The only contemporary history of the birth of Silicon Valley, from the
reporter who had a ringside seat to it all.
Over the past five decades, the tech industry has grown into one of the
most important sectors of the global economy. Silicon Valley―replete
with sprawling office parks, sky-high rents, and countless self-made
millionaires―is home to many of its key players. But the origins of
Silicon Valley and the tech sector are much humbler. At a time when tech
companies' influence continues to grow, The Big Score chronicles how
they began.
One of the first reporters on the tech industry beat at the San Jose
Mercury-News, Michael S. Malone recounts the feverish efforts of young
technologists and entrepreneurs to build something that would change the
world―and score them a big payday. Starting with the birth of
Hewlett-Packard in the 1930s, Malone illustrates how decades of
technological innovation laid the foundation for the meteoric rise of
the Valley in the 1970s. Drawing on exclusive, unvarnished interviews,
Malone punctuates this history with incisive profiles of tech's early
luminaries―including Nobelist William Shockley and Apple's Steve
Jobs―when they were struggling entrepreneurs working 18-hour days in
their garages. And he plunges us into the darker side of the Valley,
where espionage, drugs, hellish working conditions, and shocking
betrayals shaped the paths for winners and losers in a booming industry.
A decades-long story with individual sacrifice, ingenuity, and big money
at its core, The Big Score recounts the history of today's most
dynamic sector through its upstart beginnings.
