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Bernie Marren on the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor, its Managers & 1st product

Bernie explains how Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in Sept 1957 and asserts that Bob Noyce was selected as the leader from the Shockley Labs employees. Noyce wasn’t looking for that position, but accepted it. Bernie names the other Fairchild managers who all got paid the same amount of money + 1 share of stock for each person. Some creative financing led one individual to accumulate more money than others. :-))

Fairchild Semiconductor made the Mesa transistor as their first product and sold it to IBM, which was their first customer. Sherman Fairchild was IBM’s largest stock holder and on their Board, so he didn’t want to have a very close business relationship with that company as it might be perceived as a “conflict of interest.”

Read more about this session at: http://sites.ieee.org/sv-techhist/?p=344

[Thanks to Alan Weissberger for the above description.]

One response to “Bernie Marren on the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor, its Managers & 1st product”

  1. Alan J Weissberger Avatar
    Alan J Weissberger

    Bernie explains how Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in Sept 1957 and asserts that Bob Noyce was selected as the leader from the Shockley Labs employees. Noyce wasn’t looking for that position, but accepted it. Bernie names the other Fairchild managers who all got paid the same amount of money + 1 share of stock for each person. Some creative financing led one individual to accumulate more money than others. :-))

    Fairchild Semiconductor made the Mesa transistor as their first product and sold it to IBM, which was their first customer. Sherman Fairchild was IBM’s largest stock holder and on their Board, so he didn’t want to have a very close business relationship with that company as it might be perceived as a “conflict of interest.”

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