Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders

The story of how Hewlett-Packard pioneered the electronics industry in Silicon Valley.

Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on May 11, 2007

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If you would like to learn how Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built the company that seeded Silicon Valley, this interview is for you.I have long been curious about the origins of Silicon Valley’s dominance of the electronics industry. While I was aware that Shockley started his semiconductor company there in 1956, I sensed that it was not really the beginning. After all, Ampex, Lenkurt, Farinon, and Varian, among others, were already established in the Santa Clara valley. Even earlier, Philo Farnsworth pioneered television in San Francisco. But Farnsworth’s company left no direct descendents nearby. Read more…