Conversations and Reflections: Silicon Valley Conspiracy Theories

Today, Silicon Valley is known around the world as a font of technology, innovation, and development fueled by private venture capital and peopled by fabled entrepreneurs. Conspiracy theories have long circulated that Silicon Valley’s development and success are linked to government secrecy, surveillance, and wartime urgency. They are not entirely wrong. 

Foothill-De Anza Center for Applied Humanities presents Steve Blank, the Stanford adjunct professor known as the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, and his talk titled “The Secret History of Silicon Valley.” The roots of Silicon Valley sprang from the early technology duel over the skies of Germany and secret efforts around (and over) the Soviet Union. World War II, the Cold War and one Stanford professor set the stage for the creation and explosive growth of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. The world was forever changed when the Defense Department, CIA, and the National Security Agency acted like today’s venture capitalists by funding this first wave of entrepreneurship. Steve Blank shows how these groundbreaking early advances led up to the Silicon Valley we know today.