Silicon Valley - History & Culture What drives innovation in Silicon Valley? Smarts, timing, but also the willingness to act outside expected norms of behavior...

Silicon Valley formed in Palo Alto because of the "original sin" of its founding father William Shockley, who left Bell Labs in the late 1950s to form Shockley Semiconductor Labs. These were innovative and turbulent times which saw after this a chain of bitter defections over the years that led to the creation of many of the startups that grew to become behemoths of Silicon Valley.

Listing a few: (1) William Shockley (inventor of the transistor that replaced vacuum tubes and Nobel Prize winner) left Bell Labs in 1956 to found Shockley Semiconductor Labs; (2) Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and 6 others (the traitorous eight) left Shockley Labs in 1957 (due to friction with management) to jointly fund and start Fairchild Semiconductors; (3) Moore and Noyce left Fairchild (due to friction with management) to form Intel in 1968. Intel got its break with the 4004, 8008, and then 8086 and IBM PC; (4) Faggin, the designer of the 4004 at Intel left Intel to form Zilog in 1974, which then got its break with the Z80.

Interesting is the claim of Wayne Pickette that it was he, at the age of 20, working for Intel in the Spring of 1970, who was the real inventor of the 4004 but that he was cut out of the credit and the official story of it's creation. [4]

[1] Silicon Valley's original sin
https://investingcaffeine.com/2016/03/13/the-traitorous-8-and-birth-of-silicon-valley/