1.) This film offers you a narrative account of the founding of Silicon Valley. What is the strength of the narrative offered? Where are its blind spots? How might other historians you have encountered (Rebecca Lowen, Robert Cringley, the Stanford Channel, Dave Packard, David Beers, etc.) have told the story differently? How would you tell the story differently?

2.) Does this film have a thesis about the nature of Silicon Valley? If so, what is it? Do you agree with the filmís thesis?

3.) Evaluate the relative importance of the following in the history of Silicon Valley as presented in the film: Stanford University, technological innovation, synergies, collaboration, business culture, pioneering individuals, the 1960s counterculture, greed, the California climate, water, the material environment, the military-industrial complex, aerospace, politics, the Cold War, the computer industry. How would you prioritize these (or other) factors in your history of Silicon Valley?

4.) Focus on the story of how Doug Englebart used the war to enter into the computer science profession. Englebartís story is typical of lots of Americans, who also found their way into the electronics industry after serving in World War II. What made the war such a great incubator of future engineers? How did the changes in American society after 1945 further encourage the expansion of Americaís technical industries?

5.) The film introduces you to the role that the 1960s counterculture played in the transformation of Silicon Valley after 1970. We will return to this topic again in later readings and films, but for now use this history to understand the history of Silicon Valley prior to 1970. What triggered the countercultural movements of the 1960s? What role did technology play in these movements? What were the effects of these movements on the valley? In what ways did the new countercultural vision of technology and Silicon Valley build on the previous history of the valley and in what ways did it repudiate it? Should the history of Silicon Valley after 1970 be conceived in terms of a revolutionary repudiation of the past or in terms of a more complex relationship between continuity and change?

6.) Consider Nolan Bushnell and Atari corporation as paradigmatic of Silicon Valley. In what ways was Atari representative of the wider culture of Silicon Valley in the 1970s? What was unique about its history? Which is more representative of Silicon Valley in your opinion: the history of Atari or the history of Hewlett-Packard?  Defend your answer.

7.) The film ends in 1986 when Silicon Valley is mired in recession. What anxieties are prevalent? Consider the fate of these anxieties as we study the future boom times of Silicon Valley in the later 1980s and 1990s.
 

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.