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I'm pretty sure that Shockley, the founder of Shockley Semiconductor has them both beat. His management style was described as autocratic, erratic, and hard-to-please as well as domineering and paranoid. Not to mention his questionable views on race and eugenics.

In 1957, eight of his researchers (the "traitorous eight") had enough, so they left and founded Fairchild Semiconductor, (co)invented the integrated circuit, and essentially started Silicon Valley. Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, two other members of the traitorous eight, went on to found Intel. If Shockley had been a nicer guy, Silicon Valley might not exist.



Has anyone ever found a study/research of how (in detail) Shockley hired technical staff?

In an industry famed for unicorns and associated prescient hiring, Shockley still has a distinguished track record for picking some pretty respectable bets on young researchers and engineers.


IIRC https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RTH6WK (about Robert Noyce) covers it in some detail. And I'm sure it's documented in more detail in https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Genius-Shockley-Electronic-Mac...

He did identify some very talented individuals but apparently was constantly slipping into paranoia and eugenics theory.




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