Since the first venture capitalist, Arthur
Rock, dozens of companies passed the $1 billion threshold with the
support of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Some 50 years ago in
1957, Rock got a letter from “the traitorous eight” who were working for
Shockley laboratories as engineers and wanted to quit, and as a group
to be more valuable for another employer. He left his job to fund this
new initiative and later got the funding from Fairchild Camera and
Instruments for these eight engineers. They developed the first silicon
chip, later gave Silicon Valley its name, and revolutionized the
computing industry. And Rock turns out to be the first venture
capitalist together with Fairchild Cameras and Instruments. Apple,
Amazon, Google, Genentech, IBM, CISCO, Atari, Tandem, Facebook,
Microsoft, Groupon are all successful examples of these entrepreneurship
and venture capitalist stories in the US.
