Troublemakers: How Silicon Valley Came of Age
In Troublemakers, historian Leslie Berlin introduces the people and stories behind the birth of the Internet and the microprocessor, as well as Apple, Atari, Genentech, Xerox PARC, ROLM, Ask and the iconic venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. In the space of only seven years and 35 miles, five major industries—personal computing, video games, biotechnology, modern venture capital and advanced semiconductor logic—were born.
In addition to well-known innovators such as Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and Don Valentine, Berlin’s book features Mike Markkula, former Apple chairman; Bob Taylor, who kick-started the ARPANET and masterminded the personal computer; Sandra Kurtzig, the first woman to take a technology company public; Al Alcorn, the engineer behind the first wildly successful video game; Fawn Alvarez, who rose from an assembler on a factory line to the executive suite; and Niels Reimers, who changed how university innovations reach the public. These troublemakers rewrote the rules and invented the future.
MLF Organizer Name
Gerald Harris
Notes
MLF: Science and Technology
Berlin photo by Anne Barry
Leslie Berlin, Ph.D.
Author, Troublemakers: Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age; Project Historian, Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University; Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Advisory Committee Member, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
