Secret History of Silicon Valley

You've gotta watch Steve Blank's "The Secret History of Silicon Valley". Goes back to its post-war roots in 40's and 50's. A real gem and quite surprising. ▶ this video

When I first moved here my favorite introduction to the valleys history was Steve Blanks The Secret History of Silicon Valley. It's well worth the hour ▶ this video

I'm sure there are lots of reading options but this is a very good presentation on the topic (of Silicon Valley and Stanford). ▶ this video

Yes, Silicon Valley grew out of quite sophisticated WW2 military R&D, so quite similar to USSR actually. I like this talk given at the Computer History Museum about the history of Silicon Valley, which was secret for many years: ▶ this video You can argue USSR lacked followup demand for computing from outside the military, and that this was caused by organizational issues. It’s probably pretty important to also state the relative wealth disparity at the start of the relevant period, from 1940 onwards, say. Russia was basically feudal in 1910, and it would be hard for advancement to catch up to US levels by 1940 no matter the organization of the economy, and then we have to account for the devastation of WW2 which followed (WW2 was expensive for US, but it didn’t lose industrial capacity except via opportunity cost). I don’t say this as any kind of apologia, but think it makes more sense to compare USSR to less developed countries than US — where it still doesn’t compare favorably in many ways, but it’s far more interesting and debatable.

Related thread: `Ask HN: What's the best book on the early history of the Internet and/or Web?` link My previous reco: Not a book, but a great video via Steve Blank: ▶ this video Also `Bret Victor The Future of Programming`, which is misleading as above is performance piece where title slide reads `1973` link

I see a lot of comments addressed to "this guy" referring to Steve Blank. Let's not forget he's been involved in silicon valley startups since the 70s, including founding semiconductor companies. While they're no hello world rails startup, he has a proven track record and a first-hand experience of how the valley has evolved. I suspect many of you haven't seen his take on the history of the valley, which might give context to his views. ▶ this video

I don’t feel that old, but I guess being 45 is ancient in tech. The Silicon Valley tech jobs we have now has a history rooted in World War 2 and funding of it by the US gov. ▶ this video I’m not saying war is good or anything, but also don't ride a high horse cause none of it would be here w/o WW2.

> The rural way of life is already insanely subsidized. So is ours: ▶ this video None of this would exist without probably trillions in DARPA, NASA, DoD, and government-funded university research on computers and networks. We live in a complex internetworked and interdependent civilization. Everyone is subsidized by everyone else, and balancing the books is incredibly hard.

There were tech companies in Silicon Valley long before the 1980s-90s boom. The original companies largely grew out of WW2 military contracts for radar and electronics. ▶ this video

The Germans and the Japanese developed radar systems during the war, though they were 'behind' the Brits and Americans. Radar countermeasures were actually a critical part of Silicon Valley's origins: ▶ this video

Silicon valley and western semi conductor supremacy was build by US military spending in ww2, 1950s and 1960s. ▶ this video Its was only in the late 1970s that wallstreet got their money into silicon valley. Given the channel I did not do any fact checking and just assume the presentation is historically correct.

> Essentially the government has built a surveillance state by outsourcing it to private enterprise. Well, yes, that's essentially the whole point of silicon valley. The government and military fund the creation of startups that have tactical value. Those businesses become self-funding and improve the US economy, which also has military value since a robust economy is harder to attack. This has been explored in a few places, e.g. [0], [1]. But it's not like any of this was secret. The off-loading of government operations to private industry, combined with the lobbying for reduced regulations on private industry effectively gives the government carte blanche with the added bonus of plausible deniability. Whether or not these trends are good has been debated for half a century in the US. [0] link [1] ▶ this video