“Many of the main figures in the tech sector call Silicon Valley, which is home to numerous self-made millionaires and has large office parks, exorbitant rents, and other amenities, one of the most significant economic sectors in the world over the previous 50 years. However, Silicon Valley’s and the IT industry’s humbler beginnings may be seen. The Big Score details how tech companies got their start at a time when their significance is only increasing.
Michael S. Malone, one of the first writers at the San Jose Mercury-News to cover the tech sector, describes the frantic efforts of young technologists and business people to create something that would alter the world and make them a lot of money. Malone demonstrates how decades of technological advancement lay the groundwork for the Valley’s dramatic ascent in the 1970s, beginning with the founding of Hewlett-Packard in the 1930s. Malone punctuates this history with sharp biographies of early tech greats, such as Nobel laureate William Shockley and Apple’s Steve Jobs, who were struggling businessmen working 18-hour days in their garages. Malone draws on exclusive, unvarnished interviews for these stories. And he drags us into the seedier side of Silicon Valley, where espionage, narcotics, horrendous working conditions, and devastating betrayals helped determine who would succeed and fail in a thriving sector.
The Great Score tells the history of today’s most dynamic industry via its fledgling origins, a decades-long tale with individual sacrifice, inventiveness, and big money at its foundation.”
