The Role Of The Traitorous 8 In Shaping The Semiconductor Industry At Infancy
THE BIRTH OF SILICON VALLEY
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In 1957, the year after Shockley Semiconductor Labs (founded by William Shockley, a Nobel laureate in Physics and referred to as “The Godfather of Transistors”) started up. There was a division in Shockley Semiconductor Labs because of Shockley’s being an authoritarian and a horrific manager, the division reached 30 employees. Eight of the employees, Sheldon Roberts, Eugene Kleiner, Victor Grinich, Jay Last, Julius Blank, Jean Hoerni, Robert Noyce, and Gordon Moore finally said, enough-is-enough and decided mutiny was their best option.
The disgruntled group ended up contacting a 30-year-old, Harvard MBA graduate named Arthur Rock. In 1957, Rock believed the group of eight engineers (six of which had Ph. Ds) deserved attention, given their experience working with a Nobel Prize winner. The Traitorous 8 simply wanted to find an employer that would hire them as a group, but Rock advised them to start their own company.
Rock almost gave up until they received a lead to contact Sherman Fairchild. Rock convinced Fairchild, the CEO of Fairchild Camera & Instrument, to invest $1.5 million into a Traitorous 8 startup.
The Traitorous 8 set up shop as Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) in Mountain View, about twelve blocks from Shockley’s operations. Over the next 10 years, Fairchild Semiconductor grew from twelve employees to twelve thousand employees and raked in some $130 million in annual revenues. Of the original Traitorous 8, two have become historical figures – Robert “Bob” Noyce and Gordon Moore. All good things come to an end, and Noyce and Moore increasingly got frustrated with Fairchild’s mismanagement of the semiconductor division.
After Fairchild passed over Noyce for a CEO promotion in 1968, Noyce and Moore decided to leave, so they contacted Arthur Rock again for his assistance. Rock quickly helped them raise $2.5 million, and Intel Corporation (short for “Integrated Electronics”) was born.
The Technology advancement driving much of the innovations today is the microchip, and without the Traitorous 8, the world would look a lot different and there would be no “Silicon Valley” as we know it today. Had Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore miserably resigned themselves to remain at Shockley Semiconductor, perhaps mankind would not have achieved the giant strides in global standards of living. Thankfully, their contributions live on today and ensure a bright future for humanity, and the world at large.
