Frederick Terman, the Stanford Industrial Park, and the Birth of Silicon Valley

As many of you already know, we live in one of the most high-tech hotspots on the planet. But what you may not know is that Silicon Valley has been involved with electronics even before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built a computer in their garage.

Here are examples of technological innovation in the early 20th century: A house in Palo Alto has a plaque labelling it as the birthplace of electronics. In that house in 1912, Lee de Forest and some colleagues first amplified sound using a vacuum tube, which would be the basis for technology such as radio, television, tape recorders, and eventually electronic computers. Two employees left the Federal Telegraph Co., Forest's company, and invented the loud speaker, the first successful commercial radio broadcast took place in downtown San Jose, and the first all-electric transmission of television took place in San Francisco.

As you can tell by now, soon-to-be Silicon Valley was immediately destined to become the tech savvy powerhouse it is today. But Frederick Terman (a Stanford undergraduate, MIT graduate, and later Stanford professor) was the true father of Silicon Valley. He mentored William Hewlett and David Packard, who went on to found Hewlett-Packard (now known as HP), which is based on audio-oscillating technology. Terman was also involved in the success of Varian Brothers, with a microwave-generating device.

Early in the 20th century, all the jobs for engineers and innovators were located on the East Coast. Terman, wanting to provide a place for his graduates to work, set out to change that norm. In 1951, Terman established the Stanford Industrial Park, a joint initiative between Stanford University and the city of Palo Alto. Stanford had suffered a recent downturn in its endowment fund and needed money, while Terman persistently encouraged his graduate students to build start-ups in Palo Alto to rival the technological lure of the East Coast. The Stanford Industrial Park both funded Stanford and provided a place for start-ups to, well, start up.

Terman convinced Hewlett-Packard and Varian Brothers to take part in the industrial park, which led to a flood of other corporations joining and flourishing in Palo Alto. And look at us now. We are living in one of the most innovated, advanced, and expensive places on Earth. And it's all thanks to Frederick Terman, the Stanford Industrial Park, and the birth of Silicon Valley.

Sources:

https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sivalley.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/personal-investments/ng-interactive/2016/oct/04/frederick-terman-silicon-valley-mentor-stanford-hp

http://www.paloaltohistory.org/stanford-research-park.php