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With new tech products rolling out every day, it’s all too easy to lose sight of Silicon Valley’s history. But those who do neglect it are missing out on an amazing story, historian Leslie Berlin says.
Berlin’s new book, “Troublemakers,” traces the careers of seven tech pioneers who helped turn the Valley into an economic and cultural powerhouse. On the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, she explained why it focuses on the years 1969 to 1983.
“Silicon Valley was this obscure little place, where it was gearhead engineers selling to gearhead engineers who used chips,” Berlin said. “Within not even a dozen years: The video game industry was born; the personal computer industry was born; biotech — which no one talks about — biotech was born, right here; modern venture capital took root, the first Arpanet transmission comes into SRI. It’s like you're watching the Big Bang.”
“It reminds me of The Beatles,” she added. “In 1963, they’re doing Little Richard covers. By 1970, they’ve completely transformed music and the broader culture.”
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On the new podcast, Berlin also talked about her day job as a historian at Stanford University, overseeing the school’s Silicon Valley Archives.
“At Stanford, people see this as part of a story of American history, part of a story of international history,” she said. “It didn’t happen in a vacuum. People think about ‘computer history’ or ‘history of technology’ as something that just sort of showed up. There’s a reason this happened here, there’s a reason it happened when it did, and we’re able to tell that story.”
Berlin’s team of historians frequently finds itself convincing tech companies to hand over their corporate memos, photos, videos and other materials — but sometimes it falls into their laps. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the late 1990s, he scrapped existing plans for an Apple-run museum of its own historian and shipped 600 boxes of history to Stanford; other companies, however, need more cajoling.
“There’s a big educational process,” Berlin said. “These are places that are completely focused on the future. Very often, what happens is it’s only once an anniversary is on the horizon, they’re like, ‘What happened to all our stuff?’ That’s a good time to talk to them.”
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
