In 1956, William Shockley, Stanford professor and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on semiconductors, recruited a team of young Ph.D. graduates to product a new company. The company would be called Shockley Semiconductor. But Shockley was a terrible manager, and the students left to form their own company the next year, Fairchild Semiconductor. They would be later known as the “traitorous eight”.
Fantastic moment in history. For folks interested in learning more by watching, these are really good documentaries on the Traitorous 8 and those early VC days:
Fantastic moment in history. For folks interested in learning more by watching, these are really good documentaries on the Traitorous 8 and those early VC days:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1737747/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/
There are other good ones out there too. It's a fascinating story, well worth learning about.