Shockley’s growth history
Shockley was born in London in 1910. When he was 3 years old, his family moved to California with his parents. His parents who were engaged in mining instilled scientific ideas into him from an early age, and with the influence of middle school teacher Slater, he was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and after receiving a doctorate in solid state physics, he stayed at the school to teach. Soon, Kelly, deputy director of Bell Labs in New Jersey, came to Massachusetts to "poach" and poached Shockley away. After World War II, Bell Labs began to develop a new generation of electron tubes, with Shockley in charge. At noon two days before Christmas in 1947, two of Shockley's colleagues, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen, used several strips of gold foil, a piece of semiconductor material and a bent paper frame to Make a small model that can conduct, amplify and switch electrical current. They called this invention the "Point-Contact Transistor Amplifier". This was the "transistor" that later sparked an electronic revolution. Shockley and these two colleagues won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics. This is an electronic signal amplification component used to replace vacuum tubes. It is a powerful engine for the electronics industry and has been called "the most important invention of the 20th century" by the media and scientific circles. Some people also say: "Without Bell Labs, there would be no Silicon Valley."
In 1948, Shockley and others applied for a patent for the invention of the transistor. In 1949, Shockley proposed the idea of a better-performing junction transistor, which would achieve amplification by controlling the current on a thin base in the middle. In 1950, the junction transistor was successfully developed. In 1955, the industrial refining technology of high-purity silicon was mature, and transistor radios produced from silicon wafers were also launched. Shockley, who works at Bell Labs, couldn't sit still.
Shockley was not satisfied with his current invention. He wanted to commercialize this invention and bring it to the market. Shockley hated that Bell Labs was using his invention to make money, and the performance of the transistors it produced was extremely unstable, which tarnished the reputation of the inventor. In addition, Shockley has natural organizational skills and aggressive aggressiveness, and he desperately wants to become a millionaire. He returned to his hometown of Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley) in 1955. This land seemed to be the most ideal place to start a transistor factory in terms of climate and environment, and it was a geomantic treasure land for technological competition.
The arrival of Shockley, the "father of the transistor," marked the beginning of a new era in the electronics industry in "Silicon Valley." California on the west coast is the last place in the United States to welcome the sun, but the sunrise of the new computer industry has risen since then. Shockley came to Palo Alto with a clear understanding, through his many old connections in the electronics industry, of how Silicon Valley was about to change. Arnold Beckman, his former chemistry professor at Caltech, started a company in the Stanford research area that manufactured scientific measurement equipment, Beckman Instruments. Beckman provided financial support for Shockley to start the company. In 1956, Shockley won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Shockley established Shockley Laboratories, Inc. in Lookout Mountain, Silicon Valley. The electronics industry began to eagerly await his move, because this guy was so talented that he seemed to be able to do anything. His move was as sensational as Sir Isaac Newton's announcement in the 17th century that he would build a factory of his own design. The time and place were perfect, but Shockley needed another key ingredient: talent.
When it comes to talent selection, Shockley's vision is definitely as sharp and unique as his technical vision. He returned to the popular east coast of the United States and posted recruitment information, eager for ambitious talents to join him in conquering the world. The application letters sent to Wangshan were all written by elite figures in the field of electronics research in the United States at that time. As a talented person with a keen eye for talent, Shockley hired eight outstanding talents. This is an unprecedented collection of great talent, all under the age of 30, at the peak of their talents and extremely capable.
Joan Herni, from the California Institute of Technology, holds two doctoral degrees from Cambridge and the University of Geneva; Victor Greenick, a researcher at the Stanford Research Institute; Eugene K, the oldest of the eight, only 29 years old Layton was a manufacturing engineer at General Electric; Gordon Moore came from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; Robert Noyce, who wanted to be the most famous scientist, came from Philco-Ford; and there were Julius, Blank, Jay Rust and Sheldon Roberts are all extraordinary people. Without Shockley, these talents would not have appeared in California. Once Shockley arrived, the fire in Silicon Valley was about to break out.
It was Shockley who triggered the entrepreneurial chain reaction that formed the Silicon Valley semiconductor industry. Among these eight people, Noyce and Moore left Shockley together in 1957 and founded Fairchild Corporation. The two later collaborated to found Intel in 1968. Roberts Clayton, Rust and Herney left Fairchild in 1961 to start another company, Anelc Semiconductor. Hurney later left in 1964 and founded Union Carbide Electronics, and in 1967 he founded Intersil. Shockley is both one of the most talented figures of the 20th century and one of the most elusive.
Everyone came here because of Mushokli’s name, eager to do something big. But when they first arrived at the Shockley Laboratory, everyone was shocked: the so-called laboratory had bare white walls, cement floors and exposed rafters. More importantly, Shockley was also an amazing character. This great scientist, who had so much admiration and admiration among young people in his seminars and lectures, was the worst boss. In January 1956, Shockley was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. At 7 o'clock that morning, he received a call from Stockholm, Sweden. Shockley celebrated by bringing his young scientists to a breakfast meeting at the city's luxurious Dinah Chalet restaurant. Everyone was extremely excited and felt how extraordinary they were. Because which company is led by a Nobel Prize winner? They felt that it was time for them to change the world.
It is a pity that this joy is so short-lived.
This big man’s market knowledge is very fragmentary, and his ambition is too great. He doesn't know anything about management skills, and he doesn't even have the ability to deal with other people, but he is very self-righteous. One Silicon Valley executive who knew Shockley well described him as "a genius and a total loser."
According to Gordon Moore later revealed, Shockley's original goal was to produce transistors that cost 5 cents each. This price could not be reached in 1980, let alone 1955. After the product plan failed, he asked the company to focus on basic research. "It was clear that Shockley wanted to invent a landmark product and commercialize it," Hurney said. "After that effort failed, he still wanted to spend everyone's time and energy on something new. creation rather than improving transistor technology."
This aimless approach resulted in no products from Shockley Laboratory. Over the next two years, only one diode was introduced, a relatively simple device rather than a transistor.
As a manager, Shockley gradually isolated himself. Shockley always talked to people like he was a child, and his attitude became increasingly arrogant. So by 1957, seven out of eight people had the idea of changing jobs. Shockley's self-centered style soon paid off. His disciples proposed studying integrated circuits, using diffusion methods to place circuits of several silicon transistors in a transistor-sized location. But Shockley rejected their advice, thus planting the bomb. Shockley was not content with the title of famous scientist. He also determined to surpass the great corporate scientists of the 1930s and 1940s, and to surpass corporate aristocrats such as Hewlett and Packard of HP. Although Shockley succeeded in surpassing them intellectually, his quality and character as an entrepreneur made it impossible for him to ever match them.
While he was still ambitiously building his corporate dream, his carefully selected Chollima was already plotting rebellion underneath.
"Most people were dissatisfied and wanted to leave this place according to their own ideas, but we all decided to leave at the same time." At the time, there was no real venture capital industry. It was not easy for the seven young people to find a way out without Shockley, and the seven decided to stay together. "Obviously the first thing to do is to find a job at the company because hiring such a large group of people is a problem and it's not feasible," Noyce said. One of them wrote to an investment bank called Hayden Stone and received a reply soon after. "Okay, hold on for now, we will find someone to get you out."
Hayden Stone also has to find funding. Finally a 23rd company, Fairchild Photographic Equipment Company of New Jersey, became interested. Its young president, John Carter, had always wanted to create a high-tech company. But Carter had doubts when he agreed to invest because none of the seven had managerial talent. So the seven people began to lure Robert Noyce, the last holdout of Shockley Company, with high salary. Because he was the only one among the eight who seemed to have some leadership qualities. This did not take much effort. Although Noyce was appreciated and valued by Shockley, he no longer had any illusions about Shockley. So eight people quickly submitted letters of resignation to Shockley. Shockley was shocked, and then became furious, calling them traitors, known as the "Rebel Eight" at the time.
As a result, the "Rebellious Gang of Eight" became one of the most famous allusions in Silicon Valley.
In 1960, Shockley Laboratories was sold to Clewitt Laboratories, and in 1965 it was sold to AT&T. In 1968, it closed forever. The original building is now a stereo supply store.
Shockley invented the transistor, but failed to create the transistor. Shockley wanted to become the master of Silicon Valley, but he could only become a passer-by and became the first outcast in Silicon Valley. In history, only a hasty brushstroke remains.
Shockley's paternalistic style made the old scientist lose face in front of his younger generations. His dream of getting rich was completely shattered, and he was forced to give up his job and seek education. In 1958, Shockley accepted Terman's invitation and began to teach part-time at Stanford University. In 1963, he officially left the semiconductor company he founded and became a famous but unsuccessful professor at Stanford University. Some say Shockley was a form of comeuppance for Silicon Valley. Because after Shockley, the standard originally created by HP, a standard for measuring the quality, conduct and professional ethics of high-tech companies, has since died. People want to build their own companies according to HP's model, but the tragedy of Silicon Valley is that these attempts are Failed to varying degrees. And Shockley’s legacy permeates Silicon Valley and is everywhere. From then on it was Shockley, not Hewlett or Packard, who became the quintessential Silicon Valley manager; it was Shockley who turned the company into a pure money-making machine; it was Shockley who built the company at the bottom of a dry valley, not in In the green hills of Palo Alto; Shockley ran a company that began to disregard the needs of its employees. Some people attribute the characteristics of Shockley Laboratory to: greed, genius, disintegration of loyalty, ambition, tragedy and sudden destruction. It is these that constitute the cyclical characteristics of Silicon Valley in the future.
In the 1970s, the great professor suddenly became interested in ethnography and eugenics, and publicly expressed his belief that not all people are genetically equal, nor are they equal. evolved on the basis of. He acknowledged his contribution to the so-called "Nobel Semen Bank," a germ-selection bank built in Escondido, California. What is even more shocking is that he published a paper claiming that the IQ of black people is 20 points lower than that of white people. There was a huge commotion, and angry black students burned a mock statue of Shockley on campus. No second Nobel Prize winner in physics has ever experienced this.
These highly controversial activities, widely reported by the propaganda media, unfortunately obscured Shockley's scientific achievements and his contribution to the entrepreneurial wave in Silicon Valley. Originally, like Frederick Terman, Shockley should also be regarded as the co-founder of Silicon Valley.
In 1989, Shockley died. The reputation of a generation of scientists was rewritten in this way.