**This class is a Hybrid. This section of class will be taught on Zoom**\
**This class will skip August 29th and conclude on September 19th**
Around the world, Silicon Valley has become synonymous with high technology that has shaped global society, fortunes won and loss, the epitome of venture capitalism and charismatic free-thinkers that inspire legend. But how did this stretch of California’s Santa Clara Valley which only 70 years ago was lined with family farms and orchards evolve into how it is perceived today?
In this class we will trace the timeline of Silicon Valley’s growth, the inspirations, successes and failures, the landmarks along El Camino Real, and the characters that have defined and marked its growth. It’s a story that begins with the birth of Stanford University, moves through the World War II and Cold War years, finds itself in the freewheeling 60’s, explodes, collapses and explodes again in the early days of the Internet and the World Wide Web and still continues to shape 21st century society and economy.
Week 1:
· An early history of Santa Clara Valley (before it became Silicon Valley)
· The arrival of Leland and Jane Stanford and the birth of Stanford University
· The growth of a tech culture, both hobbyist and professional, in the early days of wireless and radio communication – Cyril Elwell and Federal Telegraph
· An early “military-industrial complex” comes to the Santa Clara Valley
Week 2:
· The legacy of Fred Terman at Stanford – “The Father of Silicon Valley”
· Hewlett, Packard and the Varian brothers and their involvement in World War II
· Urbanization of Santa Clara Valley (e.g., Sunnyvale, Mountain View, etc.) drive changes in the Peninsula landscape
· How Fred Terman’s World War II experience shaped post-war policy and impacted Valley growth
· The birth of Valley entrepreneurship
· The creation of the Stanford Industrial Park
Week 3:
· After the invention of the transistor, William Shockley moves to the Valley and founds the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
· “The Traitorous 8” and the birth of the semiconductor industry (Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel)
· Technology explodes: Transistors to Integrated Circuits to Microprocessors; Santa Clara Valley becomes Silicon Valley
· The Valley becomes less “Stanford-centric,” e.g., IBM
Week 4:
· Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and Xerox PARC help define the technology of the future in computing and networking
· The return of the hobbyist ethos to Silicon Valley – People’s Computing Co., The Homebrew Computer Club, the Byte Shop, The West Coast Computer Faire, etc.
· Some of the hobbyists become entrepreneurs – Atari, Apple, Microsoft, etc.
· The roots of the Internet are invented at Stanford, SRI and PARC
Week 5:
· The World Wide Web comes to Silicon Valley
· Netscape, Mosaic, CommerceNet and the birth of e-commerce
· Network growth requirements lead to InfoSeek, Yahoo!, Google
· The “dotcom” era – from “boom” to “bust”
· Web 2.0, early social networking, Facebook and Twitter
Week 6:
· Silicon Valley becomes a model for other industrial/research venues around the globe
· How Silicon Valley became a political entity and influencer
· The social, ethical and financial issues that face Silicon Valley
· How Silicon Valley could be redefined by emerging technologies – artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), quantum computing, etc.
