WEBVTT - Silicon Valley on the Couch 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.596 Pushkin Hello, Hello everyone. Before we get to this episode, 0:00:21.796 --> 0:00:24.476 I want to let you know about two new exciting 0:00:24.516 --> 0:00:27.676 shows from Pushkin Industries that you might be interested in. 0:00:28.396 --> 0:00:32.076 The first is McCartney A Life in Lyrics with Sir 0:00:32.196 --> 0:00:36.996 Paul McCartney. You'll hear conversations between McCartney and poet Paul 0:00:37.076 --> 0:00:42.156 muldoon as they dissect the inspirations that shaped McCartney's songwriting. 0:00:42.636 --> 0:00:46.756 It's a combination masterclass, memoir and improvised journey. If you're 0:00:46.756 --> 0:00:50.836 a McCartney or a Beatles fan, you will love this show. 0:00:51.716 --> 0:00:55.436 Pushkin's other new series is from Michael lewis Against the Rules. 0:00:55.956 --> 0:01:00.396 The new special series is called Judging Sam. The Trial 0:01:00.476 --> 0:01:05.076 of Sam Bankman Freed SBF, the former CEO of Crypto 0:01:05.156 --> 0:01:09.276 Exchange FTX, is being tried for financial crimes and again 0:01:09.356 --> 0:01:12.556 the Rules is following the trial that decides his fate. 0:01:13.236 --> 0:01:16.076 So go ahead listen to McCartney A Life in Lyrics 0:01:16.236 --> 0:01:19.756 and Against the Rules. Wherever you get your podcasts. You 0:01:19.756 --> 0:01:23.796 can also unlock exclusive binge listens and ad free listening 0:01:24.036 --> 0:01:27.436 for these shows on their Apple podcast show pages or 0:01:27.476 --> 0:01:36.716 at Pushkin, dot fm, slash plus. It's a beautiful morning 0:01:36.716 --> 0:01:40.156 in northern California. I flew in last night, drove down 0:01:40.156 --> 0:01:43.796 from San Francisco Airport to Mountain View, and then I 0:01:43.836 --> 0:01:48.116 got up first single morning and I'm here at last 0:01:49.356 --> 0:01:54.556 three ninety one San Antonio Road, in the heart of 0:01:54.596 --> 0:01:57.436 Silicon Valley. On the wall of an office building, there's 0:01:57.476 --> 0:02:01.476 a small plaque and next to it a chart, a 0:02:01.516 --> 0:02:06.276 family tree of companies, dozens of them, National Semiconductor, Fairchild, 0:02:06.356 --> 0:02:09.836 Variant Intel. It's the kind of display you could easily 0:02:09.876 --> 0:02:12.916 miss if you weren't looking for it, which is a 0:02:12.916 --> 0:02:16.516 shame because it's a monument to the origins of one 0:02:16.556 --> 0:02:24.636 of the greatest technological revolutions in human history. It's an 0:02:24.636 --> 0:02:29.436 office building on a four lane six lane road, kind 0:02:29.436 --> 0:02:33.796 of a main thoroughfare through Mountain View. Apartments on one side, 0:02:33.996 --> 0:02:36.836 office buildings on the other. I think three ninety one 0:02:36.876 --> 0:02:39.516 is a might be a Facebook building. I think I 0:02:39.556 --> 0:02:42.876 read that somewhere. But back in the day, it was 0:02:43.276 --> 0:02:46.396 just a little quantset hut on this site, a little 0:02:46.556 --> 0:02:52.236 wooden structure and big windows up front with a sign 0:02:52.276 --> 0:02:57.276 over the door, and I I just sort of read 0:02:57.436 --> 0:03:01.556 a plaque that is on the front of the building 0:03:01.556 --> 0:03:07.076 today the birthplace of Silicon Valley nineteen fifty six. At 0:03:07.076 --> 0:03:12.356 this location three ninety Antonio Road, the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory 0:03:12.396 --> 0:03:16.316 manufactured the first silicon devices in what became known as 0:03:16.356 --> 0:03:21.036 Silicon Valley. Some of the talented scientists and engineers initially 0:03:21.076 --> 0:03:24.356 employed there left to found their own companies, leading to 0:03:24.396 --> 0:03:27.476 the birth of the silicon electronics industry in the region. 0:03:28.076 --> 0:03:32.196 Hundreds of firms in electronics and computing can trace their 0:03:32.236 --> 0:03:39.276 origins back to Shockley Semiconductor. Here's my question that brought 0:03:39.276 --> 0:03:42.196 me all the way from New York City to this 0:03:42.596 --> 0:03:46.236 building in the middle of Silicon Valley. Why was Shockley 0:03:46.276 --> 0:03:53.116 semi Conductor Laboratories here on San Antonio Road, Of all 0:03:53.116 --> 0:03:57.436 the places in America? Why did Silicon Valley start right 0:03:57.476 --> 0:04:02.116 where I'm standing? Dun dun dun dun dun d. My 0:04:02.236 --> 0:04:05.516 name is Malcolm Blackwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my 0:04:05.636 --> 0:04:10.116 podcast about things Overlooked and Misunderstood. This episode is about 0:04:10.156 --> 0:04:13.036 how the long, narrow valley that lies between the Santa 0:04:13.076 --> 0:04:18.396 Clara Mountains and San Francisco Bay became the epicenter of 0:04:18.476 --> 0:04:30.436 the modern age. The transistor, the forerunner of today's computer chips, 0:04:30.796 --> 0:04:34.756 was invented in nineteen forty seven by the team headed 0:04:34.996 --> 0:04:40.236 by a physicist named William Shockley. Before that, computers and 0:04:40.276 --> 0:04:46.636 everything electronic ran on vacuum tubes, which were underpowered, oversized, fragile. 0:04:46.956 --> 0:04:51.956 In the late forties, that changed forever. Shockley invented the transistor, 0:04:52.396 --> 0:04:54.756 and then there was the chip, and then out of 0:04:54.756 --> 0:04:58.156 Silicon Valley came a stream of technologies that gave us 0:04:58.156 --> 0:05:01.396 the world we live in now. But Shockley didn't invent 0:05:01.436 --> 0:05:05.476 the transistor in northern California. He invented it in New 0:05:05.556 --> 0:05:08.796 Jersey at the famous Bell Labs in Murray Hill, about 0:05:08.796 --> 0:05:12.116 ten miles outside of Newark. Then he left Bell Labs 0:05:12.236 --> 0:05:15.236 and took a teaching job at Caltech in Pasadena, just 0:05:15.276 --> 0:05:18.436 outside of Los Angeles. And after a stint there and 0:05:18.476 --> 0:05:21.316 a stint at the Pentagon, he decides to strike out 0:05:21.356 --> 0:05:24.836 on his own. He lines up a wealthy backer. He 0:05:24.916 --> 0:05:28.876 starts a company called Shockley Semiconductor, and he recruits the 0:05:28.916 --> 0:05:33.236 best and the brightest from all around the country. Everyone 0:05:33.396 --> 0:05:36.716 comes from somewhere else to a quantt hut on three 0:05:36.916 --> 0:05:40.556 ninety one San Antonio Road in Mountain View because William 0:05:40.596 --> 0:05:43.276 Shockley wants to set up shop in a quantt hut 0:05:43.396 --> 0:05:46.756 on three ninety one San Antonio Road in Mountain View. 0:05:49.076 --> 0:05:51.596 The first question I have is really about looking at 0:05:51.596 --> 0:05:54.916 this from the perspective of the mid fifties, the very beginning. 0:05:55.876 --> 0:05:58.836 If you and I were having a conversation in nineteen 0:05:58.916 --> 0:06:03.716 fifty five and we were told a computer revolution was 0:06:03.716 --> 0:06:06.756 coming in the United States, and I asked, I said 0:06:06.756 --> 0:06:10.396 to you on a where do you think think that 0:06:10.476 --> 0:06:14.276 revolution will take place? What would you've told me? My 0:06:14.396 --> 0:06:18.676 first call to Anno Saxonian, professor at Berkeley, who has 0:06:18.676 --> 0:06:21.516 spent her career trying to understand why certain parts of 0:06:21.556 --> 0:06:24.556 the country are home to innovation and others aren't. 0:06:25.036 --> 0:06:29.476 Probably I would have said Boston, Boston, maybe New Jersey, 0:06:29.916 --> 0:06:34.316 you know, maybe Chicago, less so New York, you know, 0:06:34.636 --> 0:06:40.156 definitely on the Northeast where all the big manufacturing operations were. 0:06:40.196 --> 0:06:43.116 And that it's that's the reason. It'd be more specific 0:06:43.116 --> 0:06:46.316 about what it was about those three cities that would 0:06:46.316 --> 0:06:49.156 have led you to think that's where the revolution was coming. 0:06:49.236 --> 0:06:52.116 Well, first of all, you know, the transistor was being 0:06:52.116 --> 0:06:56.596 invented at Bill Labs, so there's technical capability. Also, you 0:06:56.636 --> 0:07:02.116 know MI T Also, you know activities around Columbia. So 0:07:02.116 --> 0:07:06.596 there's there's there's universities, there's money. I mean, it's the northeast. 0:07:06.636 --> 0:07:09.036 So you've got New York right there. So you've got finance. 0:07:09.316 --> 0:07:13.276 It's expensive to invent you know, transistors and then computers 0:07:13.276 --> 0:07:18.196 and whatnot. You got proximity to Washington, DC. You know, 0:07:18.356 --> 0:07:23.316 military contracts really supported the early decades of development. Uh 0:07:23.356 --> 0:07:26.796 So you've got people, you've got capital, you've got contacts, 0:07:28.236 --> 0:07:33.436 and you've got existing corporations. That's where the expertise was, 0:07:34.276 --> 0:07:35.836 That's where all the action was. 0:07:36.516 --> 0:07:39.356 I asked the same question of Nathan Miervold, one of 0:07:39.356 --> 0:07:41.996 the key figures in the growth of Microsoft and one 0:07:41.996 --> 0:07:43.916 of the ogs of the computer industry. 0:07:44.596 --> 0:07:47.516 New Jersey and Philadelphia has been the best bad Well 0:07:47.556 --> 0:07:50.636 you Von Neumann would still have been at in Suit 0:07:50.716 --> 0:07:57.316 for Advanced Study, and he had was super involved. Aeronoff 0:07:57.636 --> 0:08:01.196 and the team that build ENIAC were at University of 0:08:01.196 --> 0:08:03.316 Pennsylvania and Bell. 0:08:03.276 --> 0:08:04.116 Labs was there. 0:08:04.316 --> 0:08:07.316 It also had oh at RCA and sonof Labs. 0:08:07.796 --> 0:08:09.276 Oh wow. So the Sonoff Labs of. 0:08:11.036 --> 0:08:16.876 RCA are in Princeton, New Jersey, and that was where 0:08:17.036 --> 0:08:20.996 David Sarnoff was sort of ruling the rust technically in radio, 0:08:21.516 --> 0:08:26.596 and that was a big, big, big, big deal. So 0:08:26.876 --> 0:08:28.956 that's where you would have thought it was, because it 0:08:28.996 --> 0:08:33.436 was already the center of a ton of both radio 0:08:33.476 --> 0:08:34.876 and electronics and computing. 0:08:36.876 --> 0:08:39.356 Now, there are a few theories out there about why 0:08:39.436 --> 0:08:42.436 Shockley chose to set up in Santa Clara Valley. One 0:08:42.436 --> 0:08:45.036 that might seem obvious is that right next door to 0:08:45.076 --> 0:08:49.116 Mountain View is Polo Alto, and Palo Alto is the 0:08:49.116 --> 0:08:53.556 home of Stanford University, a world class institution spitting out 0:08:53.596 --> 0:08:59.476 one brilliant mind after another. But you're thinking of today Stanford. 0:09:00.876 --> 0:09:04.596 I want to talk about Stanford, brumff. Why are you 0:09:04.676 --> 0:09:05.356 rolling your eyes? 0:09:05.556 --> 0:09:09.076 Because Stanford always gets all the attention, and it became 0:09:09.396 --> 0:09:11.756 very important in the fifties, it was not important. It 0:09:11.836 --> 0:09:15.116 was kind of a hic regional place, so it can't 0:09:15.156 --> 0:09:19.476 have been the important institution. Mit was way ahead at 0:09:19.476 --> 0:09:19.996 that time. 0:09:20.756 --> 0:09:23.276 The whole thing makes no sense. When he's thinking of 0:09:23.276 --> 0:09:26.556 setting up his startup, Shockley criss crosses the country. He 0:09:26.636 --> 0:09:29.356 goes to see one of the Rockefellers, He visits the 0:09:29.476 --> 0:09:32.476 leading electronics companies of the day. He combs through their 0:09:32.516 --> 0:09:35.276 financial statements. He does a comparison of the cost of 0:09:35.316 --> 0:09:39.636 living in Cambridge, Washington, d C. And Michigan. Yale says, 0:09:39.876 --> 0:09:43.636 we'll give you everything you want. Bell Lab says, come back. 0:09:44.156 --> 0:09:47.276 Everybody wants him. And what does he do? He says no. 0:09:48.556 --> 0:09:51.476 He finally finds a backer. He likes, a wealthy entrepreneur 0:09:51.516 --> 0:09:54.876 named Arnold Beckman who is based near Caltech in Pasadena. 0:09:55.356 --> 0:10:00.516 Beckman loves Shockley, loves his ideas. Beckman's company makes sophisticated 0:10:00.636 --> 0:10:05.596 scientific equipment. He has resources, infrastructure, skilled technicians. He says 0:10:05.636 --> 0:10:08.676 to Shockley, set up here in Pasadena. My guys can 0:10:08.676 --> 0:10:12.876 help out. I want you here. Shockley already knows Pasadena. 0:10:13.156 --> 0:10:17.356 He literally worked at Caltech. His benefactor, the man giving 0:10:17.436 --> 0:10:22.276 him all his money, wants him to be there. Shockley says, no. 0:10:23.156 --> 0:10:26.276 I want to be in the apricot orchards off the 0:10:26.276 --> 0:10:32.356 Santa Clair Valley. I find all of the seemingly obvious 0:10:33.316 --> 0:10:35.916 explanations to be unconvincing. 0:10:37.036 --> 0:10:37.756 It's a mystery. 0:10:37.916 --> 0:10:42.796 It's a mystery. Next on my list, Richard Florida, author 0:10:42.876 --> 0:10:46.156 of the hugely influential study Rise of the Creative Class, 0:10:46.236 --> 0:10:49.876 another take on why certain regions take off and others don't. 0:10:50.396 --> 0:10:52.236 But here's the one I really want to talk you about, 0:10:52.956 --> 0:10:58.116 which is the weather? Is it? Is it at all? 0:10:58.236 --> 0:11:01.796 Why are you looking at me like this? Why I 0:11:01.876 --> 0:11:04.956 hear the weather explanation and I just roll my eyes 0:11:06.036 --> 0:11:09.396 as you should, as I should tell Okay, so tell me, 0:11:09.156 --> 0:11:12.156 tell me, tell me why the weather explanation is nonsense. 0:11:13.276 --> 0:11:16.956 Well, I mean, Boston was pretty good at this stuff. 0:11:16.996 --> 0:11:21.596 And you know, I mean, if anything, Silicon Valley emulated 0:11:21.636 --> 0:11:22.516 Boston right. 0:11:23.236 --> 0:11:26.916 In the standard explanation for Silicon Valley. Right after people 0:11:26.956 --> 0:11:29.796 say it was all because of Stanford, they add, oh, 0:11:29.876 --> 0:11:32.676 and the weather is amazing, as if that settles it. 0:11:33.316 --> 0:11:36.756 But Florida's point is, since when is there some magical 0:11:36.796 --> 0:11:42.076 correlation between technological revolutions and good weather? He's totally right. 0:11:42.436 --> 0:11:45.756 I have to say the weather argument has always driven 0:11:45.796 --> 0:11:48.556 me crazy. How many times do people say, as a 0:11:48.556 --> 0:11:50.956 way of explaining the decline of Rust belt cities like 0:11:50.996 --> 0:11:55.356 Buffalo or Detroit or Cleveland, Well, the weather's terrible, who 0:11:55.396 --> 0:11:58.076 would want to live there? Meanwhile, north of the border, 0:11:58.396 --> 0:12:01.076 directly on the other side of Lake Ontario, there are 0:12:01.116 --> 0:12:03.796 two of the most successful tech hubs in the world, 0:12:04.236 --> 0:12:08.716 Toronto and its sibling down the road, Waterloo. Which have 0:12:09.236 --> 0:12:12.716 exactly the same weather as Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland. 0:12:13.436 --> 0:12:16.956 I was a professor at Carnegie Mellon for nearly twenty years, 0:12:17.196 --> 0:12:19.796 and you know, we were trying to figure out why 0:12:19.796 --> 0:12:22.436 Pittsburgh had not turned into a tech hub of the 0:12:22.476 --> 0:12:26.076 sorts of Grick, Boston, Cambridge or Palo Alto, the Bay Area, Slicon, 0:12:26.076 --> 0:12:28.596 Morley Bay Area. And then somebody said to me, well, 0:12:28.636 --> 0:12:31.236 one of our peer institutions is Waterloo. You should look 0:12:31.236 --> 0:12:33.156 at them because they're really good. 0:12:33.356 --> 0:12:36.396 Yeah, and the weather in Waterloo, as someone who grew 0:12:36.476 --> 0:12:39.156 up outside of Waterloo, is strocious. 0:12:39.836 --> 0:12:40.516 It's not great. 0:12:40.916 --> 0:12:44.116 It's I was just there, it's freezing. I was like, 0:12:45.636 --> 0:12:48.796 it's not the weather. And I was thinking, your good 0:12:48.876 --> 0:12:53.836 friend Bill Gates drops out of Harvard because he wants 0:12:53.876 --> 0:12:57.596 to start a software company, but doesn't go to Silicon Valley, 0:12:58.036 --> 0:13:01.756 goes home to Seattle. When I was talking to Nathan Meherveld, 0:13:02.116 --> 0:13:03.196 Microsoft came up. 0:13:03.476 --> 0:13:03.916 Naturally. 0:13:04.436 --> 0:13:07.316 Microsoft is the reason Seattle turned into a major tech hub. 0:13:07.636 --> 0:13:11.236 That's why Amazon's there. But why was Microsoft in Seattle? 0:13:11.836 --> 0:13:13.316 The story on that is very funny. 0:13:13.516 --> 0:13:17.996 What's the story He and Paul started the company Microsoft 0:13:18.036 --> 0:13:23.476 that is in New Mexico, because the first PC company 0:13:23.676 --> 0:13:24.996 was in Albuquerque. 0:13:25.236 --> 0:13:28.956 He being Bill Gates, Paul being his co founder Paul Allen. 0:13:29.316 --> 0:13:31.516 They were high school friends from Seattle. 0:13:31.916 --> 0:13:35.036 And so they literally went across the street from this 0:13:35.196 --> 0:13:38.756 first PC company and readed some space and they started Microsoft. 0:13:39.316 --> 0:13:39.516 Well. 0:13:39.556 --> 0:13:42.916 Within a few years that company had gone under and 0:13:43.076 --> 0:13:46.956 Microsoft was doing super well. And so Bill sort of 0:13:47.036 --> 0:13:52.436 characteristically does this big analysis and decides they had to 0:13:52.476 --> 0:13:58.036 be near either O'Hare Airport or Dallas Fort Worth Airport 0:13:58.436 --> 0:14:01.916 because from those airports you could get to anywhere in 0:14:01.916 --> 0:14:04.796 the United States with a commercial because no one's thinking 0:14:04.876 --> 0:14:08.396 private aviation back then. You could get there and get. 0:14:08.196 --> 0:14:08.796 Back and be more. 0:14:09.796 --> 0:14:14.356 Yeah, and Paul says, God, the weather is terrible those places. 0:14:14.596 --> 0:14:20.556 Let's just go home. Exactly. Paul Allen tells his Microsoft 0:14:20.636 --> 0:14:23.356 co founder Bill Gates that they shouldn't move to Chicago 0:14:23.476 --> 0:14:26.276 or Dallas, they should go home to Seattle because the 0:14:26.356 --> 0:14:28.436 weather is better there. And you and I both know 0:14:28.716 --> 0:14:32.756 the weather in Seattle is not better. It's terrible. It 0:14:32.796 --> 0:14:35.436 does nothing but rain. And by the way, since when 0:14:35.476 --> 0:14:38.436 does a software programmer care about what the weather's like? 0:14:38.756 --> 0:14:42.476 They never go outside. I think about this mystery every 0:14:42.476 --> 0:14:45.476 time I go to northern California. You land at San 0:14:45.476 --> 0:14:48.516 Francisco Airport, you drive south down the one oh one 0:14:48.796 --> 0:14:52.876 fog everywhere, traffic is appalling, strip malls on one side, 0:14:52.916 --> 0:14:56.716 bad office buildings on the other. And Stanford. Enough already 0:14:56.716 --> 0:14:59.916 about Stanford. It's supposed to be this crown jewel. Have 0:15:00.036 --> 0:15:02.676 you ever been there? It looks like someone gave a 0:15:02.716 --> 0:15:06.596 billion dollars to Taco Bell and said, build me a university. 0:15:07.516 --> 0:15:13.036 Democracy had as its ucible Athens, the Renaissance had Florence, 0:15:13.516 --> 0:15:18.396 the Impressionists at Paris. The Digital Age as best buy 0:15:18.436 --> 0:15:20.796 an in and out burger. I don't get it. 0:15:25.396 --> 0:15:28.596 My father was a mining engineer, and I maintained that 0:15:28.676 --> 0:15:31.116 I am probably a Cockney because I believe in the 0:15:31.156 --> 0:15:33.476 right weather conditions you could hear the sound of bow 0:15:33.556 --> 0:15:35.356 bells from the apartment where I was born. 0:15:36.076 --> 0:15:40.236 That's Shockley being interviewed by the Palo Alto Historical Association 0:15:40.556 --> 0:15:44.756 in the nineteen sixties. Picture a shiny bald head, thick glasses, 0:15:45.076 --> 0:15:50.556 chiseled features, handsome fit, and that even relentless delivery. He 0:15:50.596 --> 0:15:53.556 was born in London. In nineteen ten. The Shockleys returned 0:15:53.556 --> 0:15:56.356 to the United States when he was three. He skipped 0:15:56.396 --> 0:15:59.836 middle school all of it, just went straight from elementary 0:15:59.836 --> 0:16:02.876 school to high school, Hollywood High in Los Angeles. 0:16:03.796 --> 0:16:05.236 And then you went on to college. 0:16:06.116 --> 0:16:09.556 Yes, I went to Caltech for my undergraduate work and 0:16:09.596 --> 0:16:13.076 then to MIT for a PhD. I was a physics 0:16:13.116 --> 0:16:17.036 major all from about my sophomore year in college. 0:16:17.316 --> 0:16:21.436 And after your PhD, armed with your diploma, where. 0:16:21.196 --> 0:16:24.716 Did you go? I went to belt Holephone Laboratories at 0:16:24.756 --> 0:16:29.676 that time, where I worked for CJ. Davison, who won 0:16:29.716 --> 0:16:33.156 the Nobel Prize around nineteen thirty eight for electronic fraction. 0:16:34.236 --> 0:16:38.116 And he was one of the attractions that brought me 0:16:38.156 --> 0:16:39.076 to Bell Laboratories. 0:16:39.956 --> 0:16:43.116 Shockley's father was older. He died when Shockley was young. 0:16:43.356 --> 0:16:46.916 Shockley was an only child, raised by his mother, May Bradford. 0:16:46.956 --> 0:16:52.236 Shockley a steer, intimidating, emotionally withholding. She grew up in 0:16:52.276 --> 0:16:55.716 New Mexico. A tomboy, comfortable on horseback, and handy with 0:16:55.756 --> 0:16:58.196 a gun. She had a math degree in an era 0:16:58.276 --> 0:17:01.196 whe most women didn't have degrees at all. One of 0:17:01.276 --> 0:17:04.316 the first female mining surveyors in the country, she was 0:17:04.356 --> 0:17:07.836 an accomplished artist who made a small fortune trading stocks 0:17:07.836 --> 0:17:10.636 on the side. He was one hundred and sixty one. 0:17:10.716 --> 0:17:13.236 I mean, come on, if we're going to understand Shockley's 0:17:13.236 --> 0:17:18.556 great decision, we have to understand Shockley, right. So I 0:17:18.636 --> 0:17:21.316 called up the New York psycho Analytics Society and I said, 0:17:21.636 --> 0:17:25.076 I need to talk to someone about William Shockley because 0:17:25.116 --> 0:17:30.396 this combination absent father, brilliant only child, dominant mother is 0:17:30.516 --> 0:17:33.756 just a freudient field day. And they got right back 0:17:33.756 --> 0:17:37.756 to me with a name Philip Herschenfeld, Upper east Side. 0:17:38.236 --> 0:17:42.156 The psychoanalytic community, and William Shockley, for reasons that will 0:17:42.196 --> 0:17:48.396 become obvious, turned out to be well acquainted. So, as 0:17:48.476 --> 0:17:51.116 I explained to you, I had this notion in my 0:17:51.156 --> 0:17:54.876 head that Freud was very interested in this question of 0:17:54.916 --> 0:18:00.436 the brilliant only child and the strong mother. Am I 0:18:00.516 --> 0:18:03.116 right that Freud had thought about it? What did he 0:18:03.196 --> 0:18:03.996 have to say about that? 0:18:04.996 --> 0:18:08.916 He's said? And I think he was also talking about himself. 0:18:09.596 --> 0:18:11.516 Just to be clear, when a member of the New 0:18:11.596 --> 0:18:15.996 York Psychoanalytics Society uses the pronoun he, there's about a 0:18:16.076 --> 0:18:19.516 ninety nine percent chance they're referring to Freud. 0:18:20.036 --> 0:18:26.236 That any son who is the This is not the 0:18:26.276 --> 0:18:33.556 exact quote. The undisputed favorite of his mother goes through 0:18:33.636 --> 0:18:39.276 life with the feeling of being a conqueror. Uh huh, 0:18:39.316 --> 0:18:40.956 and that's a very powerful feeling. 0:18:42.316 --> 0:18:45.636 When Shockley was eight, his mother May wrote in her diary, 0:18:46.076 --> 0:18:48.756 I woke up with the thought in my mind, the 0:18:48.756 --> 0:18:51.676 only heritage I care to lead to Billy is the 0:18:51.716 --> 0:18:55.476 feeling of force and the joy of responsibility for setting 0:18:55.516 --> 0:19:00.636 the world right on something. He's eight. What mother writes 0:19:00.636 --> 0:19:02.956 of her eight year old that she desires to leave 0:19:03.036 --> 0:19:08.436 him with a feeling of force? Good lord, what is that? 0:19:08.556 --> 0:19:12.396 What was for explanation for why that relationship would have 0:19:12.436 --> 0:19:14.276 imbued the son with such power? 0:19:15.196 --> 0:19:22.796 Because it's what any young child strives for. If you 0:19:23.036 --> 0:19:28.996 are a fan of the Oedipus complex, which I am, 0:19:29.756 --> 0:19:35.116 you know there's evidence of it everywhere in Shakespeare, in literature, 0:19:35.276 --> 0:19:42.156 in life, that young child has a feeling of conquering, 0:19:42.356 --> 0:19:48.636 of overpowering his father perhaps and basking in this love. 0:19:50.676 --> 0:19:58.996 And there are many examples of that in history. So yeah, 0:19:59.196 --> 0:20:01.356 I think it can be a very powerful feeling. 0:20:02.076 --> 0:20:06.556 So we have this brilliant mother who is a little 0:20:06.556 --> 0:20:15.116 emotionally reserved the sun. Shockley is handsome, unbelievably brilliant. I mean, 0:20:15.156 --> 0:20:19.436 everyone I mean beyond he said his first word at 0:20:19.436 --> 0:20:22.516 four months You know that kind of right from the 0:20:22.556 --> 0:20:27.236 get go. Kinder, brilliant, unbelievably competitive and self confident, a 0:20:27.316 --> 0:20:31.996 champion athlete to this day. There's a the in the 0:20:32.316 --> 0:20:33.516 You're not a mountain, time are? 0:20:33.636 --> 0:20:36.996 There's a I live right near the Gonks? 0:20:37.236 --> 0:20:39.196 Oh, the Gnks. Do you know about Shockley's cliff? 0:20:39.516 --> 0:20:40.516 Yes, I do, I know? 0:20:42.076 --> 0:20:45.556 Ceiling The Shawna Gunks are a mountain range in the 0:20:45.596 --> 0:20:48.916 Catskills just outside of New York City. Shockley conquered a 0:20:48.956 --> 0:20:52.716 particularly challenging rock formation there and immediately they named it 0:20:52.756 --> 0:20:57.196 after him. Literally, there is no mountain he cannot climb. 0:21:00.076 --> 0:21:02.796 There's a really wonderful biography of Shockley written some years 0:21:02.836 --> 0:21:06.916 ago by Joel Shirkin, Broken Genius, which begins with the sentence, 0:21:07.356 --> 0:21:10.636 I believe that William Shockley was, in terms of practical 0:21:10.716 --> 0:21:13.796 impact on the world, one of the most important scientists 0:21:13.956 --> 0:21:16.916 of the twentieth century. And then Shirkin goes on to 0:21:16.956 --> 0:21:19.756 convince you why that's true. And here's the strange thing. 0:21:20.276 --> 0:21:22.836 The most compelling chapter of the book is not the 0:21:22.876 --> 0:21:26.036 part about Shockley's role in the invention of the transistor 0:21:26.636 --> 0:21:29.316 arguably one of the one or two most important innovations 0:21:29.316 --> 0:21:31.956 of the twentieth century. No, it's the chapter on what 0:21:31.996 --> 0:21:36.156 Sharkley did during the Second World War. It's insane. Basically, 0:21:36.436 --> 0:21:39.916 he's working at Bell Labs, then the premiere industry research 0:21:39.916 --> 0:21:42.876 and development organization in the world, and the government comes 0:21:42.876 --> 0:21:45.716 to him just before the war and says, hey, we're 0:21:45.716 --> 0:21:48.756 doing some interesting things with uranium. Do you think it 0:21:48.836 --> 0:21:52.276 might someday be possible to generate power from nuclear fuel. 0:21:53.276 --> 0:21:57.076 Two months later, Shockley comes back and says, here you go, 0:21:57.556 --> 0:22:00.596 this is how you do it. Work gets around that 0:22:00.676 --> 0:22:03.516 there's this genius in New Jersey, and so he signs 0:22:03.556 --> 0:22:06.356 on as the kind of problem solver in chief with 0:22:06.396 --> 0:22:09.316 the Secretary of War. He gets an official pass the 0:22:09.316 --> 0:22:12.476 government that allows him to board any commercial flight, and 0:22:12.556 --> 0:22:14.956 over the course of the Second World War he flies 0:22:15.116 --> 0:22:19.356 all around the world solving problems. The Navy says, we're 0:22:19.356 --> 0:22:23.796 having trouble hitting German submarines with underwater explosives. Can you help. 0:22:24.436 --> 0:22:27.796 Within two months, Shokli has increased their hit rate by 0:22:27.836 --> 0:22:32.756 five hundred percent. Shirkin estimates that Shockley's ideas about protecting 0:22:32.756 --> 0:22:36.636 the Navy's ships saved thousands of lives in the North Atlantic. 0:22:39.476 --> 0:22:41.636 Some of you may remember the series we did at 0:22:41.636 --> 0:22:44.876 Revisionist History about Curtis le May's fire bombing campaign of 0:22:44.916 --> 0:22:47.916 Japan at the end of the Second World War. Who 0:22:47.996 --> 0:22:51.036 flew to the South Pacific to teach bombing cruise about 0:22:51.036 --> 0:22:55.036 how to use radar during night attacks. Shockley, I could 0:22:55.036 --> 0:22:56.956 go on. He's the guy who writes one of the 0:22:56.956 --> 0:23:00.356 crucial memos proving that many, many more millions of lives 0:23:00.356 --> 0:23:03.556 would be lost if America invaded Japan at the end 0:23:03.556 --> 0:23:05.476 of the Second World War, then if it dropped the 0:23:05.516 --> 0:23:10.116 atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war ends. 0:23:10.396 --> 0:23:13.876 The Pentagon won't let him go. They've never met anyone 0:23:13.996 --> 0:23:19.356 like him before. Then he helps invent the transistor, wins 0:23:19.396 --> 0:23:22.356 the Nobel Prize, has the idea to start the first 0:23:22.636 --> 0:23:27.516 the original computer age startup, and Chris crosses America, convincing 0:23:27.556 --> 0:23:30.596 one brilliant mind after another to join his new venture. 0:23:31.396 --> 0:23:35.316 This dynamic genius walks into the labs of twenty somethings 0:23:35.356 --> 0:23:39.276 graduate students across the country and announces, I am Shockley. 0:23:39.796 --> 0:23:45.116 I am here representing the future. Here's the physicist Victor 0:23:45.236 --> 0:23:49.116 Jones remembering his first contact with Shockley. Everyone, by the way, 0:23:49.156 --> 0:23:51.836 who met Shockley remembers the first time they met Shockley. 0:23:52.716 --> 0:23:55.956 I was saying my working talks in the lab, but 0:23:57.396 --> 0:24:00.156 Shockley said, why don't you go get cleaned up and 0:24:00.516 --> 0:24:02.596 we'll go off for lunch. And we walked for lunch 0:24:02.636 --> 0:24:06.036 at the farewea hotel for a for a starry graduates. 0:24:07.076 --> 0:24:08.836 It was a bit of a shock, but it was 0:24:08.876 --> 0:24:11.516 the probably the most intense after the physically I had 0:24:11.556 --> 0:24:12.756 them quite a long time. 0:24:14.276 --> 0:24:18.596 They talked for seven hours. Then Shockley was off to 0:24:18.676 --> 0:24:21.076 jump on a plane or a train to recruit another 0:24:21.116 --> 0:24:24.756 young talent. Here is Jay Last, another of Shockley's best 0:24:24.796 --> 0:24:28.236 and brightest. In an interview with the historian David Brock. 0:24:28.836 --> 0:24:32.036 Yeah, personally visited me at MIT and I was calling 0:24:32.116 --> 0:24:35.516 him some of the problems I was having with my 0:24:35.556 --> 0:24:38.756 doctoral work and why I can just figure it out 0:24:38.756 --> 0:24:44.316 in the second really just an unbelievable mind. So that 0:24:44.516 --> 0:24:46.596 must have impressed you greatly, yes. 0:24:46.956 --> 0:24:47.716 Yeah, And. 0:24:49.076 --> 0:24:50.476 So then. 0:24:51.876 --> 0:24:55.476 Then I went down to visit him and another visiting 0:24:55.636 --> 0:25:00.956 Washington at the Cosmos Club and sitting down and join 0:25:00.996 --> 0:25:03.436 me for breakfast as I took a night trained down 0:25:03.516 --> 0:25:07.276 on there, and here was sitting the table with like 0:25:07.436 --> 0:25:13.076 Admiral Rickover. 0:25:11.516 --> 0:25:17.476 Man of har Boys, everybody I've ever heard about, it 0:25:17.556 --> 0:25:22.796 was sitting at that table having breakfast with Shockley, and 0:25:23.876 --> 0:25:27.876 so it was quite overwelted, quiet, overwhelmed. 0:25:28.676 --> 0:25:31.996 Admiral Rickover was one of the most famous military figures 0:25:32.036 --> 0:25:36.516 of his day, the pioneer of nuclear propulsion. Vanavar Bush was, 0:25:36.676 --> 0:25:38.756 and there's no better way to put it, the king 0:25:39.156 --> 0:25:42.316 of American science at the time. That was just breakfast. 0:25:42.996 --> 0:25:46.236 There are countless stories like this. Here's a young physicist 0:25:46.316 --> 0:25:49.396 named Julius Blank who Shockley summoned to meet him at 0:25:49.476 --> 0:25:51.276 Newark Airport between flights. 0:25:52.156 --> 0:25:55.796 Did he describe to you then or we're early on 0:25:55.916 --> 0:26:00.356 in the in the whole conversation about what his what 0:26:00.436 --> 0:26:02.636 he wanted to do with Shockley's semiconductor. 0:26:02.916 --> 0:26:04.716