硅谷之父看硅谷（節選）
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????三家硅谷傳奇公司的誕生都打上了戈登?摩爾的烙印。你可以稱他是“硅谷之父”之一。不過，他卻說自己其實只是“誤打誤撞成了企業家”。 ????1957年，27歲的戈登?摩爾剛從加州理工學院（Caltech）畢業不久就被威廉?肖克利招入麾下，加入了由其創辦的肖克利半導體實驗室（Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory）。肖克利曾因參與發明晶體管而榮獲諾貝爾獎，然而他晚年提出的一些頗具爭議的優生學觀點卻讓他成了“社會的棄兒”。但在當時，他網羅了科技界的年輕英才，組建了一只夢之隊，其中包括28歲的鮑勃?諾伊斯。然而，這些天才明星們卻無法忍受他們的老板，于是，不到一年時間，摩爾、諾伊斯和其他六人便離開了肖克利。怒不可遏的肖克利稱他們是“八叛逆”。后來，這八個人成立了仙童半導體公司（Fairchild Semiconductor），可最終“八叛逆”也先后離開仙童半導體，由此又誕生了更多公司。成立仙童十年之后，由于無法忍受企業惰性，摩爾和諾伊斯也選擇了離開。1968年，他們創辦了另外一家公司——英特爾（Intel），最終這家公司成為半導體行業的翹楚。 ????自1998年退休之后，現年83歲的摩爾便把自己的主要精力投入到價值數十億美元的戈登與貝蒂?摩爾基金會（Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation），該基金主要關注環境保護、科技、病患護理和舊金山灣區的生活。摩爾在英特爾工作了30年，期間超過10年擔任CEO。在此期間，他提出了大名鼎鼎的“摩爾定律”，即計算機芯片上可以容納的晶體管數量每18至24個月將翻一番。 ????摩爾出生的小村莊位于太平洋海岸，毗鄰硅谷?，F在，摩爾大部分時間都居住在夏威夷。他與妻子，現年62歲的貝蒂，在硅谷還有一棟豪宅。在硅谷的家中，他的書房里到處都是書籍、釣魚的照片和各種獎杯，還有一個安裝在地板上的巨大地球儀。最近，摩爾接受了《財富》雜志（Fortune）戴維?A?卡普蘭的采訪。摩爾回顧了他在科技界的充實生活，他的創業精神，他的好運，釣深海旗魚的經歷，還有他的慈善事業，以及參加比爾?蓋茨與沃倫?巴菲特發起的“捐贈誓言”活動（The Giving Pledge ，即所有超級富豪同意捐贈一半財產）的經過。 ????此外，他還談到了諾伊斯、肖克利、比爾?蓋茨、安迪?格羅夫和史蒂夫?喬布斯。盡管摩爾的確謙遜低調，但與硅谷初期的其他叛逆者一樣，他也有求勝欲極強的一面。以下為訪談摘要： ????問：回顧您在硅谷的60多年，有什么出乎你的意料之外的事情嗎？ ????答：沒有，我們從最開始就做好了周密規劃！其實，最初令我感到吃驚的是，竟然有人想要我們在仙童時期制造的晶體管。此外，技術的發展也遠遠超出我們的想象。 ????您是否已經不再關心科技的發展？ ????我以前不得不為科技的發展感到憂慮。我記得我有一次談到了我們當時正在實施的大幅擴容，這項技術甚至讓分析人士感到恐慌，因為他們不清楚誰會用這些東西。 ????今天呢？ ????現在，我已經遠離了科技行業。我只能看到外行人能夠看到的事實：英特爾帶來了驚人的超大容量，移動設備市場快速發展，而在這個市場領域，英特爾沒能占據有利位置。我聽說，移動設備的數量甚至超過了全球總人口的數量。真是令人難以置信。 ????您現在看硅谷，是否還會認同它的文化、價值和精神？ ????我想是的。硅谷仍在不斷發展進化，但從根本上來說，它還是創業者的天堂。許多人都在這里獲得了巨大的成功。 ????硅谷人跟以前比有變化嗎？ ????現在，他們掌握了截然不同的技能。軟件應用似乎是所有大額交易的對象。我不明白，為什么像Facebook這樣的社交媒體交易會如此受人關注，但我想我是不會關注它們的。 ????請點擊此處查看英文全文>> |
????Gordon Moore has been present at the creation of three legendary companies of Silicon Valley. You could call him one of the founding fathers of the place. Yet he calls himself the ultimate "accidental entrepreneur." ????At 27, not long out of Caltech, he was recruited in 1957 by William Shockley, who was creating Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Shockley -- he won the Nobel Prize for co-inventing the transistor but was a pariah by the end of his life because of his strident views on eugenics -- had put together a dream team of young technical talent that included 28-year-old Bob Noyce. But Shockley's stars couldn't stand their boss, and before the year was out, Moore, Noyce, and six others -- the "Traitorous Eight," Shockley supposedly branded them -- left. They launched Fairchild Semiconductor, which itself became a company to leave, in turn begetting dozens of companies. A decade after founding Fairchild, frustrated again by corporate inertia, Moore and Noyce themselves bolted Fairchild. Their next startup, in 1968: Intel, a leader of the microprocessor industry. ????Moore, now 83, retired in 1998 to devote his energies to the multibillion-dollar Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which focuses on conservation, science, patient care, and life in the Bay Area. In his 30 years at Intel (INTC), he served as CEO for more than a decade. Along the way he came up with what's widely known as Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors the industry can place on a computer chip will double every 18 to 24 months. ????Born near Silicon Valley in a small village by the Pacific, Moore now spends most of his time on Hawaii. He and his wife of 62 years, Betty, do keep a stately home in Silicon Valley. There, in his study -- surrounded by books, fishing photos, awards, and a giant floor-mounted globe -- Moore recently spoke to Fortune's David A. Kaplan. Moore reflected on a life well-lived in science, entrepreneurship, serendipity, fishing for deep-sea marlin, and philanthropy, and on joining Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's The Giving Pledge (in which the super-wealthy agree to give away half their wealth). ????He talked about Noyce, Shockley, Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs -- and that while he surely was un assuming, he was as fiercely competitive as any other early Valley rebel. Edited excerpts: ????Q: As you look back on more than 60 years in the Valley, what surprises you? ????A: Oh, no -- we planned it all from the beginning! Well, I was initially surprised that people wanted the transistors we built back in the Fairchild days. And the development of the technology is so far beyond anything we could have imagined. ????Was that something you stopped worrying about? ????I had to worry a bit about it. I remember once giving a talk describing all the large increases in capacity we were putting in place and scaring the analysts, who wondered who was going to use all that stuff. ????What about today? ????I'm not close enough to it. I see the same things outsiders see: Intel putting in tremendous capacity, and the market is growing in portable devices, where Intel hasn't had a very strong position. I read that there are more of those portable devices than people in the world. That's unbelievable. ????When you observe the Valley today, do you still recognize its culture, its values, its ethos? ????I think so. It continues to evolve, but basically it's still a place to do startups. A few become very successful. ????Have the people changed? ????They have generally different skill sets now. Software applications are where all the big deals seem to be. I don't understand why things like Facebook (FB) and other social media deals get the attention they do -- not being on Facebook myself, I guess. |
