Following my previous post about the book The Power Law and Venture Capital, I can only confirm it is a fascinating book about the history of Venture Capital. I have now read chapters 2 & 3 which covers the sixties mainly through Arthur Rock and his funding of Fairchild and the Traitorous Eight. About Fairchild […]
I mentioned in a recent post – Birth and Death of Silicon Valley ? – the book Making Silicon Valley – Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 by Christophe Lécuyer. I had bought that book many years ago and had only read some parts of it. Because Olivier Alexandre (see my posts about […]
At a time when Silicon Valley seems more powerful than ever, with GAFAs and others reaching values difficult to imagine just a few years ago, at a time when Artificial Intelligence seems to scare many and fascinate others with huge fund raising for openAI ($10B) or Inflection AI ($1B) [not to forget smaller French Mistral […]
Gordon Moore passed away last Friday, March 24, 2023. He was the last of the Traitorous Eight and there is not only one living founding father of Silicon Valley, Arthur Rock. I could build a short video of the two of them out of the great documentary movie Something Ventured. The text is interesting and […]
Friends from IMF sent me a link to a very interesting article entitled How Unique is VC’s American History?. You may have access to it here or there. It is an analysis of a book, Tom Nicholas’ VC: An American History that I have not read (yet). But the article is quite fascinating about the […]
I have finished reading Anthony Galluzzo’s book which I already mentioned in part 1 a few days ago. I hesitate between irritation and a more positive appreciation because I do not know if the author simply wants to undo the imaginaty of the region or to criticize its functioning more broadly. Indeed in the last […]
A friend mentioned this new book about Silicon Valley to me a few days ago and I quote: “The author’s argument is wrong (but it’s pernicious). […] Indeed, entrepreneurship generates excellence and independent-minded people, while [another view – opposition to liberal capitalism] creates a population of people dependent upon the state.” I’m not sure I […]
Mallaby is a marvelous storyteller – thanks to his team probably as he mentions at least 15 collaborators in his acknowledgments. This is part 3 of my posts about the Power Law, following part 2 and part 1. You will discover so many figures of venture capital and entrepreneurship that it would be impossible to […]
I had published in the past genealogies (time maps) of Silicon Valley startups and venture capital. Here they are again: Genealogy of Silicon Valley startups (1957-1986) Genealogy of West Coast Venture Capital (1958-1983) But there have been other (“artistic”) maps, strangely in the 80s also. Here are three similar versions from 1983-1986. Maps of Silicon […]
Silicon Valley will soon be 65. 65? Yes, I usually say that the region began its growth with the foundation of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 (even if the name itself was created in 1971). The region is increasingly criticized for both good and bad reasons (see for example here and there) and perhaps it is […]