Married computer scientists at Stanford University built the router that became the foundation for Cisco

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Your iPhone started with a Cold War secret

Silicon Valley wasn't supposed to happen. A stretch of California orchard land somehow became the place that built the modern world: chips, PCs, the internet, the smartphone, and now AI. But the real story isn't the garage myth. It's a series of contradictions hiding in plain sight.

The history of ARPANET and how it helped the US military during the Cold War

President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1958, which recruited scientists to design the first large-scale computer network to support the American military during the Cold War. Academics would use the network to communicate via email among several US research universities.

Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer

Steve Wozniak's Apple I and Apple II computers launched the personal computer industry, influencing the future of consumer electronics. He was also awarded the National Medal of Technology and the Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy, and Employment because of his invention.

The first computer virus was created by a USC doctoral candidate in 1983

A year after creating malware in a controlled experiment that multiplied until it took over all of a computer's memory, Fred Cohen went public with his research and its risks. He called the self-replicating software a "computer virus," a term Cohen's advisor, Leonard Adleman, coined to describe its infectious behavior. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The original 'four horsemen' of tech were Intel, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco

These companies became known as the "four horsemen of tech" for the influence the companies had both on other businesses and investors in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The expansion of internet infrastructure throughout the 1990s and the dot-com bubble lifted these companies to incredible heights.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were childhood friends before founding Microsoft

The two bonded over a teletype terminal at their school, which required a $40 hourly fee for computing time. They were banned from using the device after exploiting a bug that allowed them to bypass the fee, only to be later offered free computing time for finding more bugs.

Read about Palantir's early days—from a Stanford University dorm to an investment from the CIA

Palantir was originally founded after the 9/11 attacks as a private-sector solution to the government's growing need for advanced intelligence. One of its earliest investors was In-Q-Tel, the CIA's non-profit venture capital firm.

The NSF funded the design and construction of LIGO by MIT and Caltech

The 1992 Cooperative Agreement between the National Science Foundation and both research institutions came twelve years after funding 1.5-meter (4.9-foot) and 40-meter (131-foot) prototypes. With a 1992 budget of $395M, LIGO was once one of the largest NSF-funded projects in history

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s

Although early dating sites like Match.com weren't launched until the 1990s, the history of dating apps dates arguably back to the mid-1900s when computer scientists used IBM computers to solve matchmaking and compatibility problems.

An explanation of TCP/IP, which helps transmit data across the internet like a club sandwich

The system consists of several layers—application, transport, internet, and network—each responsible for specific tasks. These include interacting with a web browser, checking for errors, sending packets of data across various networks to avoid congestion on their way to a destination address, and managing the transmission of information across hardware, such as an Ethernet cable.

Tetris was launched in the US at Summer CES 1988

Tetris first appeared in the US at the 1988 Summer CES, where Henk Rogers—who would later publish and market the game—first encountered it. This interview revisits that moment, with creator Alexey Pajitnov and Rogers reflecting on how the game gained global recognition.

Steve Jobs designed the original Mac calculator in 10 minutes

Unsatisfied with the designs provided by Chris Espinosa—Apple's youngest employee when he was hired at 14 in 1976—the engineer designed a program that gave Jobs access to every visual parameter, which he used to build the calculator's user interface.

Facebook settled a lawsuit over Zuckerberg allegedly stealing the original idea for the company for $65M

While at Harvard, three students (Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra) approached Mark Zuckerberg with the idea for a platform exclusively for Harvard students called ConnectU. Those students sued Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg stole the idea from the trio.

Sam Altman gave his first-ever startup pitch after dropping out of Stanford

He dropped out of Stanford to start Loopt, which sold in 2012 for $43.4M. You can watch his first-ever startup pitch in a video.

The game 'Counter-Strike' was developed in a dorm room

College student Minh Le designed the game through "modding," effectively building on the code of a preexisting game, the game "Half-Life" in his spare time.

The dot-com boom made Mark Cuban a billionaire

Cuban co-founded AudioNet with Todd Wagner in 1995 before it became Broadcast.com—a web app that allowed people to listen to sports commentary on their computers if they couldn't watch a game. In 1999, Yahoo bought Broadcast.com for $5.7B. By the time the market crashed, Cuban had already sold most of his stock in the company and had become a billionaire.

Y Combinator Cofounder Jessica Livingston once interviewed her husband and cofounder, Paul Graham

Two of Y Combinator’s cofounders, Jessica Livingston and Paul Graham, were in a romantic relationship before they started the accelerator. They later married, and much later, Livingston started a podcast. In an episode of her podcast, Livingston and her cohost interview Graham about the beginning of YC and more.

Pizza Hut helped pioneer online food delivery

The company's PizzaNet website launched in 1994, allowing users to order pizza online for the first time. The service launched in select areas of Santa Cruz, California, though its servers were located in Kansas. Every order was relayed to the preferred branch in California, who would then call the user to confirm the order.

The software for wikis—user-editable websites—was launched in 1995

Computer programmer Ward Cunningham created the WikiWikiWeb online application based on an offline system that helped track how ideas moved through his company. The application enabled users to collaborate and edit website content through a web browser, as well as link pages without requiring a structured navigation scheme.

The Lucasian Chair is among the most prestigious academic positions in science

Once held by icons like Newton, Dirac, and Hawking, the position was founded in 1663. "Star Trek" imagined the Lucasian Chair’s future holder as the android Data, cementing its mythos across scientific and science fiction realms.

The Fair, Isaac and Company (FICO) was founded in 1956

When they created FICO, William Fair, an engineer, and his cofounder, Earl Isaac, reasoned that financial data could help a wide variety of companies improve business decisions. FICO created the first credit scoring system to help lenders be more objective.

In the 1970s, a former NASA engineer pitched remote work as a solution to an energy crisis

His name was Jack Nilles, and he wrote a book that is considered the "founding document of telecommuting" in 1973 called "The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff," coining the terms "telecommuting and telework." Nilles argued that telecommuting could serve as an "alternative to transportation," helping cut down on gridlocked traffic and reduce society's reliance on nonrenewable resources like oil. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

It took 70 years for computer scientists to determine how to cut a cake fairly

The cake-cutting problem explores how to divide something fairly, which is not solely about cutting evenly-sized pieces. A protocol that accounted for personal preferences (e.g., a corner piece) between just three people took 16 years to develop.

Comic‑Con’s founders showed up at Jack Kirby’s house—and he agreed to attend their first event

In 1969, Shel Dorf and fellow organizers made a pivotal trip to legendary artist Jack Kirby’s Irvine, California, home. After personally inviting Dorf, Kirby not only committed to the inaugural 1970 San Diego Golden State Comic-Minicon, but also advised expanding beyond comics—a key to San Diego Comic-Con's lasting success.

Grace Hopper warned against prioritizing hardware purchases in future computing

Foreseeing the rising volume of data and the increasing demand for its processing and access, she advocated that organizations first map the total flow of information they require and then choose infrastructure to support it, rather than wastefully spending on the fastest computing technology and forcing software to compensate for unnecessary hardware or incorrect data.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.