Sparks Commentary: A review of PBS's “Silicon Valley” (American Experience)

This documentary focuses on a historical company called “Fairchild Semiconductor” …

I was expecting this movie to be about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and the desktop computing revolution of the 1980’s. But I was wrong. This movie focuses on a historical company called “Fairchild Semiconductor International.” It was founded in 1957 as a division of “Fairchild Camera and Instrument,” a company based on the East Coast. But Fairchild Semiconductor was based in San Jose, California; in the area that would later become “Silicon Valley.” This area was actually an entrepreneurial haven, long before it acquired the name of “Silicon Valley.” Fairchild Semiconductor was a pioneer in the development of transistors and integrated circuits. Thus, it was also something of a pioneer in the computers industry, back in the day when NASA and the military accounted for more than half of the computers market. It was a true trailblazer, but it is virtually unknown today. This film gives it a thorough treatment, and thus takes a good look at the budding computers industry of this time.

How this company helped to create “Silicon Valley” …

Most documentaries out there focus on the public sector, and on the history of governments. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, since voters generally need to know something about these traditional kinds of topics. But sometimes it means that the private sector is somewhat neglected as a result. People don’t often know about the achievements of the great entrepreneurial innovators, because they are seldom covered by the traditional histories. Thus, this is one of the few documentaries out there to attempt to cover any of these things, and it is to be commended for doing so. Most of the documentary actually takes place long before the desktop computing revolution of the 1980’s, and tells a story that is not as well-known to a popular audience. The area that would become “Silicon Valley” was once known for its fruit orchards and agriculture, but that changed with the debut of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. This company turned the area into a center of technological innovation, and risk-taking entrepreneurship with the potential for huge profits. The cutthroat competition of the technology industry actually makes for exciting drama, and makes this a fascinating film to watch.

The so-called “Traitorous Eight,” who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild Semiconductor

The entrepreneurial excitement of a high-stakes poker game …

To be sure, the excitement of this entrepreneurial element was part of the draw of this film for me. It’s like a high-stakes poker game, where the risks and returns are both astoundingly high. One should not stretch this gambling analogy too far, as it turns out, because the people who succeeded in this industry worked very hard for what they ultimately earned. But the windfalls of business success, and the risks of losing everything, are part of what make this game so exciting for me. I was a business major, which was probably part of the reason that I enjoyed this film as much as I did. But this film will probably interest others, besides business enthusiasts and gadget geeks. One needs no expertise to enjoy the human drama of competition in business. Interestingly, one of the commentators here actually says that they “aren’t big on history” in Silicon Valley (or something to that effect). I know what they’re talking about here. Entrepreneurs there don’t often look to the past, but always have their eye on the future. It doesn’t matter who was big yesterday, or who made a million dollars today. What matters is who is big today, and who is going to be big tomorrow.

The building in Palo Alto, California where the first commercially practical integrated circuit was invented

How the Cold War affected the computer market of this time

Most of this film takes place in the 1960's and 1970's, at a time when the Cold War was still going on. Since NASA and the United States military were hands-down the biggest drivers of the American computers market in those days, this is more than just historical trivia for this film. The Cold War of this time meant massive spending on military technology and the Space Race, and this massive spending meant big business for those willing to provide these technologies to NASA and the American military. Aircraft in particular were very dependent upon the latest in computer technology, and the state-of-the-art onboard computer systems of these planes (not to mention NASA spacecraft) thus owed much to the work of Fairchild Semiconductor. Eventually, the private sector would be a much bigger driver of the worldwide computers market; but the early development of computers has a long history of connection with the American military, and its counterparts elsewhere in the free world. Communist countries don’t often have the money to develop these technologies properly, but the democratic countries did, and thus developed them in massive quantities. Indeed, this computing revolution would not have happened in China or the Soviet Union, since they lacked the mechanisms to reward the needed innovation and ingenuity. It was in places like America that it was able to happen, transforming the industry of the entire world in the process.

John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain at Bell Labs, 1940 (an affiliate of Fairchild Semiconductor)

Interviews with the eyewitnesses and participants in these events

To give a more personal touch, this film actually interviews some of those who were involved in the founding of this famous company. This eyewitness testimony adds much to the film, and allows them to bring the Fairchild story to life for a television audience. It also makes use of photographs and film footage, and other sources that give this film its authentic look. I suspect that you could bring the story of virtually any major company to life with some drama, but the story of Fairchild is more interesting than most to me. I had no idea that this company even existed before I watched this film, but found it a thoroughly compelling subject by the time I finished it. These technologies are fairly primitive by today’s standards, but they paved the way for what we have today, and thus have a right to be remembered in the history books. At times, the film shows modern technologies that these things influenced, such as modern smart phones that are held in one’s hand. These things would have been science fiction to the people of this time, but that is often the way with new technologies. Things that were science fiction yesterday are often facts today, and things that are science fiction today are often real possibilities for tomorrow. Like other kinds of history, this film focuses on the facts, and on the kinds of things that are known with certainty. But when you watch it, you have no idea what’s going to happen next, or whether or not the company is going to meet its stated goals.

Robert Noyce, credited with developing the first integrated circuit in 1959

The computer revolution was something like a Third Industrial Revolution …

People have often said that the Digital Revolution was a Third Industrial Revolution. There may actually be some reason to take this claim seriously. Historians disagree about what period constitutes this revolution, but the late 1950’s to the late 1970’s is a fairly common answer, with the 1980’s considered somewhat less important by these historians. To me, the desktop computing revolution actually had a greater effect upon people’s everyday lives; but I fully agree that these earlier innovations helped to set the stage for desktop computing. There were a number of other startup companies in the Silicon Valley of later years. Since many of them were actually based on Fairchild Semiconductor, they are sometimes referred to as “Fairchildren.” This film captures the excitement of these risky business ventures. Venture capital may still be the most risky kind of business investing, since by definition, it involves investing in companies that do not yet exist, and may never “get off the ground” in the first place. Thus, they have no track record to judge them by, of course, and you have to instead judge them by whether their business plans seem “sound” or not. But as it turns out, you also have to make a more personal judgment, about whether the company’s leader “has what it takes” to make the venture work. Unfortunately, most who invest in venture capital may end up throwing their money away if it doesn’t work, but a few reap massive rewards when they succeed in “picking a winner.” Those who invested in Fairchild picked a “winner,” as it turned out, and thus got rich when the company took off in the sixties and seventies. Such is the drama of the game of business.