How the Valley Began...and How It Grew
1931
Stanford sophomores David Packard and William Hewlett become friends as benchwarmers on the varsity football team.
1938
Fred Terman, Stanford professor of electrical engineering, loans Hewlett and Packard $538 to produce an audio oscillator, their first instrument made while toiling in a Palo Alto garage.
1955
Dr. William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor at Bell Labs, returns to his hometown of Palo Alto and founds Shockley Labs Inc.
SEPTEMBER, 1957
The so-called Traitorous Eight, including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, walk out of Shockley Labs and found Fairchild Semiconductor, the first company to work exclusively in silicon.
JULY, 1959
Robert Noyce of Fairchild files a patent for the integrated circuit.
1964
Gordon Moore projects the number of transistors that can fit onto a chip will double every two years. This will be known as Moore's law.
JULY, 1968
Noyce and Moore resign from Fair-child. Each puts up $250,000 to found Intel Corp.
NOVEMBER, 1971
Intel produces the first microprocessor, which is called the 4004.
NOVEMBER, 1972
Nolan Bushnell, who quit Ampex and founded Atari with $500 out of his pocket, ships the pioneering Pong video game.
APRIL, 1976
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak launch Apple Computer and debut the Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto.
SEPTEMBER, 1976
Shugart Associates ships the first floppy disk drive for PCs.
1977
With $1,200, Larry Ellison launches Software Development Laboratories, which will become database powerhouse Oracle Corp.
DECEMBER, 1980
Apple goes public, at $22 a share, the biggest public offering since Ford in 1956.
FEBRUARY, 1982
Sun Microsystems is founded by three Stanford students, Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, and Andy Bechtolsheim.
APRIL, 1983
John Sculley joins Apple as president and chief executive, signaling a new era in the Valley as T-shirt tycoons give way to seasoned managers.
MAY, 1983
Philippe Kahn, the French-born, sax-playing mathematician, launches Borland International. He would become a database king before Borland started to fizzle in 1993.
JANUARY, 1984
Apple introduces the Macintosh.
DECEMBER, 1984
Husband-and-wife team Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner found Cisco Systems to develop networking technology.
JUNE, 1985
Steve Jobs is ousted from Apple after losing a power struggle with Sculley. He founds NeXT Inc.
DECEMBER, 1989
Conner Peripherals shoots to $705 million in revenue, the fastest-growing manufacturing startup in history.
MARCH, 1993
Intel unveils its most powerful processor to date, the Pentium, which establishes its dominance. Today, Intel's market capitalization is a stunning $163 billion.
APRIL, 1994
Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen found Netscape Communications as Mosaic Communications. Netscape goes public in August, 1995, at 28, jumping to 75 before closing at 58 the first day.
NOVEMBER, 1995
Steve Jobs's Pixar releases the first computer-animated hit film, Toy Story.
JULY, 1997
Apple CEO Gil Amelio resigns and Jobs takes an ''expanded role.''
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