And Ye Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Make You Free
– John 8:32 (and the lobby of CIA Headquarters, Langley Virginia)
A few other versions of the talk are here and here
Secret History Backstory Click Here
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Master set of slides
Updated master version can be downloaded here
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(If you’re interested in the history of the tech scene in New York, Fred Wilson gives a cogent summary here)
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The Secret History of Silicon Valley – Backstory
- Part 1: The Vietnam War
- Part 2: B-52’s and the Soviet Air Defense System
- Part 3: Bill Perry/ESL and the Cold War
- Part 4a: Undisclosed Locations
- Part 4b: The End of Innocence
- Part 5: Silicon Valley, the 2nd 100 years
- Part 6a: The Endless Frontier: U.S. Science and National Industrial Policy
- Part 6b: Stanford, Terman and WWII
- Part 7: Stanford, Terman and the Cold War
- Part 8: Stanford and the rise of Cold War Entrepreneurship
- Part 9: Stanford and Electronic Intelligence
- Part 10: Stanford and Weapons Systems
- Part 11: The Rise of Venture Capital
- Part 12: The First Valley IPO’s
- Part 13: Startups with Nuclear Missiles
- Part 14: Spy Satellites in Silicon Valley
- Part 15: Lockheed – Silicon Valley largest employer
- Part 16: Balloon Wars
Play/download the audio version of each post here
Sources I used for The Secret History of Silicon Valley. Thanks to the authors of this wonderful material. Special note; read everything Alfred Price has written for WWII and Electronic Warfare. Steuart Leslie, Charles Lecuyer and Rebecca S. Lowen for Stanford and the Cold War.
World War II Sources – Books/Websites
- Scientists Against Time – James Baxter
- Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science – Jennet Conant
- The Tizard Mission: The Top Secret Operation that Changed the Course of WWII
- A Radar History of WWII: Technical and Military Imperatives – Louis Brown
- A New Eye For the Navy: the Origin of Radar at the Naval Research Laboratory
- Confounding the Reich: The RAF’s Secret War of Electronic Countermeasures in WWII – Martin Bowman
- Confound and Destroy: 100 Group and the Bomber Support Campaign – Martin Streetly
- Echoes of War, the Story of H2S Radar – Sir Bernard Lovell
- Boffin: A Personal Story of the Early Days of Radar, Radio Astronomy and Quantum Optics – R. Hanbury Brown
- Radar Development to 1945 – Russell Burns
- The Invention that Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won The Second World War – Robert Buderi
- Wizard War, British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945 – R.V. Jones
- History of Air Intercept Radar and the British Nightfighter 1939-1945 – Ian White
- Ground Radar Systems of the Luftwaffe: 1939-1945 – Werner Muller
- The Luftwaffe Over Germany: Defense of the Reich – Donald Caldwell
- Bf110 vs Lancaster 1942-1945 – Robert Forczyk
- Battle Over The Reich: The Strategic Bomber Offensive Over Germany: Volume One, 1939-1943 – Alfred Price
- The Nuremberg Raid: March 30-31 1944 – Martin Middlebrook
- Warriors and Wizards – development and defeat of radio controlled glide bombs – Martin Bollinger
- Defense of the Third Reich 1941-45: Steven J Zaloga
- Battle Over the Reich: The Strategic Bomber Offensive against Germany Volume 2 Nov 1943-May 1945 – Alfred Price
- Battle Over the Reich – Alfred Price
- Radar in WWII -Henry E. Guerlac Vol 1 and 2
- Japanese Radar and Related Weapons of World War II – Yasuzo Nakagawa
- Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare – Alfred Price
- Volume I: The History of US. Electronic Warfare to 1946 – Alfred Price
- The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
- Ticom Archive – Signal Intelligence in WWII
- European Axis Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 1
- Notes on German Cryptography and Cryptanalysis – TICOM report Volume 2
- German Supreme Command Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 3
- German Army High Command Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 4
- German Air Force Signals Intelligence – TICOM report Volume 5
- Restricted Data – Nuclear Secrecy Blog
Cold War Sources — Books
- Volume II: The History of US. Electronic Warfare: Renaissance Years – Alfred Price
- Volume III: The History of US. Electronic Warfare: Rolling Thunder Through Allied Force, 1964 to 2000 – Alfred Price
- Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret NSA – James Bamford
- The Puzzle Palace: Inside the NSA – James Bamford
- Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security – William Burrows
- Secrets of Signals Intelligence During the Cold War and Beyond – M. Aid, C. Wiebes
- The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights Over China From Taiwan – Chris Pocock
- Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA– J. Jones, R. Jones, C. Andrew
- High-Cold-War-Strategic Air Reconnaissance and the Electronic Intelligence War – Robert Jackson
- Spy Flights of the Cold War – Paul Lashmar
- By Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War – W. Burrows
- Shadow Flights: America’s Secret Airwar Against the Soviet Union: A Cold War History – C. Peebles
- Secret Empire: Eisenhower, The CIA and the hidden story of America’s Space Espionage – P. Taubman
- The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology – Jeffery Richelson
- GCHQ: The uncensored story of Britain’s most secret intelligence agency -Richard J. Aldrich
- The History of Big Safari – Bill Grimes
- Spyplane: The U-2 History – Norman Polmar
- Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites – Dwayne Day
- Corona: America’s First Satellite Program – Kevin Ruffner
- Corona Between the Sun and the Earth: The First NRO Reconnaissance Eye in Space – Robert McDonald
- Meeting the Challenge: The Hexagon KH-9 Reconnaissance Satellite – Philip Pressel
- Critical to U.S. Security: The Development of the GAMBIT and HEXAGON Satellites – Gerald Haines
- Trust but Verify: Imagery Analysis in the Cold War – David Lindgren
- Spy Capitalism: Itek and the CIA – Jonathan Lewis
- America’s Space Sentinels: DSP Satellites and National Security – Jeffery Richelson
- Shades of Gray: National Security and the Evolution of Space Reconnaissance – L. Parker Temple
- NRO Satellite History – Quest
- Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance – Donald MacKenzie
- Achieving Accuracy: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles – Marshall McMurran
- From Polaris to Trident – The Development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology – Graham Spinardi
- When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the U.S. Navy – David Boslaugh
- From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer – Kent Redmond, Thomas Smith
- A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon – Neal Sheehan
- Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program – David Stumpf
- Command and Control:Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident – Eric Schlosser
- The Kremlins’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000 – Steven Zaloga
- Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces – Pavel Podvig, Frank von Hippel
- The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle – Marshall Michel
- Flying From the Black Hole – Robert Harder
- US Strategic and Defensive Missile Systems 1950-2004 – Mark Berhow
- SA-2 (S-75) Surface to Air Missile Simulator
- The Archangel and the OXCART: the Lockheed A-12 – J. Remak, J. Ventolo
- Design and Development of the Blackbird – Peter Merlin
- From Rainbow to Gusto: Stealth and the Design of the Lockheed Blackbird – Paul Suhler
- Radar Handbook – Merrill I. Skolnik
- EW 101: a first course in electronic warfare – David Adamy
- First in Last Out: Stories by the Wild Weasels
- Clashes – Air Combat Over North Vietnam 1965-1972
- The Eleven Days of Christmas: Americas Last Vietnam Battle
- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram and/or
- The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security by Grant T. Hammond
- Threat Warning for Tactical Aircraft: A Technical History
- Beyond Expectations: Recollections of the Pioneers and Founders of National Reconnaissance
- Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came in From the Desert – David Rosenberg
- Working on the Dark Side of the Moon: Life Inside the National Security Agency
Military/University Alliance
- Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford – Rebecca S. Lowen
- The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America – Paul Edwards
- The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford – Stuart W. Leslie
- Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: WWII’s Battle of the Potomac – Gregory Hooks
- Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology and the State in Cold War America – Audra Wolfe
- Funding a Revolution – National Academies of Science
Post Cold War Sources — Books
- Analyzing the Chinese Military – Peter Mattis
- The Chinese Army Today – Dennis Blasko
- Chinese Aerospace Power – Andrew S. Erickson & Lyle J. Goldstein
- Peoples Liberation Army Navy: Combat Systems Technology, 1949-2010
- The Dragon Extends its Reach – Larry Wortzel
- China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress
- Chinese Air and Naval Power – blog
- Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. Josh Chin and Liza Lin
- Chinese Power and Artificial Intelligence. Edited by William Hannas and Huey-Meei Chang
- Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics: National Strategy, Security and Authoritarian Governance. Jinghan Zeng
- Innovate to Dominate: The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State. Tai Ming Cheung
- The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. Kevin Rudd
- Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology. Chris Miller
Silicon Valley Sources – Books
Terman/Shockley/Fairchild/Intel/National/Chips
- Fred Terman at Stanford – Stewart Gilmore
- IEEE Oral History – Fred Terman Associates
- Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age – Michael Riordan & Lillian Hoddeson
- Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley– Joel Shurkin
- Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor – Christophe Lecuyer and David Brock
- The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce – Leslie Berlin
- Spinoff: A Personal History of the Industry That Changed The World – Charles Sporck
- The Intel Trinity – Michael Malone
- Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology. Chris Miller
Silicon Valley History
- Electronics in the West: the First Fifty Years – Jane Morgan
- The Origins of the Electronics Industry on the Pacific Coast– The Origins of the Electronics Industry on the Pacific Coast
- Revolution in Miniature: The History and Impact of Semiconductor Electronics – Ernest Braun
- Understanding Silicon Valley – Martin Kenney
- The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer – Jane Smiley
- How Silicon Valley Came to Be – Timothy Sturgeon
- The Inventor and the Pilot: Russell and Sigurd Varian – Dorothy Varian
- The Tube Guys – Norman Pond
- Making Silicon Valley: Innovation & the Growth of High Tech – Charles Lecuyer
- Dealers of Lightening: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age – Michael Hilzick
- The Big Score – Michael Malone
- Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 – AnnaLee Saxenian
- The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy – AnnaLee Saxenian
- Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company – Michael Malone
- Startup up Silicon Valley; How ROLM Became a Cultural Icon-Katherine Maxfield
- Make it New – A History of Silicon Valley Design
- The HP Phenomenon: Innovation and Business Transformation– House and Price
- Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology. Chris Miller
Venture Capital
- Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital – Spencer E. Ante
- Done Deals: Venture Capitalists Tell Their Stories -Udayan Gupta
- Semiconductor Timeline to 1976: Semi and Don C. Hoefler
- The Startup Game – William Draper III
- A Brief History of the World (of Venture Capital) – Nicolas Colin
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Sources – Web
- Corona – first CIA film recovery spacecraft
- Corona, Lanyard and Argon records – GWU archives
- Gambit – Corona follow-on, film recovery spacecraft
- Hexagon – Gambit follow-on, last film recovery and ferret spacecraft
- AFTRACK – ELINT & COMINT payloads on Agena
- Project Upward – NRO and NASA collaboration
- SAMOS to the Moon – NASAs Lunar Orbiter and the NRO spy satellites
- Gambit/Hexagon History and Videos
- Midas – 1st Infrared Missile Warning program
- DMSP – real-time Military Weather Satellites
- GRAB and POPPY – NSA’s first ELINT satellites
- Military Polar Orbiting Meteorological Satellite Program
- Founders of National Reconnaissance
- Pioneers of National Reconnaissance 1960-2000
- NRO Special Collections – fun reading
Videos
ELINT Sources – Web
Air Force
Engineering/ELINT in the CIA/NSA
- CIA: Telemetry Analysis
- Engineering in the CIA; ELINT and Stealth
- Science, Technology and the CIA
- Stealth, Countermeasures and ELINT – 1960-1975
- CIA: Soviet ABM Defenses: Status and Prospects – 1970
- CIA: Quality ELINT
- CIA: Moon Bounce ELINT
- CIA: Hiding OXCART in plain sight
- NSA: A Dangerous Business- the US Navy and National Reconnaissance
- NSA tasking to CIA for ELINT
- First description of the NSA
- Intelligence programs listing
- Secret Spy-planes, Balloons and Satellites
ELINT Aircraft Losses
Analyst Demos
Oral Histories
- Computer History Museum Oral Histories
- IEEE Oral Histories
- ACM Oral Histories
- HP Memories
- HPMemoryProject.org
Photo and Movie Sources – Web
WWII Radar History/Photos/Radar Order of Battle
- www.gyges.dk
- http://www.luftarchiv.de/
- http://www.vectorsite.net/ttwiz.html The Wizard War
- http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/en/german_radar.html
- http://www.baermann.biz/pauke/index.php?catid=9&blogid=1
A-12 Oxcart
- The Oxcart Story –Frank Murray
Movie Clips
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Hi highly recommend Don’s book which describes all of the great work done at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) over the years.
When Don spoke at our 1st ever customer event in 2005 (http://tinyurl.com/m7dwjp), he informed us and our clients at Qualcomm that in fact the technology behind their business (satellite tracking) was created at SRI. This was 1 of many great innovation stories he told that day.
Best,
Scott
Scott —
Here’s something to ask anyone with an iPhone: “Why was the digital assistant for Apple’s products named ‘Siri’?” The answer, of course, is that “SRI” is too hard to pronounce. Yes, Apple acquired the Siri technology from SRI …
And here is the link to the book mentioned in my previous post
http://www.sri.com/about/history/nielson_book.html
Sorry of the oversight.
Scott
Scott,
I’ve read Don Nielson’s book and while the stories are great the book is a a rewrite of history.
SRI was and is a leading service provider to the military and our intelligence agencies. When classified research was banned from the Stanford in 1969 SRI got a new wave of classified Cold War contracts. The products and research were a great service to our country. However, leaving that part of the SRI story out is at best disingenuous but in reality a bold faced lie.
The board that approved this whitewash lacked integrity. I hope some day they have a board with a backbone who decides to tell the real story of SRI. It has yet to be written.
Shame on them.
steve
Newby here.. this is very interesting, could this be the reason why Stanford was so clever about managing the Cohen-Boyer patents? or is there another secret story behind the rise of the biotech industry?
Puzzled…
Alicia,
great question. maybe my next talk…?
steve
I would like to suggest two books:
1. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, by Paul Edwards
2. The Silicon Valley Edge: A Habitat for Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Chong-Moon Lee (Editor)
Marcelo Savio
Added the Closed World. thanks.
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[…] Steve Blank a Valley serial entrepreneur and veteran has done some brilliant research on this and gave this talk titled “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” […]
I’m long Easter Eggs! Very nice…
Raining aluminum foil over Europe. I wish there was photos.
Steve, i hope this finds you well, i have a document that maybe of interest to you. I will happily forward, thats if you like absolute mind blowing finds 😉
Its by Nassim Taleb. Interested?
Hi Steve,
I just wanted to say thank you for the information and insight that you provide. I am a military veteran aspiring to be an entrepreneur. Would love to have a chat with you sometime for some advice.
Jeff
Steve,
Your presentation was fascinating. Thanks for making it available.
I discovered it after watching a random Wharton entrepreneurship lecture in which you participated.
As a veteran, this topic really resonated with me; I was aircrew on the MV-22 Osprey, and I’m looking forward to exploring those sources.
Best regards,
Micah
“Government is constantly creating things that corporations then sell, from the microchip to the internet. The government developed microchips for ICBMs because they required a lightweight computing system. Now microchips drive the economy.” — George Friedman interview with John Mauldin
Steve —
I suggest you include Chuck House’s fine book on H-P in your lists above — helps us understand the technology and business climate that became Silicon Valley, long before the name was coined. It’s thick, but a great ‘read’. Title: “The HP Phenomenon: Innovation and Business Transformation”, Charles H. House and Raymond L. Price. It covers Chuck’s years there, from the ’50’s through Mark Hurd’s years (around 2008). It’s from Stanford Business Books (SU Press).