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Shockley was still estranged from Bardeen and Brattain, but the atmosphere was cordial when they convened with their families in Stockholm for the awards ceremony. The chair of the Nobel committee used his speech to highlight the combination of individual genius and teamwork that was involved in the invention of the transistor. He called it a “supreme effort of foresight, ingenuity and perseverance, exercised individually and as a team.” Late that night, Bardeen and Brattain were having drinks at the bar of the Grand Hotel when, shortly after midnight, Shockley walked in. They had barely spoken to him for six years, but they put their differences aside and invited him to join their table.
When Shockley returned from Stockholm, his head was swelled but his insecurities were undiminished. In a talk to coworkers, he noted that it was “about time” that his contributions were recognized. The atmosphere at the firm “deteriorated very rapidly,” Last observed, until it began to resemble “a big psychiatric institute.” Noyce told Shockley of the “general feeling of resentment” that was accumulating, but his warning had little effect.65
Shockley’s unwillingness to share credit made it hard for him to create a spirit of collaboration. When some of his employees wrote papers to be presented at the American Physical Society in December 1956, the month after he had received his Nobel, Shockley required that his name be listed on them all as a coauthor. The same was true on most patent applications coming out of his firm. Yet he insisted, somewhat contradictorily, that there was truly only one real inventor of any device, because “there’s only one light bulb to go on in somebody’s head.” Any other people involved, he added, were “mere helpers.”66 His own experience with the team that invented the transistor should have disabused him of such a notion.
Shockley’s ego caused him to clash not only with subordinates but also with his nominal boss and owner, Arnold Beckman. When Beckman flew up for a meeting about the need to control costs, Shockley surprised everyone by declaring in front of the entire senior staff, “Arnold, if you don’t like what we’re doing up here I can take this group and get support any place else.” He then stormed out of the room, leaving his owner humiliated in front of the staff.
Thus Beckman was attentive when he was called in May 1957 by Gordon Moore, who had been tapped by other restless colleagues to present their grievances. “Things aren’t going well up there, are they?” Beckman asked.
“No, they really are not,” replied Moore, who assured Beckman that the top staff would stay if Shockley quit.67 The reverse was also true, Moore warned; if Shockley was not replaced by a competent manager, the staff would likely leave.
Moore and his colleagues had recently seen The Caine Mutiny, and they started plotting against their own Captain Queeg.68 Over the next few weeks, in a series of secret meetings and di
At first Shockley acquiesced. He would allow Noyce to manage the lab and confine his own duties to offering ideas and strategic advice. But then he changed his mind. It was not in Shockley’s nature to cede control. Plus, he had qualms about Noyce’s executive ability. He told Beckman that Noyce would not be an “aggressive leader” or decisive enough, and there was some merit to that criticism. Shockley may have been too driven and decisive, but Noyce, who was naturally congenial and accommodating, could have benefited from a dose of toughness. A key challenge for managers is how to strike a balance between being decisive and being collegial, and neither Shockley nor Noyce got the calibration precise.
When forced to choose between Shockley and the staff, Beckman got cold feet. “With one of my misdirected feelings of loyalty, I felt I owed Shockley and should give him enough of a chance to prove himself,” Beckman later explained. “If I had known what I know now, I would have said goodbye to Shockley.”69 Beckman stu
Abandoning an established enterprise to start a rival was rather unusual back then, so it took some courage. “The business culture that existed in this country was that you go to work for a company, and you stay with that company, and you retire with that company,” observed Regis McKe
Moore rallied the rebel contingent. There were seven of them at first—Noyce had not yet enlisted—and they decided to form their own company. But that required funding. So one of them, Eugene Kleiner, wrote a letter to his father’s stockbroker at the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Hayden, Stone & Co. After describing their credentials, he declared, “We believe that we could get a company into the semiconductor business within three months.” The letter ended up on the desk of Arthur Rock, a thirty-year-old analyst who had been succeeding with risky investments since his days at Harvard Business School. Rock convinced his boss, Bud Coyle, that it was worth a trip west to investigate.72
When Rock and Coyle met with the seven in San Francisco’s Clift Hotel, they found one thing missing: a leader. So they urged the rebels to recruit Noyce, who was resisting because of his feeling of commitment to Shockley. Moore was finally able to persuade him to come to the next meeting. Rock was impressed: “As soon as I saw Noyce I was struck by his charisma, and I could tell he was their natural leader. They deferred to him.”73 At that meeting, the group, including Noyce, made a pact that they would all leave together to form a new firm. Coyle pulled out some crisp new dollar bills, which they signed as a symbolic contract with each other.
It was hard to get money, especially from established corporations, to start a completely independent company. The idea of seed funding for startups was not yet well established; that important i
It was a fine match. Fairchild, the owner of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, was an inventor, playboy, entrepreneur, and the largest single stockholder in IBM, which his father had cofounded. A great tinkerer, as a Harvard freshman he invented the first synchronized camera and flash. He went on to develop aerial photography, radar cameras, specialized airplanes, methods to illuminate te