
Fairchild Semiconductor was a trillion-dollar startup in today's dollars - finkin1
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/26/the-first-trillion-dollar-startup/
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dang
This post was killed by user flags.

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kurtle
The original and updated title are a bit misleading. I expected an article
showing some valuation of Fairchild in 1950/1960's dollars to be equal to $1
trillion in 2014 dollars. That's not the case.

TC is making the argument that 92 companies today had some contact with
Fairchild and if you sum these 92 companies valuations you get $2.1 trillion.

And the barrier for whether it's an offshoot of Fairchild is pretty tenuous.
For example, they count Apple in the total because Steve Jobs had
conversations with Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild) when they were
starting.

Maybe it's just me but this seems like far reaching hyperbole.

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defen
> they count Apple in the total because Steve Jobs had conversations with
> Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild) when they were starting.

The initial $250,000 investment in Apple came from Mike Markkula, who made his
money from Fairchild options.

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finkin1
The original and current title are definitely misleading. These quotes from
the article clear it up:

"Our team at Endeavor Insight recently worked to quantify _the impact of
Fairchild Semiconductor and its co-founders_. We identified over 130 Bay Area
tech companies that were trading on the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange.
Our analysis indicates that about 70 percent of these firms can be traced
directly back to the founders and employees of Fairchild.

The total impact of these businesses is staggering. The 92 public companies
that can be traced back to Fairchild are now worth about $2.1 trillion, which
is more than the annual GDP of Canada, India, or Spain. These companies also
employ over 800,000 people."

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judk
Nonsensical comparison between value ($) and GDP ($/yr): check.

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robotresearcher
Several companies listed at the link below have a value of >$1 trillion
current USD. They are roughly: shipping/trading companies in European colonial
times, oil companies and most recently, American tech companies. Fairchild was
great, but ultra-big business has been around a while.

[https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/photos/most-valuable-
companies-...](https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/photos/most-valuable-companies-
ever-adjusted-for-inflation-1351801906-slideshow/most-valuable-companies-in-
history-adjusted-for-inflation-photo--1113431046.html)

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jason_slack
My Wife's Grandmother worked at Fairchild for many years in her 20's-30's. She
worked on a "computer" all day. When she left she never touched a computer
again. Never a smart phone or ipad. She passed April 2014.

She kept scraps from spools of gold wire that was used as solder. She twisted
it all up and gave them to family.

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teawithcarl
Fairchild and Honeywell once considered a merger.

New name of the company ... "Fairwell, Honeychild".

