The history of Silicon Valley

The first baby steps were taken in the 1940s during World War II when the Allies need some way to penetrate the German air defense system. Blank spends several minutes explaining the intricate system of German phase array and steerable radar towers used in the war to detect Allied bombers coming in from Great Britain. Blank adds that the Germans had an uncanny ability to accurately direct fighters to intercept planes, both in daytime and nighttime. The scientists at the Harvard Radio Research Lab were entrusted with finding a way to detect and jam those radar signals.

We won't give away the rest of the talk because it's actually very fascinating to watch and listen to, but towards the end Blank pulls out a chart which is basically a ‘family tree' of where modern companies came from. Let's just say that Blank links two major chip companies, AMD and Intel all the way back to William Shockley, the head of Radar Bombing training for the Air Force during World War II.