William Shockley (1910–1989) was an American physicist who co-invented the transistor and inadvertently created Silicon Valley. His technical brilliance was matched by controversial personal views that tarnished his later reputation.
Bell Labs
Shockley joined Bell Labs in 1936 and led the solid-state physics group. After World War II, he directed the research that led to the transistor. When Bardeen and Brattain created the point-contact transistor, Shockley developed the improved junction transistor.
Nobel Prize
Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with Bardeen and Brattain for the transistor’s invention. The junction transistor, particularly, became the basis for modern semiconductor manufacturing.
Shockley Semiconductor
In 1956, Shockley left Bell Labs to found Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California. He recruited brilliant young scientists, but his difficult management style drove eight of them—the “Traitorous Eight”—to leave and found Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957.
Silicon Valley’s Birth
The Fairchild spinoff was the seed of Silicon Valley. Fairchild alumni later founded Intel, AMD, and dozens of other companies. Shockley’s decision to locate in the Bay Area, near Stanford, established the region’s semiconductor industry.
Later Controversy
Shockley’s later career was marred by his promotion of eugenics and racist theories about intelligence. These views alienated him from the scientific community and overshadowed his technical contributions.