The Secret History of Silicon Valley
The one thing that I’ve noticed of late is that every yabbo software entrepreneur always cries foul at the slightest notion of the auto industry getting a government rescue. But the one thing these folks seem to forget is that there wouldn’t be a software industry if it weren’t for the very socialist roots of silicon valley. The valley didn’t happen by any sort of happy accident — it occurred because because of heavy investment by the defense industry in companies like HP going back to World War II. In fact even the internet itself wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) invented the damn thing. In the above video from the Computer History Museum entrepreneur Steve Blank gives a history of how the valley is the child of a welfare program recipient (which all in all is a very good thing for this county).