The Traitorous Eight | Hacker News Reader

The Traitorous Eight

en.wikipedia.org

117 pointsmontgomm15 comments

> Their starting salaries ranged from $13,800 to $15,600 per year.

Adjusting for inflation from 1957, that's not a bad salary: ~$128,000 [1].

[1] http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=15%2C000.00&yea...

Especially considering that the SF Bay Area wasn't the most expensive housing market in the country at the time.

The Traitorous Eight. The PayPal Mafia. Any other cohorts famous in Silicon Valley for producing disproportionate excellence?

Maybe BBN?

In videogames, Starbreeze seems to have some pretty consistant ex-employees.

And, of course, anybody who was at id Software between 1993 and 1998 or so basically is assumed to be great, regardless of if they are.

Former Facebook founders and employees have started Asana, Quora, Cloudera, Path, etc.

Quora is almost 10 years old and has no business model. Asana is profitable but no longer growing. No knowledge on Cloudera. And Path was a bust.

Quip (~$750M exit to Salesforce)

We underestimate how stigmatized these 8 gentlemen were for leaving their employer.

They were literally labeled "traitors" by their peers.

Their technical contributions are equaled by their company culture contributions.

It was "okay" to take an idea, open up a small start-up next door, and attempt to innovate faster than the parent companies.

And this concept is really core to the spirit and DNA of Silicon Valley today.

The Wikipedia article seems very biased in their favor.

I'd say that's because Wikipedia largely exists due to them.

The PBS movie "Silicon Valley" is an excellent documentary that discusses them at length.

I agree. I'd also add inspirational to the list of adjectives about this documentary.

> Arthur Rock and Alfred Coyle from Hayden, Stone & Co. became interested in the offer, believing that trainees of a Nobel laureate were destined to succeed.

Perks of pedigree

> He also combed through all records left by The Eight, basing patents, held as Shockley Labs' intellectual property, on any important ideas.[67] (Technically, in accordance with U.S. law, those patents were issued to the respective inventing employees.)

I'll assume this is true. My jealousy cup runneth over.

Very interesting, now I don't feel so bad about my own limitations.

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