YouSaid · the spoken record

William Shockley

lines on the record

8

first

2021-02-01

most recent

2021-02-01

sittings or episodes

1

sources

podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “For reasons he never explained, Shockley changed his mind. He was going to build silicon devices, but they would not be transistors. Shockley was determined to build what he's calling a four-layered diode. And so this is what I mean about, we're going to see noise does the exact opposite. And he's going to fight Shockley on this. He's like, no, no, this doesn't make any sense. We already have a good product. Why are you inventing a product that we're not even sure we can sell? And so what's the problem? The ideal customer for a four-layer diode was Western Electric, which manufactured the equipment for the Bell system, the Bell Telephone System. AT&T operated a regulated monopoly at the time. They could design and build their own equipment, and it would be as big, and it could be as big as it turned out to be, cost whatever it cost. It did not need elegance or simplicity. Essentially, they've isolated themselves from any kind of market influence, right? So they're trying to invent inside of a vacuum, which normally doesn't work out well. The only criterion was that it”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Gibbons thought only for a few seconds and said, Well, it must be 126. Now here's the bizarre part. He got the answer right. Chocolate's not happy, he gets mad. This is what I mean about he always has to be the smartest person. Shockley looked down at his stopwatch. His face reddening. What? Well, it must be $126. How did you do that? Shockley asked. His agitation growing. There's only one winner, and that means 126 people have to be eliminated. It takes a match to eliminate somebody, so there must be 126 matches, said Gibbons. Shockley pounded the table in fury. That's how I would do it. Have you heard this problem before? he demanded. No, sir, said the young scientist, confounded at Shockley's reaction. The Nobel laureate was coming unhinged. The thought that Gibbon's might have been as smart as he was seemed to frighten him.”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “sat across from him and was ready when Shockley pulled out his stopwatch. This is Shockley Bizarre way to interview people. So this is shockingly speaking. You have 127 players and a single tennis elimination match, Shockley said. How many matches does it take to determine a winner? Click so he ends the sentence, starts the stopwatch. It was August 1957, Jim Gibbons was a young physicist, like every other new employee, he had to take a little intelligence test. Shockley knew perfectly well that Gibbons had a PhD from Stanford, worked at Bell Labs, and won a scholarship to Cambridge University, Cambridge University. A good sign that he had something between his ears besides Lint, but everyone coming to work for shockly semiconductor had to take a battery of tests. Shockley had great faith in this kind of testing, feeling increasingly that things like intelligence and creativity can be quantified.”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “So it says, and the reason I'm reading this part too is because in a letter that he's writing to her, you realize he knew what he was. He knew how he was. So he says, he found himself opening his soul to her in a way unmatched in any of his other relationships, warning her of his dark side, admitting things he could never admit to anyone else. So I just want to read you a quote from the letter he's writing to his soon-to-be second wife, just another warning that the deepest pessimism and general lack of admiration for the human race and myself are probably with me for keeps. I don't want you to get hurt by being too hopeful that you can do something about it. And that is a great dealization of the mindset that you must avoid. Are you going to have a, he suffers his whole life. He's a miserable person.”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “So that's something he had a passion for. So he says, and he's going to use that as a metaphor to where he wants to go in his professional career. I am overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to do my climbing by moonlight and unroped. This is contrary to all my rock climbing teaching and does not mean poor training but only a strong headedness. So the team winds up winning the Nobel Prize. He goes back to work for Bell Labs and he realizes hey I'm going to quit here and I'm going to start a company and this is why he decides to move the company to be closer to his aging mother who lives in Palo Alto and this is why they said he puts the silicon and Silicon Valley. So it says a grand future was coming. Shockley perhaps more than almost anyone else in the world appreciated that future. Shockley also began to get a glimmer of the financial possibilities. A person could make a great deal of money if he could control”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “More than eight years before had not resulted in a significant inventive contribution to my own. The telephone call changed his life, challenging his balance, his ego, and his loyalties. Fred Seats, remember this guy's name, this is his oldest friend, believed his personality then began a transformation, a narrowing, an intensifying, and an unbalancing. And it's not like he wasn't involved. He just wasn't the actual one that did it. So he says, Shockley's role was more of that of a guiding consultant than of active participant, but he's still actually on the team, right? So he says Bell Labs worked very hard from the first moment to produce a mythology around the invention of the transistor that persists to this day. One of well-managed teamwork, that is simply not true. In fact, there was little evidence of closely directed teamwork in the invention.”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “He took out his revolver, put a bullet in one of the six chambers, put the gun to his head, and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. He put the gun away and wrote a second note. Dear Jean, there was just one chance in six that the loaded chamber would be under the firing pin. There was some chance of a misfire even then. I am sorry that I am not sufficiently ingenious or painstaking and find a more practical to find a more practical and suitable means of solving our problems. He put the suicide note in an envelope in a safe, in his home, along with other personal material that was found after his death. So that line from his first suicide note where he talks about the world's not a pleasant place and that he does not like other people. That is the root cause of all the bad things that happen in Shockley's life and why he was unable to actually achieve the things that he set out to achieve.”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “form of life I find that I am particularly dissatisfied with myself and that most of my actions are the consequences of motives of which I am ashamed. Most people do not feel this way, I am sure. Consequently I must regard myself as less well suited than most to carry on with life and to develop the proper attitudes in our children. I see no reason to believe other than that I shall continually become worse in these regards as time passes. I hope you have better luck in the future.”

   2021-02-01 · Founders · #165 William Shockley (Creator of the Electronic Age) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source