. Then it came from pension funds. Then it came from founders who had success and wanted to invest again. It paid for chips, then computers, then networks, then social applications. Now it pays for machines that write text.
This museum holds 121 artifacts from 135 years. They include oscillators, patents, prototypes, product boxes, buildings, and products that failed. Some artifacts are famous. Most are not famous. Each artifact was a risk that a person took.
Enter the museumSilicon Valley is now the name of an industry. First, it was a place.
The place was the Santa Clara Valley, an area of fruit orchards south of San Francisco. It had a university on an old horse farm. It had radio companies that sold to the Navy. Nobody made a plan for what came next. The industry started in radio-tube shops, airship hangars, and defense laboratories. It also started with a professor who told his best students to start companies near the campus.
Then the industry started to use silicon. In 1957, eight engineers left one company together and started a new one. After that, engineers continued to leave and start new companies. Almost every company in the Valley comes from an older company. Almost every founder learned the work at a different company first.
The money also changed. First, it came from the Department of Defense. Then it came from pension funds. Then it came from founders who had success and wanted to invest again. It paid for chips, then computers, then networks, then social applications. Now it pays for machines that write text.
This museum holds 121 artifacts from 135 years. They include oscillators, patents, prototypes, product boxes, buildings, and products that failed. Some artifacts are famous. Most are not famous. Each artifact was a risk that a person took.