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.