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Fairchild Semiconductor was a trillion-dollar startup in today's dollars

25 points| finkin1 | 11 years ago |techcrunch.com | reply

11 comments

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[+] dang|11 years ago|reply
This post was killed by user flags.
[+] kurtle|11 years ago|reply
The original and updated title are a bit misleading. I expected an article showing some valuation of Fairchild in 1950/1960's dollars to be equal to $1 trillion in 2014 dollars. That's not the case.

TC is making the argument that 92 companies today had some contact with Fairchild and if you sum these 92 companies valuations you get $2.1 trillion.

And the barrier for whether it's an offshoot of Fairchild is pretty tenuous. For example, they count Apple in the total because Steve Jobs had conversations with Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild) when they were starting.

Maybe it's just me but this seems like far reaching hyperbole.

[+] defen|11 years ago|reply
> they count Apple in the total because Steve Jobs had conversations with Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild) when they were starting.

The initial $250,000 investment in Apple came from Mike Markkula, who made his money from Fairchild options.

[+] coryl|11 years ago|reply
Just imagine the networth of the guy who invented the wheel
[+] aswanson|11 years ago|reply
Maybe it's just me but this seems like far reaching hyperbole.

It's not you, it's typical lowbrow techcrunch idiocy. What amazes me is not the stupidity of this blog, but the fact that there are enough dumb people interested in tech to support sites like this. I've never clicked on a TC link here based on HN commentary alone. But somehow, a talentless, unaccomplished hack like Arrington was able to take this idiocy to a multi mm cashout. I dont get it.

[+] finkin1|11 years ago|reply
The original and current title are definitely misleading. These quotes from the article clear it up:

"Our team at Endeavor Insight recently worked to quantify the impact of Fairchild Semiconductor and its co-founders. We identified over 130 Bay Area tech companies that were trading on the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange. Our analysis indicates that about 70 percent of these firms can be traced directly back to the founders and employees of Fairchild.

The total impact of these businesses is staggering. The 92 public companies that can be traced back to Fairchild are now worth about $2.1 trillion, which is more than the annual GDP of Canada, India, or Spain. These companies also employ over 800,000 people."

[+] judk|11 years ago|reply
Nonsensical comparison between value ($) and GDP ($/yr): check.
[+] judk|11 years ago|reply
Why did you submit an article you know to be bogus?
[+] jason_slack|11 years ago|reply
My Wife's Grandmother worked at Fairchild for many years in her 20's-30's. She worked on a "computer" all day. When she left she never touched a computer again. Never a smart phone or ipad. She passed April 2014.

She kept scraps from spools of gold wire that was used as solder. She twisted it all up and gave them to family.

[+] teawithcarl|11 years ago|reply
Fairchild and Honeywell once considered a merger.

New name of the company ... "Fairwell, Honeychild".