Syllabus
Syllabus (Summer term 2022)
Two-week intensive course (7 April - 22 April, 2022)
Session 1 Intro..technology defined, why it is vital to human
Progress, principal course reading: The Code: Silicon Valley and the
Remaking of America, intro p-7, https://interestingengineering.com/19-great-inventions-that-revolutionized-history
Session 2 History of Silicon Valley, where is it, why is it important,
Starting with Dave Packard’s garage 1939, Stanford, engineering government money, transistors, computers, internet, software, assignment: https://archive.icann.org/en/meetings/siliconvalley2011/about.html
Session 3 Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital the ease of starting a business and finding investors willing to take a chance, assignment: Elon Musk book, chapter 4
Session 4 People who have made a difference, Steve Jobs, Sergei Brin,
Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Meg Whitman, Jack Dorsey, Elon
Musk—others, assignment: book, The Facebook Effect, chapter 2; The Four, chapters 3, 4,5
Session 5 Offshoring Manufacturing, Rise of Tesla computer, chip production moves offshore while Tesla, led by tech entrepreneur
Elon Musk, becomes California’s biggest manufacturer. Assignment:
Elon Musk, chapter 5
Session 6 Apple, Google, Facebook market dominance, power, wealth, assignment:
The Four, chapters 3, 4, 5, https://marker.medium.com/post-corona-the-four-8cbca794396c
Session 7 Ubiquitous Social Media Facebook whistleblower Frances
Haugen “I believe FB’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,” regulation, assignment: Facebook Effect, chapter 3
Session 8 Disruptors, Failures Yahoo, Theranos, Airbnb, Uber, Zoom, assignment:
The Upstarts, chapters, chapters 1
Session 9 Competition from China Greater Bay Area, Huawei, Tiktok, assignment: https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X, https://www.wired.com/2015/05/why-silicon-valley-will-continue-to-rule/
Session 10 What’s Next? Summing up, where is Europe? Assignment: https://spectrum.ieee.org/foreign-born-engineers-dominate-bay-area-tech-jobs-says-joint-venture-silicon-valley, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/01/why-silicon-valley-and-big-tech-dont-innovate-anymore/604969/
Annotation
Situated 32-kilometers south of San Francisco, the Silicon Valley is the global center of technological innovation. The term Silicon Valley was first used in 1971. It caught on as silicon was pervasive in the manufacture of computer chips, then a critical Santa Clara Valley industry. The valley comprises small cities that radiate out from Stanford University in Palo Alto, whose engineering prowess produced some of the first tech entrepreneurs, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. A Hewlett Packard facility once occupied the Cupertino site where Apple Park—the spaceship (photo above)—now stands.
How did what once was a narrow swath of fruit orchards between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean evolve into a world center of technological innovation?
After World War II U.S. government research funding helped make Stanford a world leading university for electrical engineering. Professor William Shockley in 1956 received a Nobel prize for inventing the transistor, something that sparked the revolution in information technology. In 1968 Intel was formed, other chipmakers followed and the valley became a manufacturing center for semi-conductors.
But it was the 1976 invention of the personal computer by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who grew up in the valley, that triggered massive growth. With the rise of the internet came new companies—Oracle, Cisco, Nvidia as well as Google, Facebook, Twitter—building hardware and writing software for a global industry.
Unprecedented wealth was created, venture capitalists financed entrepreneurial ventures Today 40 of the world’s biggest tech companies are headquartered in the Silicon Valley, which has become a magnet attracting the world’s best engineering and computer talent. Fifty- percent of engineering employees in the valley were born abroad.
New companies rise, most fail, some prosper. As with earlier winners, valley and San Francisco startups Uber, Airbnb, Doordash, Zoom disrupt the way we live. The Silicon Valley itself is being disrupted, today facing what arguably is its most formidable challenge-- China.