Silicon Valley and the Military Industrial Complex

A look into the history behind Silicon Valley and the greater US tech scene.

Last week, I read a book called Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, by AnnaLee Saxenian. Although this book was written in the early 90’s, it taught me more about the history of Silicon Valley than all four years of my Computer Science education, or even living in the Valley for a couple months.

This article is not meant to be an exposé, and I don’t want to claim that I know everything about the Silicon Valley (because I really don’t). The purpose of this article is to highlight several things I’ve learned in this book and a couple of other articles to explain the connection between Silicon Valley (and the greater US tech scene) and the Military Industrial Complex.

For most of my life, I’ve accepted the Silicon Valley and the greater tech industry for what it is. I’ve never looked into its beginnings or how exactly it went from being nothing to everything in a very short amount of time. To some degree, I’ve known that defense companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and BAE are responsible for creating a lot of the technology used in our larger military system. However, no one really talks about how these companies were founded, or even why they were founded.

After WWII, the United States Department of Defense invested a lot of money into both East and West coast companies to develop technology to make the US a stronger military power. Many of these contracts were funded through something called DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In the book, Saxenian talks about the Fairchild Semiconductor company, which is regarded as the first “startup” in the Silicon Valley. With funding from the DoD, Fairchild created chips that were eventually used in not just consumer technology, but also military technology during the Cold War. In the early 60’s and 70’s, the DoD was investing billions of dollars into these tech companies which then evolved into defense companies.

Another important topic to consider when looking at the history of the Silicon Valley and the East Coast Tech scene, is the influence of education on companies in the area. In order to create…