The Thrill of Silicon Valley

Raymie Stata and Marsha Familaro Enright after a wonderful Great Connections Seminar weekend discussing Aristotle, Nietzsche, Dewey, Rand and others.

We were totally spoiled by Raymie’s spectacular house and hospitality as a seminar venue! We also visited the Computer History Museum where Ray Stata, founder of Analog Devices, recounted his experiences working with the legendary Robert Noyce. You can hear Ray talk about his history in the semi-conductor industry in this oral history from the museum.

After Ray, Raymie discussed his notable career and experiences, among other things, founding Stata Labs, later sold to Yahoo where he became CTO, after which he left and created Altiscale, which was then sold to SAP.

About Bob Noyce, we learned that, among many other achievements, Noyce founded the Semi-Conductor Industry Association, which brought companies together to brainstorm and collaborate. This organization was instrumental in exponentially increasing the industry’s innovation and growth, particularly in the case of Moore’s Law

At the museum, Raymie arranged for us to see:

1. An original HP oscilloscope.
2. An original Iphone.
3. Most thrilling to me, Robert Noyce’s handwritten notebooks about his work co-inventing the integrated circuit (Jack Kilby invented an integrated circuit almost at the same time, although many regard Noyce’s configuration as the more important advance.) If you’re ever in Silicon Valley, don’t miss this museum.