AI has returned chipmaking to the heart of computer technology

The firm, founded by William Shockley, a coinventor of the transistor, was a commercial flop. The embrace of silicon was not. In 1957 eight of Mr Shockley’s employees, whom he dubbed the “traitorous eight”, defected to start Fairchild Semiconductor less than two kilometres away. Among them were Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, future co-founders of Intel, a chipmaking giant, and Eugene Kleiner, co-founder of Kleiner Perkins, a ground-breaking venture-capital firm. Most of the storied tech companies in Silicon Valley can trace their roots, directly or indirectly, back to those early Fairchild employees.