Fairchild Semiconductor · 1957 · Palo Alto

On September 18, 1957, eight engineers — Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Jean Hoerni, Jay Last, Victor Grinich, Eugene Kleiner, Sheldon Roberts, and Julius Blank — walked out of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View and signed their names to a dollar bill, a symbol of their mutual commitment. William Shockley called them the 'Traitorous Eight.' Arthur Rock, a young New York banker, found them funding from Fairchild Camera and Instrument. Within three years, Robert Noyce and Jean Hoerni invented the planar integrated circuit — the technology that made modern chips possible. Noyce and Moore later co-founded Intel. Eugene Kleiner co-founded Kleiner Perkins. Fairchild alumni went on to found more than 130 companies. 'Silicon Valley' got its name from the silicon chips that Fairchild pioneered in a rented building on East Charleston Road in Palo Alto.