The Traitorous Eight

May 28, 1957

     Remember back in 1948, when I informed you that my only two employees walked out on me? That happened again. This time with eight people. They just up and left. All eight of them. Just walked in here and quit. Just like that. They said that it was due to fact that when it was discovered that the four layer diode transistor wouldn’t work I started blaming them for it. That apparently frustrated them. Honestly, I'm a reasonable man, and I wouldn’t have blamed them if it hadn’t been their fault. They also said that they were angry about the mandatory lie detector test. Well at least now I know that they weren't sabotaging my company. It was just a precaution. They become angered by the smallest things. Another problem that they cited was me requiring my name be put as co-author on all the papers that were published, and co-inventor on all the inventions that were made here, which wasn’t bad at all. I just wanted everyone to know how intelligent I am. Plus, without me and my company, it’s very unlikely that they would have published those papers at all. You’re welcome.

Me after hearing the news

     At least my boss Arnold Beckman sided with me. He said they gave him an ultimatum. Them or me. He picked me. Good choice by him. I still don't understand why they all left. I feel betrayed. They are really just all traitors. They came to my company to steal my inventions, learn my secrets, and then they left. Traitors. I'm still not 100% sure about that whole sabotage thing. Maybe those traitors fudged the data on the lie detectors. They were so terrible. They were like the opposite of the Magnificent Seven. They were the Traitorous Eight. Plus, they left my company to start a new one, that’s my strategy. And, the name is just like mine, but instead of “Shockley” Semi-conductor, it’s “Fairchild.” Fairchild Semi-conductor. I give it a week.

#TraitorousEight #MaybeSabatoge #BoycottFairchild

Shockley Semi-conductor

November 3, 1948

A little while ago, I went up to the podium at a presentation by some scientists, and presented my new transistor idea to a group of scientists and board members at Bell Labs. It was amazing! But now, John and Walter are whining about it, and saying things like “you shouldn’t have kept your transistor a secret from us for so long” and “you can’t just hi-jack a presentation to show off your new invention, just because you want too.” Well, I can, and I did, what does that tell you about how intelligent they are. John was so frustrated that he quit, and Walter requested to be moved to another department. I suppose they can’t handle competition. I left too, and got a job teaching at Caltech, but I’ve moved on from there. I’ve started a company called “Shockley Semi-conductor” that manufactures transistors in Palo Alto. People have even started calling the area Silicon Valley, because we use Silicon in our products. I started my company by calling some of the people I worked with at Bell Labs to be my employees but they did not wish to work for me. They said something about “Why would I ever want to work for you?” and “I literally quit my job because of you.” I think it must be because they are too intimidated by how intelligent I am. I was then forced to take an alternate route. I called all the best scientists in the field, and recruited some great scientists, including Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. I think that we will accomplish important work here. Now the scientists and I are trying to make a four-layer diode that will be an improvement on my old transistor, and be far superior to Walter and John’s transistor. People keep telling me it won’t function properly, but I think that they’re not working hard enough. They don’t seem to enjoy it when I tell them that, but if they would just invent the darn thing instead of whining about it, I wouldn’t have to say it.

My beautiful company

#ShockleySemiconductor #FourLayerDiode #ShockRocks

The Transistor

December 23, 1947

     Today, my two partners here at Bell Labs, (Walter Brattain and John Bardeen) created the first transistor. Without me. I am unhappy about this. They should have waited for me to tell them what to do! What were they thinking? They were going to just invent it without me! I think that they are aware of the fact that I'm more intelligent than they are, so they just had to invent it before I returned! I worked just as well, and just as long as they did, but they think they should get all the credit! I'm going to go talk to Mervin  Kelly right now! I'm going to explain the truth. I will inform him him that I co-invented the transistor! I'm THEIR BOSS! THEY CANNOT JUST INVENT IT WITHOUT ME!!! 

Me after co-inventing the transistor

      It doesn’t matter, I'm going to make a transistor that’s superior to theirs! it’s going to be incredible It'll be so simple they’ll wish that they thought of it. But they didn’t! I did! My new transistor is going to be an improvement on theirs for sure! And then, nobody will care that they made the first transistor, because mine will be so wonderful compared to theirs that everyone will look at mine and say “Wow! Bill is so intelligent! Much more than those two men over there” and it’ll be fantastic! It’ll have a piece of germanium, that lacks electrons, sandwiched by two pieces of germanium with excess electrons, so that a current can run through the transistor easily! It’ll be a germanium sandwich! A wonderful germanium sandwich that is a gigantic improvement on John and Walter’s golden prongy transistor! Which, by the way, is not an intelligent choice at all! What happens when the prong touches the water?! It stops working, which is the most useless thing it could possibly do. My transistor will be a sandwich that doesn't need any water, or sealing wax or prongs! It’s going to be made out of Germanium (and other materials), and be much more functional than theirs ever could be! Alright, I'm going to get to work on my new transistor.

#GermaniumSandwich #ProngWrong #BetterTransistor