The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley

The only contemporary history of Silicon Valley, from the reporter who had a ringside seat to it all

"Later historians would use the internet, and all of the newly created tech history archives, to build their narratives, but I was there. I know how the air smelled when half the Valley was still covered in blooming fruit trees. I can remember Bob Noyce’s baritone voice and what it was like to shake David Packard’s enormous hand, to see little Steve Jobs on my elementary school playground and to play the first Atari game machine at Andy Capp’s pub. I watched Fred Terman arrive for his last board meeting at HP and had a drunken lunch with Don Hoefler, the man who named it 'Silicon Valley.'"

An indelible portrait of the high-agency spirit of early tech

"[Founders'] tough climb from hardscrabble beginnings to personal and financial independence had made them tough and sometimes ruthless; their Midwestern, blue-collar values gave them deep empathy for their employees; and their roots in the Great Depression had made them profoundly practical and thrifty. Even when Bill Hewlett was one of the richest men in America, he used to challenge his senior managers to see who could assemble the latest HP product the fastest."

An unprecedented look at the makers and thinkers who built Silicon Valley

"Unlike those who run Silicon Valley today, the Valley’s founders didn’t have small armies of publicists, speechwriters, and lobbyists around them to control access and to craft the right public image. And they didn’t have to be circumspect in what they said and did, because few of them had to worry about shareholders or stock prices." Malone captures the unadulterated spirit of luminaries like Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, and Charlie Sporck in profiles interspersed throughout the book—resurfacing their contributions to the electronics revolution and connecting their achievements to the sweeping influence of Silicon Valley today.