8 Important Silicon Valley Innovators Not Named Steve Jobs

Silicon Valley has served as a high-tech Mecca for the United States and the world. Over the past few decades, the best and brightest technological minds have converged on the area to collaborate and compete, rapidly evolving the electronics and computer industries. The result has been a new world in which communicating and obtaining information -- any information -- are made incredibly easy. The following men not named Steve Jobs made immense contributions to the Valley, enhancing our lives exponentially.

1. Lee De Forest, Federal Telegraph Company

   The first major innovation that occurred in Silicon Valley came from De Forest, an inventor who's considered one of the fathers of the electronic age. While working for the Federal Telegraph Company in Palo Alto, he made his Audion tube, which he had invented just a few years earlier, function as an amplifier, enabling him to sell it to the telephone company to use for transcontinental phone calls. The ability to amplify a signal led to the creation of radio, television, and computers -- and the electronics industry as a whole. Little did he know that his little scenic area in California would explode into a hub of technological innovation.

2. William Shockley, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

   Shockley settled in Mountain View California in 1956 after departing from Bell Labs, founding the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Co. Inventor of the transistor -- for which we won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics -- he was a major advocate of using silicon to construct the devices as opposed to germanium. His attempts to use silicon and thus improve the device failed, and several of his engineers, discontent with his merciless management style, left to form Fairchild Semiconductor.

3. Robert Noyce, Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel

   One of those engineers who departed was Noyce, who eventually became known as "The Mayor of Silicon Valley." While leading Fairchild, he invented the integrated chip made of silicon, the next major contribution to the semiconductor industry. Soon after, he joined Gordon Moore and formed Intel, where Ted Hoff invented the microprocessor. Unlike Shockley, Noyce valued a work environment that was friendly and relaxed, hoping that it would encourage better productivity. Other Silicon Valley companies have adopted the same style and experienced equally as positive results.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

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