The Entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley

By: John McLaughlin, The Great Courses

Narrated by: John McLaughlin

California’s San Francisco Bay Area is home to an incredible renaissance to rival that of the Italians in the 15th and 16th centuries. But instead of working with oils and marble, creators like Tim Cook, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg work with code and computer chips.

In 10 episodes written by John McLaughlin, president of the Silicon Valley Historical Association, The Entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley reveals the fascinating story of entrepreneurship, invention, and innovation in the most risk-friendly place on the planet. Bringing together three decades of research and interviews, McLaughlin takes you inside the minds of the founders of giants like Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and other revolutionary companies. It's these innovators themselves who can bring the stories of Silicon Valley to life better than anyone, and in their own words they’ll recount their struggles, their successes - and even their failures.

You’ll also come to see this stretch of Northern California as a place of constant transformation, a region with perpetual ties to science, wealth, and power. Spanning over 100 years of history, these episodes recount the rise of Stanford University and the valley’s first high-tech company, Federal Telegraph; and they continue through world-changing innovations in times of war and peace, right up to the birth of the internet, the dot-com bubble, and beyond. The episodes also include the history of video gaming, the emergence of cell phones and search engines, and the invention of social media networks that continue to shape how we live today.

Apple, Google, Adobe, Facebook - you use products and services by these and other tech giants every single day. Guess what? They all started right here.

©2020 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

Short but interesting

Story has been told before. This book gives a few good interviews and keeps a good pace.

Short and sweet

Very nice review of sv history
Begins slow but get more interesting at chapter 3

It's ok

This is quite short for an entry in the great courses. It provides an interesting history of the origins of Silicon Valley, starting with how Stanford University was founded in the gold rush days.

I like that it makes use of archived audio snippets from some of the relevant entrepreneurs.

There's nothing particularly exciting or memorable here. It's fine, but not a stand out. It also paints an extremely rosy picture of Silicon Valley, praising all the benefits of innovation (and making a brief nod towards efforts to fight climate change). It doesn't portray any other side of the story. Not that I think Silicon Valley is a bad thing overall, mind you, but I certainly think there are more complications. At one point Silicon Valley is praised for being incredibly meritocratic, where nothing matters except the quality of your work - but only white men are discussed and interviewed. A few anecdotes of founders engaging in rule-bending or law-breaking to get their businesses off the ground are mentioned as humorous anecdotes, without any mention of potential consequences... or of privacy concerns or possible monopolies, for that matter.

Anyway. Not a bad history, but not terribly exciting, and it really needs to present a more comprehensive view.

History of Silicon Valley

I got a kick out of this short history of Silicon Valley. I especially love the recorded interviews of several people from the '90s including Steve Jobs. I learned quite a bit about how Silicon Valley was started through Stanford University which is something that I did not know before. if you're interested in the history of Silicon Valley this is a good introduction and gives you a few kernels of information that you can dig deeper into if you wish.

Interviews are nice.. but the other text is patronising..

Interviews are nice.. but the other text is patronising.. do listen to the insights of the tech leaders in the 90’s and how accurate the predictions and ideas were.. but the narration and writing otherwise seems like a lecture for a 12 year old..
This book doesn’t really know who it’s target audience is..

Is good

A good short history on Silicon Valley’s achievements. A nice short read for learning about Silicon Valley.

UNIQUE AND AUTHENTIC

If you don’t know anything about Silicon Valley, this is a good place to start. If you do, this is a GREAT place to start.

As the president of the Silicon Valley Historical Association, John McLaughlin seems uniquely qualified to tell us the real story of Silicon Valley and it’s one-of-a-kind entrepreneurial legacy.

This entertaining series of lectures takes us on the journey of the men and women who share a common DNA. That being the will of spirit to endure the failures required of success. From suits and ties to jeans and sneakers in the boardroom, it is a fascinating ride.

Through direct interviews, with the likes of Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit and Steve Jobs, of - you know! - this is also history told by the very people who made it. Their mouths to your ears.

In a very clever manner, McLaughlin presents Silicon Valley as a high-tech kinescope. Played out with side stories about Stanford selling shovels and Vinod Khosla telling us that in short, Ideas seek Solutions. And that, nowhere else, are the possibilities more well-aligned than in Silicon Valley.

Well-studied. Well presented. Fresh approach.

Great story with a weak narrator

This is a very interesting recount of the history of Silicon Valley and the impact it has had on the world as we know it today. Building from the background of Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University in the 19th century thru many of the great startups that are household names today, the story is compelling and an easy follow. My only negative feedback is that the narrator was not as good as one would expect for such a compelling story. It doesn't detract from the story as much as it did not flow as well as it could have.

Inspiring! Superbly Researched and Presented

This program offers unique insights into the coincidental connections between Santa Clara Valley’s lost pastoral setting of fruit trees and the world’s technological powerhouse of Silicon Valley.

A wonderful storyteller, it would be hard to finish this story without feeling a personal connection to the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that have changed the world. Through difficult times, these entrepreneurial heroes kept trying.

We meet Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Oracle, Adobe, Netscape, Intuit and many other world-changing high-tech companies. They often tell their own stories in this program. Success never came easy but the key was often timing, opportunity and perseverance.

No single person made Silicon Valley, but there were plenty of personalities, world events and lucky breaks that contributed. The Valley’s culture supports risk and forgives failure. You’ll learn that without role models, the Valley never would have become the technological powerhouse that it is today.

Steve Jobs worked for Atari? Kick Ass!!!

I had no idea that Steve Jobs worked for Atari, no wonder why it kicked so much ass! I love the karma of how AT&T eventually got reimbursed so to speak for the illegal phone calls Jobs and Wazniak made with their blue boxes🤣