сourse: Business and Technology in the U.S. The Birth of Valley and the Culture of Start-ups

Author: Anton Panov

On February 14, 1956, in the hall of the St. Francis Hotel in , guests assembled for a dinner party hosted by the prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist Arnold Beckman. He had organized the event in honor of his friend, scientist , who had established a semiconductor laboratory. Among those present were journalists, engineers, and teachers from local universities. Everyone was excited and intrigued: Why had the legendary Dr. Shockley, one of the heads of , decided to give up his prestigious job on the East Coast for a backwater in the San Francisco Bay area? Opening the festivities, Beckman announced: “Headed by Dr. William Shockley, inventor of the junction , the nucleus of the rapidly expanding research team consists of … experts in the field of semiconductors, the basic material of which are revolutionizing the electronics field…”

William Shockley © Nobel foundation

Beckman was not exaggerating. The technology that Shockley was working on did indeed have unbelievable potential. Just a short explanation: semiconductors are substances that do not impede an electrical current, but do not conduct it as easily as copper. Because of this, semiconductors have all the qualities needed for the manufacture of electrical systems. Transistors help to control electrical current just like a water faucet: when the transistor is closed, the current cannot pass. When it is open, on the other hand, electricity gets through. The discovery of the transistor made it possible to manufacture electronic goods much more cheaply, and also to get rid of mechanical elements in , since commands could be conveyed via the transistor. In short, William Shockley’s invention promised to turn everything we knew about technology on its head. The Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory that Beckman spoke about was located in Palo Alto. Today it is the center of , the area of the U.S. most closely associated with digital technology and innovation. In 1956, however, it was a sleepy little town on the banks of San Francisco Bay, where there wasn’t even a long-distance telephone exchange. There are many reasons Shockley decided to create his lab in that particular place. First, it was close to , one of the leading technology institutes in the U.S. Second, the enterprise’s sponsor, Beckman, lived nearby. Third, for good measure, Shockley’s mother lived in Palo Alto. At first the company did not do so well. Top engineers from Bell Labs and other research centers did not want to move to the boondocks. In the 1950s, cutting-edge technology research was carried out mainly on the East Coast, at places like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or IBM. No one wanted to jeopardize their career and reputation by getting involved with Shockley’s risky project. The company had to take a chance on ambitious young people, who wanted to make a name for themselves working under Shockley, a 1956 Nobel laureate in physics. Right from the beginning, though, things started to go awry. It turned out that William Shockley was a terrible boss and mentor. Some of the staff he chose were incompetent, which slowed down production. Shockley himself repeatedly demonstrated his instability as a manger, at times exploding with unmotivated aggression, at others disappearing with bouts of paranoia. Finally, Shockley announced that the laboratory had to stop producing transistors and switch to other tasks that everyone thought were less important and with no relationship to the business. The staff had had enough. In September 1957, a group of engineers told Shockley they were quitting, saying they could no longer work with such a boss, and that they wanted to start their own company to produce semiconductors. Legend has it that in answer, Shockley spat out: “Traitors!” – and the name stuck. The “” had been born. The laboratory they founded after they left was called , and in its bowels were formed almost all the companies that would make up Silicon Valley and create the start-up culture.

“Traitorous Eight” Terrence McCarthy © Over the several years Fairchild Semiconductor would become the leading semiconductor manufacturer in the U.S. Even NASA would work with it, ordering transistors for the “Minuteman” rockets. Fairchild’s main legacy, however, would be the firms that split off from it. Today around 70% of the companies that work in Silicon Valley can trace their history to Fairchild in one form or another. Here are several examples. In 1962, two of the “Traitorous Eight,” and , left the company as a result of an internal conflict, and created Amelco, which would develop the first analog-to-digital converter. Today, after a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Amelco core forms part of the corporation, which has a yearly turnover of more than $2 billion. Other employees of Fairchild, Robert Widlar and David Talbert, created in 1965; it became famous as the largest producer of data conversion solutions, amplifiers, and power management integrated circuits. In 2011 it became part of the megacorporation. Another member of the “Eight,” , created a firm, , which would help , Electronic Arts, , Sun Microsystems and many other corporations to get on their feet. Fairchild’s most famous spin-off was, of course, Integrated Electronics, or simply . The history of this company seems to encompass the entire history of Silicon Valley, and it also became an example for start-ups at the end of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st centuries. The founders of Intel – Gordon E. Moore and – were also members of the “Traitorous Eight.” It would be difficult to find two people less alike.

Gordon E. Moore and Robert Noyce © Intel Free Press

Noyce was a wonderful inventor. It was his idea to create integrated microcircuits, which united several transistors on one small silicon chip. Personally, Noyce was charming, gregarious and charismatic. He was considered the leader of the “Eight.” Moore, on the other hand, was calm and quiet. He did not like big parties, preferring to spend his free time fishing. Among Moore’s many excellent qualities as an engineer was his ability to solve complicated problems that whole teams had been unable to resolve, and to do it in a short period of time. Together, Noyce and Moore made a wonderful team, able to achieve great things. By 1968, the majority of the Fairchild founders had left to start their own projects. Noyce and Moore understood that it was time to move on. Together they decided to create a new company based on their own vision of what made a successful business. All they needed was financing. Noyce called for the money. At one time, when he was still a young banker from New York, Rock had helped the “Traitorous Eight” find investors. At that time, no one wanted to invest in a group of kids who had left Shockley, the Nobel laureate. They did not have enough weight in scientific and commercial circles to obtain financing without a ready-made product. The whole business seemed too risky, too rash, but it promised huge returns, which is where that type of investment got its name. They started calling themselves “venture capitalists.” At that time Rock found just one banker who was ready to provide seed money — , and it was his name that was used for the whole company. This time things were different. By 1968, Arthur Rock had become rich, and he realized that he could handle the role of chief investor by himself. He knew Noyce and Moore well, so he didn’t even ask what they wanted to do after leaving Fairchild.

Arthur Rock Christopher Michel © Wikimedia Commons

“Bob just called me on the phone,” Rock would remember later. “We’d been friends for a long time.… Documents? There was practically nothing. Noyce’s reputation was good enough. We put out a page-and-a-half little circular, but I’d raised the money even before people saw it.” Rock not only invested his own money, he offered other people the chance to participate in the deal. He made about 15 phone calls and in a few hours he had $2.5 million. He even got investments from some of Noyce and Moore’s former “Traitorous Eight” colleagues who had gone to National Semiconductor, in spite of the fact that they were now competitors; that’s how certain everyone was that they would be successful. Venture capitalism in Silicon Valley was off and running! Arthur Rock was a pioneer in the field of venture capital. Today in Silicon Valley, in addition to the start-ups themselves, there are numerous funds that are willing to invest in the very early stages, expecting big rewards later on. Ten years later, Rock would help another firm that changed our concept of tech – Apple. He met and through another financier, Mike Markkula, who would also fall under the spell of the future creator of and would stay in the company with him. Arthur Rock invested $57,000 in Apple at the beginning of Apple’s history. It was a risky deal, but extremely successful. Three years later, Rock’s share of Jobs’ company was already worth $14 million. The examples of Intel and Apple illustrate the first main characteristic of the start-up culture – individualism. It’s not a good idea to develop your idea in an already existing company. Start your own! As soon as Noyce and Moore received the money to create their company, they were faced with a staffing problem. When selecting a team, they had not relied on headhunters, since they thought that they knew best whom they needed. Besides that, the founders of Intel would not approve the hiring of any candidate who had not gone through a personal interview either at Noyce’s home or in some restaurant. In a relaxed atmosphere Noyce and Moore would talk to the candidate, evaluating not only his or her professional achievements but also personal qualities. The creators of Intel did not promise their future colleagues a higher salary or a more senior position than what they already had. Instead they radiated confidence that those who joined their company right at the start would not lose in the long run. The man considered Noyce and Moore’s best hire was named , and almost until his death in 2016 he ran Intel with an iron hand. Grove’s real name was András Gróf. He was born in 1936 into a Jewish family in Hungary, survived the Holocaust and the Second World War, and escaped the “Iron Curtain” in 1956, going to the U.S.A. to begin his career as an engineer. He was a stern, pedantic man, but no one could accuse him of lacking a sense of humor. It’s just that it seemed a bit peculiar to those around him, just like his light Hungarian accent.

Andrew Grove, Robert Noyce, Gordon E. Moore © Intel Free Press

In appointing Grove director of production, Noyce and Moore hit the bull’s eye. Grove’s most important quality was that he always knew what he wanted. Unlike the founders of Intel, who were fountains of ideas and liked to experiment, Grove kept his eye on the goal, moving towards it with bullish determination. In addition, he loved order and discipline, and was often bothered by Noyce and Moore’s management style. They were men who avoided conflict and did not like to administer reprimands. The three of them divided up the management roles: employees went to Noyce for motivation, and to Moore for technical explanations. They were afraid to go to Grove; he usually appeared on his own and caused a scene when deadlines were missed. Discipline and understanding one’s goals and weaknesses – that is what distinguishes successful start-ups from failures. For example, the success of Microsoft was to a large extent built on the fact that its founders – and Tom Allen – had understood since childhood that they were not all that good at building computers, but they were virtuosos at programming. It was this understanding that they somehow needed to protect their talents that led them to sign non-exclusive contracts with Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS), and later with IBM. This would allow Microsoft’s programs to become a constant in the world of digital technology, where machines change every few years. This combination of human qualities became the guarantee of a quick rise at Intel. Noyce and Moore believed that it wasn’t ideas or technology that brought success in business – it was people. This became another important characteristic of Silicon Valley: It didn’t matter how brilliant the idea or the technology was. If the wrong people were involved in implementing it, it would most likely fail. This leads to the next conclusion: the best work comes from a balance of discipline and the right atmosphere. Sometime at the end of 1968 an employee came into Noyce’s office, rubbing his head in puzzlement. He could not understand how the structure and hierarchy in the company worked. Various people came to him, asking for one thing or another, and he had no idea who he was supposed to listen to. Noyce turned to the board, took a piece of chalk wrote the letter ‘X.’ Then he drew a big circle around it, drawing several crosses along it, connecting them with lines to the center. Then he turned to the bewildered employee and said that he was ‘X’ – and the crosses were the people who worked at the company. Intel’s organizing principle was that everyone could talk to everyone else. Any employee could ask anyone he could find for advice or help, not just his immediate supervisor. Within the walls of the company, everyone was equal. The management, even though they had offices, did not feel that they were in a privileged position. Noyce, Moore, and other founders of Intel did not even have reserved parking spaces. Moore and Noyce thought that such a democratic approach would allow people to feel free and would stimulate creativity. This confused newcomers, since it fundamentally differed from what was usual in corporate culture on the Eastern seaboard. In companies like IBM or Bell Labs in the 1960s the structure was very conservative. Everyone had to wear a jacket and tie and climb the corporate ladder. At Intel everything was different. Tom Wolfe, Jr., a famous journalist and writer, would later say “This wasn’t a corporation... it was a congregation.” He was right: Intel’s organization was more like a religious society of like-minded people. Noyce was the spiritual leader, not telling people what to do, but inspiring everyone to achieve. Ann Bowers, Intel’s personnel director, later remembered: “There were no privileges anywhere. We started a form of company culture that was completely different than anything had been before.” Bowers would later marry Noyce, and for reasons of ethics was forced to go to another start-up – Apple. She would bring the democratic corporate culture with her, and Steve Jobs would adopt it for his own. Implementing it at Apple, he would later radicalize it at NeXT, which he founded in 1985. Jobs proclaimed that there were no longer any differences between bosses and employees. There was just a “community” of people who loved their work. At NeXT for some time there was no difference between the salary of the management and regular employees. All of them received either $75,000 or $60,000 depending on what year they joined the company. The office had an open plan. The only doors were on Jobs’ office. While NeXT was never very successful, it’s impossible not to recognize the influence of ideas that Noyce, Moore and Grove piloted at Intel in the 1960s. The cultural revolution in the U.S., which also took place during that decade, had a deep influence on Silicon Valley. In 1968, the same year that Intel was founded, many events occurred that changed people’s worldview. The war in Vietnam caused mass in the , Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, “Apollo-8” circled the moon for the first time in history, Soviet forces invaded Prague and in France students with Molotov cocktails in their hands were demanding that the government resign.

Stewart Brand Whole Earth Catalog Steve Jurvetson © Wikimedia Commons The next year was just as turbulent. To the strains of the Woodstock rock festival, which became a symbol of the cultural revolution in the 1960s, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface, and the new president, , announced that he was ready to withdraw troops from Vietnam. In San Francisco, the entire Bay area was full of hippies, political activists and young radio enthusiasts, dreaming of creating a successful start-up. They are the ones who would have a key influence on the culture of Silicon Valley in the future. Although Intel did have a fairly democratic structure within the office, this did not mean that the company’s leadership supported the views of radical young people, who were protesting everything on earth. Some of the engineers who had been hired, however, were very similar to the stereotypical political radical. They wore bell bottoms, had long hair, and sometimes even went to anti-war demonstrations. In the second half of the 1960s, many young people in California, under the influence of the New Left, were also caught up in the development of digital technology. They combined activism with literacy, speaking out for freedom to publish and exchange of information, which often led to protests against IBM, the embodiment of “Big Brother.” One of these techno-hippies, Stewart Brand, a graduate of Stanford, published the Whole Earth Catalog. Brand, who was influenced both by the New Left and by the futurological ideas of Norbert Wiener, laid out in Wiener’s book Cybernetics, called for the creation of a new, just society, where computers would not be used solely by government agencies and big business, but by all people. In 1966, Brand got NASA to take the first photograph of Earth from Space, which symbolized the unity of all people and became a powerful symbol for the anti-war movement. Many years later Steve Jobs would acknowledge: “The Whole Earth Catalog . . . was one the bibles of my generation. . . . It was a sort of Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.” , the head of Amazon, also fell under Brand’s influence. As a sign of his gratitude he donated $42 million to the Long Now Foundation, which Brand established in 1996. One of its main projects was the 10,000 Year Clock. Another influential techno-hippie was Lee Felsenstein, a pacifist and one of the first hackers. Unlike many of his friends and Brand, he was not interested in acid trips, but was more technically grounded, with a degree in electrical engineering, and more politically savvy, insisting that the success of civil depended on how effectively people could communicate with each other. Felsenstein called for a means of exchanging information that could cut out the middleman (meaning telecommunications companies.) In 1973, he and some friends created something akin to the Internet called “Community Memory,” which was a networked message board. Access to it was through a terminal installed in a music store in Berkeley.

Community Memory Project terminal Kathryn Greenhill © Wikimedia Commons Today Brand’s and Felsenstein’s ideals are reflected in projects like Wikipedia – an online encyclopedia, where everyone not only can write an article, but correct others’ mistakes. Created for free, it is an example of a non-commercial project that exists for one purpose – distributing information and educating people. Another good example is the GNU/Linux operating system, which is also a non-profit project. It was created by , who wrote its kernel on his home computer at the beginning of the 1990s, then put it on the Internet, never thinking that his brainchild would become a symbol of the fight against the dominance of corporations. Linux today is a free, open-source operating system that has numerous versions (called distributions, or distros). In addition, it is used in server systems and supercomputers. Almost every digital user on the planet knows Linux: The Android smartphones are built on its kernel.

Linus Torvalds © Linux Magazine

Faith in free distribution of information – this is what prompted young radio enthusiasts and engineers to conduct experiments and make progress. Contacting each other, borrowing and improving on ideas, computer geeks on the cusp of the 1960s-1970s created a new culture in the San Francisco Bay area. Its main characteristic was an elusive fusion of competition and cooperation. An example of this was the structure of the Intel company. All employees were divided into three teams. They designed memory devices, but each team had a different task. Moore called the decision to conduct research in different directions the Goldilocks strategy. On one hand, Intel was sure that one of the teams would have a breakthrough and come up with an innovative product. On the other hand, the groups were spurred on by the competition, which motivated them to experiment more. Of course, this sometimes led to confrontation not only between the teams, but internally. This was expected: it was up to Moore, Noyce and Grove to smooth any ruffled feathers and keep up a good atmosphere in the office. The democratic structure within the company led to cooperation: one team’s designs were often useful to another team. Everyone understood that they were all working for the same goal. If competition and cooperation were just part of the production process at Intel, they were part of the ideology to the radio enthusiasts and techno-hippies of Silicon Valley. Lee Felsenstein showed this by his own example. When the first Intel microchips began to appear in the mid-1970s, it became apparent that it would soon be possible to make working computers at home, or in your parents’ garage. Following his life philosophy, he came up with the idea of creating a community of young engineers, who, by exchanging their experience in assembling home-made computers, could speed up the development of a real computer, capable of giving IBM a run for its money. This is how the Homebrew Computer Club was formed. The people who came to the meetings of the club were quite varied – from acid revolutionaries and hippies to eyeglass-wearing geeks and radio enthusiasts. They demonstrated their models for microcircuits, their calculators, some even brought machines that almost worked. In general, this motley crew argued about the future of the computer industry and the newest publications in Popular Mechanics magazine, which for the Homebrew Computer Club was something like Rolling Stone for rock-music fans. Felsenstein brought a new wonder-device to the first meeting which was the quintessence of his philosophy – the Altair 8800. This computer was the starting point in the history of the two most influential digital corporations in modern times – Microsoft and Apple, whose development is inextricably intertwined. For a long time, they worked together quite productively, then their relation turned to one of harsh competition, stimulated by the differences in their business models. Which is better: to make a with interchangeable parts and upgrades, or should you supply a ready-made product, whose configuration cannot be changed? In other words, which type of computer architecture is preferable – closed or open? This problem is actually deeper than it might seem. First, it is tied to the start-up ideology. Lee Felsenstein recalled at the beginning of the 1970s, referring to his friend, programmer Efrem Lipkin: “Efrem said if people get their hands on it they will break it.” Felsenstein himself thought that computer manufacturers should indulge their customers’ wishes and let them root around inside the machine. Freedom of information distribution affected technology, too. The activists of Silicon Valley were convinced that the workings of a computer should not be secret. Access should be guaranteed; otherwise the lost all meaning. When the personal computer era began, it was Steve Jobs who embodied the first approach – closed architecture. Jobs had created all Apple II devices so that you couldn’t even open them without a special tool. This approach had its own logic: In Jobs’ view, an ordinary customer should have no interest in what was inside the computer, as long as it worked quickly and without errors. In addition, he insisted that the Macintosh should produce the same esthetic effect as a Porsche. In other words, Apple was trying to sell people a certain lifestyle. At IBM they had a very different philosophy. The launch of their personal computer in 1981 heralded the triumph of open architecture. The IBM-PC could be opened, taken apart, cleaned and upgraded almost without effort. The Windows operating system, which has been standard in computers since 1985, while not giving the same aesthetic pleasure as the Macintosh, was more versatile. It turned out that people liked puzzles and erector sets. Steve Jobs was fired from his own company, and in the second half of the 1980s Apple plunged ever deeper into crisis. This did not mean the end of Jobs’ career. After being fired he founded the NeXT company, helped create the animation film studio Pixar, and then returned to Apple in triumph. An important characteristic of the start-up culture is the limitless, unstoppable, all-encompassing enthusiasm and the ability to overcome all obstacles on the road to success. In this sense one of the most outstanding start-uppers, who could not be deterred by any failure, would be Ed Roberts. He was not a great engineer, but he was a constant fountain of ideas. It was people like this who would determine the development trajectory of the IT industry in the Bay area. Roberts was born in 1941, and up until his firm, MITS, launched the Altair 8800, he had opened and shut down numerous start-ups. By the age of 35 he had managed to create a couple of firms, as well as to supply the electronics for Christmas store window displays. One of his companies sold “Do-It- Yourself” kits to make tracking systems for model rockets. Another company made calculators for geeks – they came disassembled for those who liked to mess around with electronics. Finally, the Altair 8800 was the success of his lifetime. In 1977, he sold the company for $5 million, at the height of his fame, and became a small-town doctor. Some start-uppers were satisfied with one success, while others found a special pleasure in overcoming difficulties, returning again and again to the game. By the beginning of the 1980s, Intel had become a world leader in the manufacture of memory microchips. Its rivals were not asleep at the switch, however; competition came, not just from American producers, but from the Japanese, who had been able to make the microchips much more cheaply and were strangling Intel by dumping. Intel had to sell its product at a loss, just to keep the factories running, and wait until the Japanese gave up. Unfortunately, things got worse. By the beginning of 1985, Noyce, Moore, and Grove were thinking about leaving the company, because they saw no way out. In the middle of the year, however, they had a conversation that turned everything around 180 degrees. Grove recalls: “We [with ] were discussing our quandary. Our mood was downbeat. I looked out the window at the Ferris wheel…, then I turned back to Gordon and I asked, ‘If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?’ Gordon answered without hesitation, ‘He would get us out of memories.’ I stared at him, numb, then said, ‘Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back and do it ourselves?’” This episode became standard in all business textbooks. The moment when a company comes up against a changing context and has to make a decision that affects its existence, Grove called “the Strategic Inflection Point.” If the correct decision is made, the business will begin a new round of success and it will prosper; if not – it will fail. In the summer of 1985, Grove and Moore made the right decision: they simply stopped making memory microchips, switching to processors. Their decision led to a massive reduction in their workforce and to a flood of criticism, but history showed that that it was the only possible way to keep the corporation afloat. Unfortunately, not all successful start-ups make the right decision at that “Strategic Inflection Point.” Some examples of this are MySpace, which could not stand up to competition from Facebook, and the video service Vine, whose functions were taken over by Instagram and Twitter. Most projects developed in Silicon Valley have an unenviable fate. Only a few reach success, and even fewer can keep and develop it. Today Silicon Valley includes thousands of companies. There are huge corporations like Intel, Google, and Apple, as well as small firms that, just as in the era of the first personal computers, work out of small houses and garages. It was William Shockley who kicked off the start-up ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay area, when he opened his semiconductor lab in Palo Alto in 1956. The proximity to Stanford, one of the foremost technical institutes in the U.S., the free-wheeling culture of San Francisco, and the climate were all conducive to the growth of enterprises. The company that served as “mother” to all the start-ups in Silicon Valley was Fairchild Semiconductor, founded by a group of engineers from Shockley’s team. They were called “the Traitorous Eight.” Fairchild’s employees in one way or another were responsible for the establishment of the overwhelming majority of corporations that are in Silicon Valley today. The most famous and influential of them in the present day is Intel, whose microprocessors are the heart of today’s computers, smartphones and other digital gadgets. It was Intel that laid the foundation for today’s start-up culture. Its creators used private investment to set up the company, without promising quick success. This gave rise to venture capital funds, without which it would be impossible to imagine Silicon Valley today. They put money into promising start-ups at various stages of their development, expecting that they will make money if the project “takes off.” The success of an enterprise depends, largely, on how well the managers understand their task. Defining goals and being disciplined in attaining them – these are the necessary elements of success. On the other hand, the creators of Intel – Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove – set great store by human capital. They thought that you had to hire the best specialists, but you also had to pay attention to personal qualities. The democratic atmosphere inside the company allows employees to feel free, and they can achieve more. This approach differs greatly from the old model, common on the East Coast, where relationships inside the company were very conservative and hierarchical. In the future, Intel’s principles would be adopted by all the companies of Silicon Valley. Internal democracy combined with discipline became the standard of the new corporate culture. The birth of Silicon Valley coincided with the “turbulent sixties,” which could not help but be reflected in the internal spirit of the start-ups. Three components were combined in their ideology: the radicalism of the hippies, the love of freedom of the political activists, and the eccentricity of the radio enthusiasts and novice programmers. The residents of the San Francisco Bay area who had taken part in the digital revolution wanted to free themselves of the strictures that society imposed on them. They demanded freedom of information distribution, and they dreamed of a future where computers would make all people equal, but they did not give up their individuality. This mixture of ideas would become the foundation for another characteristic of start-up culture: competition and cooperation. Freedom of information and the desire to achieve success led to an ecosystem where novice programmers and engineers borrowed ideas from one another, improving and adapting according to their needs. On one hand, this led to more rapid digital progress overall. On the other hand, not all start-ups were successful, and more established companies were able to stand the test of time. Statistics show that approximately 75% of projects fail. Nevertheless, Silicon Valley continues to attract young people from all over the world. It is, today, the quintessence of “the American Dream.” It is a place where the most ambitious projects can become a reality. As in the 19th century, America in the 21st century stirs hearts and minds. People dream of America, they argue about her, they keep talking about her. What is the secret of America’s success? Perhaps it is that Americans know the value of truly great ideas and are not afraid to bring them to life. Business and enterprise in America have always gone hand in hand with inventions and discoveries. Just like 150 years ago, lone innovators are fueling technical progress in the U.S. Everyone knows the names Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sergei Brin, and . Like the entrepreneurs of the 19th century, their success depends on their enthusiasm and their desire to overcome all difficulties. Such an approach cannot fail to win. Today there are more than 6,000 start-ups in the Bay area. Every week 50 new companies are created. Maybe yours will be next? Basic and additional literature:

Isaacson, Walter, “ How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution,” Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Jackson, Tim, «Inside Intel,” HarperCollins, 1997.

Livingstone, Jessica,. “Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days,” Apress, 2017.

Berlin, Leslie, “Troublemakers. Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age,” Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Campbell-Kelly, Martin, “Computer: A History of the Information Machine,” Edition 3. Routledge, 2014.

Carreyrou. John,. “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup,” Knopf, 2018.

7. Fisher, Adam, “Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom),” Twelve, 2018.