Innovation, Technology, and Silicon Valley

U.S. CONSULATE ECUADOR

Who Am I? Aamer Khan US Diplomat – Foreign Service Officer (2011-Now) Engineer, Technologist & Entrepreneur (1993-2011) Worked at: IBM, Rational Software, Hewlett Packard, and a

few other companies. Owned and Run: Silicon Valley Startups (1996-2002) Patents on software development processes, tools, and

technology.

Expertise: Software Programming, Internet & Information Technology, Designing Software Development Tools, Managing Software Development Teams…. & now representing the United States as a diplomat

Our agenda today A brief history of Silicon Valley…. A look at the people, the companies, the universities, that created

it. A discussion on why it exists, what are the ingredients that make it

tick?

The folklore… how the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley is woven into the culture…. the self belief…. the competitive core… of the people in the valley… and its connection to the American dream itself.

The Technology what are the technologies we have seen emerge and what is emerging now…. and why are they important.

And finally we want to look at what sustains American entrepreneurship?

Caveats I am an Engineer not a historian. The story can be told with many different

perspectives…. This is just one possible perspective.

I will not mention many things that you might consider an important part of the story….

So where is this place?

The beginning…. 1946

Fredrick Terman1900-1982

Microwave Valley? Customer = Military Problem = Penetrating and disabling the USSR

radar network. Objective:

Signals Intelligence – to understand the USSR radar systems

Jammers – to disable the USSR radar systems Stealth – to reduce radar footprints of US aircraft

Solution: Microwave power tubes Electronically tunable High power, broad frequency range, and high speed

Stanford Industrial Park…. 1951

Semiconductors…. mid 1950s

William Shockley1910-1989

Integrated Circuits…. on Silicon Jack Kilby – Texas Instruments first

patent for an integrated circuit made on Germanium – 1959

Robert Noyce – Fairchild Semiconductor six months later made on Silicon – 1959

Componentization Miniaturization Mass production Low cost with increasing volume

Printing Press : Books = IC Fabrication : Circuits

Customer still the Government……. 1960s Aerospace Program is key motivator:

Apollo Program – Guidance Computer Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles – Guidance

Computer 1966 – 2632 computers in the U.S. of which 1967

work for the Defense Department. 1968 – 37% of the total integrated circuit market

is for US Aerospace Program 1961 - IBM has 81% share of world computer

market

But …. things are about to change

Commercial Computers IBM 360

DEC PDP-1

Microprocessor & Memory…. late 1960s

Gordon Moore1929 -

Robert Noyce1927 - 1990

FoundedJuly 18, 1968

1K DRAM1970

I4004 - Microprocessor1971

Storage 1970s

San Jose Research Lab

IBM Floppy Disk1971

IBM Winchester Hard Drive1973

First Successful Microcomputer

Apple Computer1976

Steve Jobs – 1955 - 2011Steve Wozniak – 1950 - Apple II

1977

Why did Apple succeed? Killer Application -- Electronic Spreadsheet

VisiCalc VisiCorp Dan Bricklin Personal Productivity Powerful Cost Savings

Evolution

IBM & Microsoft IBM PC – 1981

Intel 8088 Off the shelf parts PC DOS 1.0

Time to market

MS-DOS 1.0 IBM PC Clones Q-DOS Very successful

Killer Application Lotus 1-2-3 Mitch Kapor 1983

Microsoft & Intel & PC Ecosystem

First Successful Microcomputer

Venture Capital

1958 SBIC Act : Gov’t match private investment 3:11978 - Capital Gains Slashed – 49.5% to 28%

1979 - Employee Retirement Income Security Act

- Pension funds can invest in VC funds

The Golden Rule He who has the gold makes the rules.

While all this was going on…. 1969 – ARPANET inaugurated with four nodes

– UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, and UC Santa Barbara, University of Utah.

ARPANET to The Internet 1983 – TCP/IP running

on Unix BSD 4.2 Debut’s on Arpanet.

1985 – Arpanet officially renamed “The Internet’

1986 - Internet Engineering Task Force

1990 – “hypertext” introduced by Tim Berners-Lee CERN

Needs killer applications….

Killer Applications for the Internet Browser – HTTP and Hypertext – in1993 Early

version of Mosaic – NCSA University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Web Servers with Content – in 1993 only 50 WWW servers known to exist.

Search Engine – in 1990 search engine Archie exists but not much to search.

Email – Most popular application on the Internet

Yet again… the valley is on fire

1994 – Netscape NavigatorInternet Information Server

1995 – Search Engine1996 – Free Email

1995 – Portal, Email & Search Engine

1997/8 – Search Engine

Recap… Technology

Investment, Venture Capital

So what is next?

Cloud Computing

Similar to: IC – Microcomputers Microcomputers – Application

Software Computers + Networks

+Software = Internet Ready to use Infrastructure:

Elastic Computation Power Networking Storage Content Delivery Database

Low entry cost.

What sustains Silicon Valley?

Availability, concentration, and fluidity of Capital.

Business friendly regulatory environment.

Availability of skilled and innovative workers.

Universities, research & development institutions.

Intellectual property rights.

The legend, the dream, the belief that …. Yes You Can!

Questions?

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