That was then…this is now

The founders of Fairchild Semiconductor (est.1957) in the company’s production area. Back row, left to right: Victor Grinich, Gordon Moore, Julius Blank, and Eugene Kleiner. Middle: Jean Hoerni. Front: Jay Last and C. Sheldon Roberts. Facing the group: Bob Noyce.

This photo shows the “Traitorous Eight” who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild Semiconductor — using $3,500 of their own money they developed a method of mass-producing silicon which changed the world.

However, the founders did not stick around. Although most breadwinners in the 50’s looked for employment for life (my Dad worked for Rolls-Royce his whole career) these guys practiced the serial monogamy that was typical of executive life in the Valley from the get-go. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, as well as several others, got the “eleven year itch” and left to form Intel in 1968.

There are a number of interesting things about the photo. Firstly, they are all white males, wearing ties and pressed shirts. Their hair is short. They are spookily conformist in their cult-like attention to Mr. Noyce. OK, so it was the 1950’s. McCarthyism ruled. But consider by way of contrast this photo from the 1940’s of Dave Packard with a couple of HP staff, notice that he’s seated alongside, not in front of them. And, hey! One guy has a check shirt on.

Both of these photo’s show that, as the world has changed, so has leadership style in Silicon Valley.

It’s not just a matter of personal grooming. The tech industry innovates relentlessly. Product life-cycles are shorter than ever. As with machines, so with people. Broader social changes have obviously taken place alongside the technology.

Look at the Fairchild photo again. There were no women in the executive team at Fairchild in 1950’s California. Today, 40% of HP’s top executive committee are women. Two of HP’s top managers are foreign-born. In fact, nearly 40% of all the current residents of Silicon Valley were born outside the USA. Things were different back then. Many of today’s successful high-tech companies were started by immigrant entrepreneurs. A number of these successes are profiled in a wonderful new book They Made It! by Angelika Blendstrup.

Back in the 50’s it appears from the photo that the women who were employed at Fairchild Semiconductor were dutifully engaged in mind-numbing assembly work. Today, there are almost no assembly plants left in the Valley. Manufacturing is sourced off-shore in Asia, where legions of women from the rural hinterlands labor at the same jobs their enfranchised sisters used work at in California sixty years previously.

At least they don’t have managers perched at their elbows while they continue with relentless heads-down production. The Fairchild photo begs the question “What defines ‘work’”? It looks as if the women are ‘working’ more than the men, but their rewards would argue otherwise.

A time of transition

Bob Noyce was instrumental in putting the “Silicon” in Silicon Valley. He inspired legions of colleagues at Fairchild and later Intel (although there are reports he and Andy Grove did not get on well.) Here’s a moment in history where he mentored the young Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer:

Management and leadership style in the Valley has moved on. Some argue the HP Way is a thing of the past. Companies today are more a loose network of employees, contractors and self-branded individuals. Tempus fugit.

The conformity of the 1950s made for a particular leadership style (and makes the courage of Hewlett & Packard in bucking the trend more astonishing.) It was probably easier back then to issue edicts that were obeyed. Today’s leaders swim in different waters.

How do leaders today inspire and motivate? Let me know if you have pertinent examples.