I might be an engineer, but I’m also interested in how engineers work, and in San Francisco area history. I got this book after a Google search of a old company turned up stories of how Silicon Valley really got started back in the 1930’s by companies doing souped-up vacuum tubes for amateur radio operators. All the craziness we think of in Silicon Valley – engineers jumping between companies at the drop of a hat, odd family-like perks (like HP’s summer camp in the redwoods), crazy hours by engineers trying to figure out the next big thing – have been around forever.

It also highlighted how a lot of the high-tech companies were founded by engineers who’d moved back east, hated, and moved back. (I’m not the only one!) Now I understand what all those companies along the Bayshore Freeway were doing when I was a kid.