1440 Explores

The Origins of Silicon Valley

1440 Explores

Show Notes

Silicon Valley wasn’t supposed to happen.

A stretch of California orchard land somehow became the place that built the modern world: chips, PCs, the internet, the smartphone, and now AI. But the real story isn’t the garage myth. It’s a series of contradictions hiding in plain sight. So what actually built Silicon Valley, and what does that tell us about where it’s going next?

We'll unpack:

The Cold War military money that quietly funded Silicon Valley's rise, before anyone called it that.

How a Stanford dean's real estate gamble changed the course of American technology.

Why the Space Race is what made the microchip cheap.

How a generation of anti-establishment hippies built one of the greatest engines of corporate power on earth.

Guest: Margaret O’Mara, historian, professor at the University of Washington, and author of "The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America."

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Credits:A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 MediaHost: Sony KassamProducer: Nicolo MajnoniEditor: Dan BobkoffSound Designer: Jay CowitExecutive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew SteigerwaldExecutive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff

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