[pitt1980]

He wrote a pretty interesting profile of Robert Noyce, one of the co-founders of Intel

https://web.stanford.edu/class/e145/2007_fall/materials/noyc...

[majos]

Thanks for the pointer. I was unaware of 1. how important midwesterners have been to Silicon Valley, and 2. how old the Silicon Valley-Wall Street cultural divide is. Plus, just a fun read.

[evasote]

It was a really great read. My dad was a solid state electrical engineer working on silicon, and went to Grinnell as well for his undergrad. We are from just south of there. Nice to hear about the place

[B1FF_PSUVM]

Thank you, I had read that before and lost track of the authorship when I wanted to share with a colleague.

This is the single most elucidating thing written about the cultural matrix of Silicon Valley.

[jgrahamc]

Yes but that's years before. I'm talking dotcom era.

[ethbro]

When $300M of investment capital ends up in the $125,000 sale of a sock puppet mascot, was he (broadly speaking) wrong?

While big companies came out of that era, examined at the time and surrounded by since-deceased dotcom peers, I don't fault a reasonable person for concluding as he did.