No, he's saying that Silicon Valley was originally about extreme innovation and cool tech, not multi-trillion dollar companies
The Silicon Valley of the 20th century had its share of politics and backstabbing, and certainly money was a big deal; Shockley's former employees enlisted the help of a businessman and investor to found their new company, Fairchild Semiconductor (named after the investor, not after any of the engineers!).
I'll absolutely agree that many of the big names in SV software businesses are greedy outfits that are actively making the world worse, but it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that's all it is, and ignorant of history to suggest this is anything new.
The piece should be titled "How I Was Naive About Life and Finally Realized It's Not All Roses".